Bringing life to the dead --upping your post count. Legally.

Starting a FF isn't easy. Especially when you're only getting a few posts a day/week, new people often won't go to a forum that looks absolutely dead. And if they don't get a response back ina few days, they're likely to not come back.

There are legal ways to bring life to the dead, and increase posting in a forum. I'm not encouraging spamming, but it is legal to ahve off topic, fun and silly threads ina forum. Take the pants game for example: Replace key words with "pants".

Example: "I find your lack of pants disturbing".

Other ways are to have "GTKY" threads, or "Get-to-Know-You" threads. Talk about who you are, what brought you here, and what you'd like to see out of your FF.

There are tons of other ways to bring life to a dead forum, what has worked for you?

 

My current favorite game: Word Association.

Basically some starts with a word, the next post has a word that is related to the previous post, and on and on and on...

Example:

Vader
Black
Cat
(in the)Hat
Head


See an example here

Easy. Mindless. Fun.

 

Good idea!

When our forum began, what brought the posts up where very general discussion threads, like "What is your fav SW movie" "Sith vs Jedi" that sort of things.

Amongst our original games is the "Snappy Answers to SW Lines Games" where somebody posts a SW and another posts a witty/funny/snappy answer to it. . .

Like:
POSTER 1
Mace Windu: "This party is over"

Dooku: You see any balloons here, you idiot!!! *mocking* this party is over. . .this party is over. . . Unless I look like a freakin' clown, there was no party you #%#^&$%!!!




Leia: I love you. . .

Solo: You Love me?!? You love me?!? Well guess what your highness, I don't love you. So you better start trying to get with Luke cause Im wait outta your league. So just get some freakin schoolboy or somehin like that...


You get the idea. . .

The Attack of the Quotes games is also very popular. . .

 

Currently popular in Phoenix is the "Bumper Sticker" thread. Try and come up with funny, and not so funny SW themed bumper stickers.

Also, a variant on the word games is to have the last letter on the word be the forst letter on the next word.

Example:

Post 1: Empire
Post 2: Endor
Post 3: Rancor
...and so on...

And the monthly "Sock Puppet Theater" is always popular, but isn't for the weak hearted.

 

Sock Puppet theater? I've heard of it...sounds like fun.
How exactly does it go?

 

SPT 101: Have everyone creat a sock, an altete (secret) identity on the boards. A throwaway user. It should be humorous, silly or just plain dumb.

Open up a special thread, that only socks post in. Let them go to town for the weekend, posting as much silliness as their sadistic little minds can come up with over a weekend.

Have your RSA lock the thread on Monday, and then you all get to figure out who was what sock. Awards, ridicule, sarcasm and silliness can be awarded to the most origial/strange/funny sock.

The PFF did 1490 posts in one weekend. I haven't seen that beaten yet.

 

I'm gonna try that! As soon as I figure out our RSA situation.

Seems like a lot of fun!

 

Little warning with that one. Post it in your FF that you are having a sock theater, because anyone who wants to join the FanForce for real will be utterly confused and passed along as a sock on that weekend, confusing everyone.

One of the fun games that we play in the RMFF is Q&A. The person starts off the thread by posting a question. for example:

Jedi or Sith?

Then the next post will read like this:

Jedi.

Star Destroyer or Mon Cal cruiser?

Then:

Star Destroyer.

Luke or Han?

Etc. Its a really fun game.

 

Here's another thread that you can try, but everyone has to behave themselves as it might turn nasty.

Each person posts something they know about the previous poster, usually made up, and containing some kind of pop culture referece.

EX:

(previous poster) Still wants to know where the beef is.

(previous poster) has been fasting from coco wheats this week.

It can be real stuff (ie, where a person went to school), but made up stuff is more fun.

More silly, silly nonsense.

 

well I know what got me posting was the pillow fight thread. thats what got me comfortable posting. Know if only i could make it to the meeting hahaha

 

We did an Member Information Bowl, where it starts by posting a factoid about another member in the FF, then the next person has to post something about the previous poster, and so on and so forth. It's a great way to get to know everyone.

This of course led into the Member MisInformation Bowl, where we posted in the same manner, but we used completely fictious factoids about the previous poster. It can be really fun and can get out of hand some times, so it isn't for the weak of heart.

 

Another suggestion, and something that seems to be popular in the Canadian forums:

Simpson's Quotes

Just quote your fave Simpson's saying, only one per post, and try not to repeat a previous post.

Of course it has very little to do with Star Wars, but there is always a great line from the show that someone has as their fave.

