I kinda feel that HD has more web hosts trying to advertise than end users that actually wanna buy hosting. What are your thoughts on this?

Your numbers don't add up - at this moment I'm seeing 7 members active and 470 guests. None of those 470 are selling anything here at the moment.

HD has so much potential. I for one wish that participation would increase. I don't think it is boring at all. I do think that the lurkers should post more often. This board has some very valuable members from the hosting industry and I am sure those industry members would like to know what industry users are thinking.

Steve, most of those guests you see are search engine bots crawling the site.

JFSG, I am sorry it took me a while to respond, I am fully engaged in the redevelopment of TalkFreelance at the moment. I don't agree that it is boring, but I do agree that more activity would be even better. I am also in agreement with coloradojaguar on participation. We have a lot of quality members and the conversations are actually very mature in comparison to some other boards. I am not saying we are in the best shape ever, but HostingDiscussion does offer the second most active community in the amount of discussions taking place (not counting the marketplace activity). You can check other hosting forums if you don't believe me.

Btw, I have always thought of a marketplace as a form of participation. We run a well-moderated marketplace, which has its own benefits to members and visitors of the site.

I have always been OPEN to great ideas. If you get an excellent one on how to increase and stimulate more activity, let's talk. I will back it up any way I can. ))

Well here's my point of view. The majority of active members here are usually people who wants to flash their signature or get as many post as possible to post in the advertising forum and only a few are genuinely asking/responding to questions. No offence to anyone in particular but this is just my opinion.

Of course, compared to some other will-not-be-named web hosting forums, HD is the second best I've seen compared to WHT. Other forums are simply full of spam or boring topics!

I would love to see a new design + theme for the forum as right now i'm sorry to say but in my opinion it's a bit "plain" and "lifeless".

We stay extremely proactive when it comes to new members trying to quickly post their way through to their ability to advertise in the marketplace. What we practice if we notice such activity is delete all their fluff posts, remove their marketplace thread(s), signatures and issue infractions. We have always been focused on quality rather than quality and we do stick to that game plan.

As far as member ability to flash their signature, if they do contribute something of value through their activity, then there is nothing wrong with a little bit of signature-pitching. It is only our way of showing the appreciation back in giving them a platform to get their names out. Of course if someone just chooses to make their signature excessively bright of full of links in CAPS or whatever else, it shows lack of respect to others and if anything results in poor representation of their companies. From time to time, we would also edit those signatures down a bit (Rule 4.1 allows for it).

Having said that, I do agree that genuine quality discussions is a challenge of each community. If you have some cool ideas on how we can stimulate that kind of activity, I am ready to have a chat with you to see how we can implement it. In January 2011 we have introduced an unique to ANY community out there "Being Helpful Pays" promotional program which awards members who contribute helpful and valuable posts. So far (at the time of writing this post) nearly 900 posts have been awarded cash prizes.

I have heard that a few times, but to be honest, I am not sure this will be my priority in the immediate future. I have spent thousands creating the current look with an excellent designer with an objective for the design to serve the needs of the community over long-term. I will spend majority of 2012 redeveloping TalkFreelance (it is going through the same process I went through with HD a short few years back). However, I will start thinking about possibly putting out the new design out in the second half of 2012 so that we can update the community and the look in 2013.

These kind of processes are costly (I don't like cheap designs) and extremely time consuming, so I really need to have a schedule that allows for a job of this magnitude.

Well I am new here, I came here to learn about old members and companies. Anyway, while I was looking around the forum I could notice that here you can find more hosting companies trying to get something(which is good) than members that want to do something else.

But someone can tell me, what is the difference btw all of you?, I guess that a user like me that bought a host service from a company in Peru, choose it because it was more easy to talk with the owner, support, etc, also because that Hosting compnay focus ina principal market that is Peru also offering the serivce for other places.

My point now is that if a user want to buy something, the user read reviews like a 100 times, consider that extra services that can find in that company and things like that.

If you feel it's boring, what would you like to do to increase it's activity level?

For th heck of it, I had a look at threads created by you, and of the 7 threads that you created, two of them were advertisements. While I know that you've got 57 other postings in the system (as of this message), if you feel that the place is dead or boring, then maybe some new content and threads from your end might help keep you engaged?

Personally, I spend quite a bit of time here at HD posting and answering questions and sharing insight. While I do have specials that I run in the marketplace from time to time, the majority of the postings I have made have been with helping people figure out situations with their hosting companies or help in getting started.

I've never found this place to be boring - yes there's less posts, but with many other forums while they have more posts, they have much more spam that I have to wade through - but that's just my opinion.

No idea but I will love to have more threads that I can comment on genuinely. Frankly speaking, it's not my job to figure out ways to boost activity.

I don't think you will want me to create random threads that serve no purpose than to flash my signature right?

I did do the same when I'm offered the opportunity to.

I'm not actually complaining about the quantity of posts here, just that the "siggy-flash" posts kinda annoy me.

JFSG, we'll try to cook up some more ideas and promotions in the new year on how to tackle that kind of quality activity.

Thank you for voicing your opinion, public feedback is what HD has been built on.

I think it's natural. End users' lives don't revolve around web hosting. Their interest for it is likely to be momentary, for instance when they're looking for a new provider. That may take them a week or two. After that, they're busy with their job, family, hobbies and having fun.

It will be very hard to turn a regular hosting customer into a very faithful web hosting forum member. One needs to have some kind of connection to this industry, to stick around and be active for long.

I do have a bit of a thing against members who only advertise and never try to be a part of the community. But, I suppose that the ads themselves do bring some value, especially if forum members get a discount or knowledge of a money saving coupon.

As far as I know, Art believes that forcing people to post more, against their will, results in low quality posts, and I'm afraid he's right. I still don't think it's right to use a forum only for posting your ads. Even from a selfish stance, a forum thrives when it sees activity, so if anyone advertises on a forum, it is in their own interest to be active. Maybe when they're posting a new ad, they could take 5 minutes to read a thread and share some bits from their experience and wisdom.

A theme is a theme. When I'm fed up with the "plain" and "lifeless" from the web, I spend some time with my wife.

I think this forum's theme is original and does its job. I'd much rather have Art save his money. Not just that, but most forums tend to stick to a certain look. A change should largely just build on this one.

I'm a member of several industry related forums. There will always be some members like that, given that there is a commercial interest in doing so. Going to hard after them will upset the general atmosphere of the forum.

I can certainly sign under this.

From experience being a part of various technology-focused forums, I can attest to that people respond a lot better to companies that actually play a valuable part in the community. If I were to look for a company, I'd not only check their history and their ads, but would make a search into their community activity and see what kind of stuff they share and post to identify (for myself) how valuable and how knowledgeable I can expect them to be in their work. Having a responsive hosting provider is critical and if they go out of their way to help people who might not be their clients or can be their direct competitors, it says a lot about their character and their passion for this line of work.

@ldcdc Actually, the way you phrased it, it gives me a couple of cool ideas for stimulating that kind of mentality on the forum that I'll look into.

Looking forward to see your ideas in action.

That's a great point. Some hosting companies almost "own" some forums. Their name pops up constantly, because they're very much present in the community, and their non-advertising activity perfectly complements their ads.

True virality and hard earned social marketing at its best.