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When your forum has lots of guests but no activity

# Forum Administration
July 29, 2014
Beverly Author Level X3

Write the reason you're deleting this FAQ

A very big frustration of forum management is when there are fifty people online (both guests and members) but no actual activity. And, when you check stats, you can see that people are reading the most recent threads but not posting responses. One reason this might be happening is when members are notified of new discussions, so they come by to read what's going on, without taking time to login. This might be common for all forums. Another possibility is how the guests are simply bots coming in from social networking sites. Does this happen on your forum? And, what are some of the things you can be doing to stimulate responses?
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Comments 4

August 7, 2014
elladavidson
YOu could make sure that there are some good topics being discussed and if there are not then you need to initiate that.

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August 10, 2014
Jagger
YOu could make sure that there are some good topics being discussed and if there are not then you need to initiate that.


Forum owners and admins need to be proactive with starting discussions and act as good leaders in content generation so that other members can role model this pattern. Just saying, it helps to be the best poster on your own forum. That sets a good example for the other members, so they know what you expect or want them to do.

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January 29, 2018
Corzhens
If the guests are bots, you can do nothing about it. I have read that bots don’t add to traffic but we cannot be too sure and I’d say let them be. For real people who are lurking, they might be trying to find something interesting or relevant. What’s the point of lurking, just wasting time? Probably not. When I was new to forums, I would check forums from time to time as if I was waiting for an interesting discussion. I was not comfortable in registering because I thought that my email address may be compromised. In other words, it is ignorance of the forum that made me a lurking guest.

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