 

Sockpuppet Theater is definitely great fun in PHX, not only on the boards, but during our next official meeting we go around the room laughing about who posted what with which sock. We've had some really memorable moments.

"Jubsugator", anyone?

 

Here's another one:

Say it with Smiles

Have a running story using smile icons and images. They can either be the 's here at TFN, or you can [image=http://www.icydays.org/smiles/bounce.gif] around and [image=http://www.icydays.org/smiles/type.gif] find them online.

Tell a story with it. just don't [image=http://www.icydays.org/smiles/flame.gif] people or [image=http://www.icydays.org/smiles/spam.gif] people too much, and it's all good.


I got these images from: Here There are tons of sites with smile .gifs . Have fun!!!

 

Obey,
So you're pretty much saying we can post any sort of SW-related thing in our city forums, in order to get more people to go there? Cool. Thanks for the ideas. I'm trying to get a FF for Chattanooga, TN.

--Jason

 

Southernjedi:

Pretty much. FF forums are not as theme-specific as you'll find in the rest of the JC. It's part social club, part movie discussion, part costuming/propmaking/role- playing-gaming-type of madhouse.

As long as the posts fit the TOS, and in good taste, it's pretty much OK. If you're looking for what works and what doesn't, check some of the major forums. Denver, CO and Phoenix, AZ both come immediately to mind.

Check out what successful FF's are doing, and try that. If it wors for them, maybe it can work for you.

 

You can also check out what the smaller FFs are doing. Not all that works for a larger FF works in a smaller group

For example, the Sockpuppet theater bombed horribly in our forum.

 

Right, only two persons posted on it... Corran Horn and me. What a coincidence.

 

LOL!!!!


Now that's funny.

 

Sockpuppets do tend to work better w/ larger numbers of people posting.

But the Information/Misinformation Bowls work pretty good. So does Post a Quote, The Vs. Game (Vader vs. Xixor; Vader, Ruhk vs. Voxyn, etc.), Complete the Line, Complete the Story (start your own group FanFic, it's especially good for RPGers).

Try some of those and see what happens. We just throw stuff out there ans sometimes they fly & others they don't, just keep trying. It's weird what people will respond to sometimes. I mean, we have 8 pages (50 each) of "What are you listening to now?" Our members discuss their music interests in that thread (so it's a social thread).

 

In our forum, RPG seems to be the norm. Right now we have something like 8 different RPG threads. The Old San Juan Cantina RPG thread has close to 500 posts, which is a lot considering we are a small FF.

Clans and RPG groups have formed, RPG fights have occurred. . .its a lot of fun.

Check out my "clan" the Jedi Arudoishi Society (link in my sig), its a mix between the Mafia, Star Wars and the Yakusa. Its kinda weird but fun. Of course, it benefits from our forum having unlimited edit time.

It is based on my former Clan, the Wampa's Claw. . .you can check that one Here

Yet our Fanfic thread has never really catched on. . .weird. . .

Another seemingly popular thread, much to my surprise, has been the "Ask Aunt Beru Thread" (see link in my sig.) Modeled in the now legendary Ask Hama fashion, in the thread, Aunt Beru answers queries and gives out very bad advice. . .

People seem to enjoy that thread a lot. . .although it can get a bit racy at times.

 

I agree with Corran. Ask Beru thread is a lot of fun. One particular thread I like, but haven't gotten much attention is the "What is happening in the picture thread". Somebody posts a funny picture having to do with SW, and forum members post captions. This seems to work much better in the comedy section of theforce.net, and in Starwars.com

 

The San Francisco boards have 2 games going right now, which seem to be helping out quite a bit.
One is a word-by-word story. I'm sure you guys have seen that done - where one person writes "once", the next person writes "upon", and so on... It's pretty funny so far, and it's sparked a lot of activity. And I put it up on the website so we can read the story as a whole.
The other game we're playing right now is The Song Lyric Game. For this one, someone will post a few song lyrics, then whoever names the artist and title wins a "prize". The "prize" is just a picture of something really wacky presented by the original poster. The twist on this one is that the ultimate winner is the person who comes up with the funniest prize. Plus, we learn about each other's music tastes.

Also, check out other Fan Forces in your region and help them out. Play along with their games & post in their social threads. We all welcome each other to hang out in our boards.

 

Well in the Havelock Forum, we have the infamous Star Wars Quote Game and the Signs that you are an Obssessed Star Wars fan going.

Though our board has been dead for a few days now.

We only have 3 in the Fan Force so we just try and find creative things to do to post on our board.

-Universal