Active guild forums essential?

Hi, this is basically a research project that I am tasking myself with here.

One thing that my guild has always had issues with, is actively using the guild forums. We have a very select few members that use the forums (probably about 10% of the guild). I have always had this idea that active forums are very important for communication and to ensure success of guild activities, but this obviously isn't much of a tool for us.

Do you feel that having active guild forums are as important as I am lead to believe?
...if so, do you have any advice on how to invoke more active forum use?
Is it just something that we have to accept? that some people will use and others will not?

I would like as much feedback and advice as possible on this.
Thank you much.

They are useful for recruitment, but probably more of use for a 25 man guild that 10 man guild.

Thank you for the input. So to clarify, you are saying that active guild forums are essentially a tool for recruitment, and not really important for anything beyond that?

forums are:

(1) useful for guild communication (guild to outsiders, guild to members, members to members)
(2) a petri dish for guild culture (i'm here all night, folks - try the veal)


from an official capacity, (1) is so useful i would label it a necessity. since officers can't be in-game all the time repeating every instruction, note, and change to everyone (never mind how often ppl don't listen), forums are essential for officers to use, and guild members to monitor and refer to. it's also useful for members to co-ordinate amongst themselves for things to do (old-world runs, alt runs, etc).

as for recruiting, it's useful if you're looking for quality players and you have an application you want to use to filter out players.

that's about where your concern as an officer should end.


the thing about (2) is that you can't make people socialize on a forum - they have to do it themselves. mandating that people socialize and be active on your forums is super weird, in that "sad office birthday party" kinda way. an active forums is just a sign that your guild is in good shape socially and morally - it's not a necessity, but it's a super-nice-to-have.


want active forums?

- make a "general talk" section available on your site, and use it to have fun. make your interactions look fun, and people will bag onto it. also categorize your threads and contribute to them. encourage people to create topical threads and stick to them, rather than create a new thread for every figment that passes behind their eyes.

- be *really* lenient about forum moderation. liberal use of thread deletion/locking will have a chilling effect on your forums, since people won't feel free to post stuff. use social pressure like hazing, but avoid "mad bro" type of comments (and laugh at "mad bro" when it happens). basically, don't wear a suit when sit down to post on your forums - wear cool clothes and act normal.

i currently have a similar situation - maybe 10% (if i'm being generous) of the guild uses the forums. it's never really impeded anything, tbh. for now, i mostly use the web site for:

a) posting kill pictures and videos
b) the shout box for posting lateness for raids, etc (this probably gets more use than anything)
c) stickies about guild policies (EPGP, expectations, etc)
d) boss strategy videos for progression fights
e) officer discussions

there are very few posts outside of the above. the only time we had high usage was when we required raid signups on the website. unfortunately, none of the premade free websites have a decent web signup feature, so this idea ended when we ditched our custom web site.

if you want more people to use your guild forums you need to make it fun to go to that site.
Open your website up so that outsiders and potential applicants can use your forums. this will give them a better idea of what the people in your guild are like and will make them want to join you. you just have to kickstart it with fun forum topics.

visit big name guilds to see examples of this. also wuthapn.com