Hacker News Reader

Comment by john_flintstone | Hacker News Reader

That's an extremely naive attitude. It's next to impossible (won't say completely) to start an online community without seeding it first. Forums in particular - you cannot get a forum going without seeding it with made up posts and comments, it simply won't happen. Nobody will comment on an empty forum or discussion board - nobody.

View on HN

This is entirely wrong. From personal experience, I've seen one of our forums for a utility app, grow a nice little community with not so much as a single false post. Users started appearing by themselves after having tried out the app, and we ended up with a decent, albeit small community on the forum. There's plenty of other forums as well, that grows from a small group of real users. Hell, every subreddit starts like that, except apparently for the first ones populated only by the reddit founders.

I think a forum for an app is a bit different because it has a specific topic that makes people seek it out. No one is going to stay on a new discussion forum if it has no users and there are more options. Also, subreddits may start out like that, but have you seen how many are completely deserted?

You can seed a community without engaging in deceptive practices. At least you could, it may be harder now that some people are doing it. As usual...

I founded the largest discussion forum in Africa. I seeded it by posting good topics, responding to every topic posted by a newbie, and begging my friends to get active on the site. I believe deceptive practices are not required.

That's not what I read...

http://www.seunosewa.com/2012/03/social-network-chicken-and-...

That post seems to corroborate what the grandparent says, not contradict it as you claim/imply.

It's hard, but doable.

I have never figured out how to build a community from scratch. But I have belonged to several communities over the years which were built from scratch, without "seeding" it. I also have a track record of tremendously increasing traffic and membership for established sites. Since I have done that, both as a moderator and as a member, I suspect that statements like yours fall in the category of "I do not know how, therefore I think no one knows how and I also think it cannot be figured out by anyone." Maybe you can't figure it out. But since forums do exist which were developed from scratch, I don't think that means no one can figure it out.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com