Sanguine it might be worth putting in an expiration date for inactive forums.
Free Flarum hosting on an expert platform by FreeFlarum.com
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Sanguine thanks, it turned out to confirm https://example.com and https://www.example.com, but http://example.com http://www.example.com does not confirm ? in any case, it's better than it was.
Fla http: // www. does not confirm
That is by design, because FF force redirects everything to https (for SEO purpose). But great to hear that the Search Console is now working for you!
Zeokat for a serious project, i never choose a free hosting
Why? And how could I resolve your concerns?
jordanjay29 an expiration date for inactive forums.
Do you think that would encourage users to step up their commitment to building a community? What expiration term would you suggest?
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Zeokat Maybe most of those users simply use FreeFlarum to test the forum functionality and then leave.
Most certainly you are right! So you suggest that the primary reason for leaving, is that they underestimate the amount of effort required to build a community? If that's true, what could I do to improve the success rate? Perhaps:
- Tell people upfront what the effort looks like
- Help people with a guide on how to build a community
- ... ?
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@Sanguine creating a community - heavy daily work on content, attracting users, forming the core of users. This will last until the moment when the community starts to generate content itself - maybe 6 months, maybe a year. Depends on the idea of the community and the degree of involvement in the idea. For example, I would not have thought ? https://forum.kozovod.com/ unique community, this is not a flarum.
Flurum is a baby, compared to other engines. A simatic baby who already knows how to crawl. But not anymore. Nodb, vanilla, discourse, xenforo and others are big uncles compared to flarus. And most people have the idea of creating a community: I've seen a forum - I want the same. There is a fray flair, and he can not, for example, insert a picture into the message ? All. The idea died - "it does not turn out like I've seen."
Idea 1. I believe that you need to create an idea around Freeflarum. Type tumblr.com - just not blogs, but a forum.
Idea 2. Customer support forums for small businesses - who can not pay $ 20 for hosting a discourse.
sorry for my English
Sanguine six months with no login on any admin account? Adjust as you're comfortable.
Sanguine Why? And how could I resolve your concerns?
I don't use a free hosting for a serious project because it always have limitations and soon or later you will need to perform customizations or advanced stuff that isn't available on free hostings. It also looks unprofessional in my opinion. Nowadays hosting is cheap and i have enoughth knowledge tu configure and run my own server.
With free hostings there is a degree of uncertainty about how my data is being treated and how long the service will remain online and free. It may be that from one day to the next, the service disappears and you lose years of work.
Sanguine Most certainly you are right! So you suggest that the primary reason for leaving, is that they underestimate the amount of effort required to build a community? If that's true, what could I do to improve the success rate?
Most of new users that arrive here, are interested into Flarum to build a community. Then they choose what to do. The success rate it's not something that you can control in my opinion, because there are no rules that guarantee you a successful community, everything depends on the creativity of each user.
Sanguine Also, if you wouldn't use it yourself, then for what kind of people do you think it would be a good option?
Is a good option for people that don't want to deal with server configuration and maintenance. Also support is something very valued at present, sometimes even more than the performance of the service itself.
I have not tried your service, but for me to call my attention, I would have to offer something great. Some examples are:
- Offsite daily automatic backups with "one-click" restore.
- Control panel for handle database (export, import, edit, etc), domain config, redirections, etc.
- Support 24/7 with tickets system.
- Large documentation with tutorials for new users.
But... these features can't be offered by a free service.
Sanguine As mentioned before me, communities takes time.
However, I also think some might be scared away due to the lack of any money generated from your side. It does to some extent create the impression the service might be taken down at some point in the near future.
Additional believe you need to provide premium upgrades (I started writing a larger list of things it could include, however @Zeokat made a good list above.
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@Sanguine you can also send a fancy little email stating inactivity and temporary access restriction after a certain amount of time ?
Also, as a person who has tried to run communities for over 11 years, I think you deserve my highs and lows of forming a community and how all my projects failed or went down the drain due to inactivity of the community members.
EDIT: OH, and also MIA staff members, lets not forget about them so quickly!
Zeokat I would have to offer something great: database export, domain config, offsite daily automatic backups
Ha, those are already supported ? I guess I should promote them better. Thanks for the other suggestions!
andreherberth scared away due to the lack of any money generated
Perhaps I should drop the "free" in the name altogether. It deteriorates the perceived value, while in fact you get a very high quality service.
Do not inspire the developer to think that freedom is bad. And if he makes a monthly payment, will everyone immediately start filling out their forums? There are many free services.
@Sanguine Think about marketing.
So as not to frighten people ...
Tell us about yourself and your team in several languages. You must have a partner to replace you for a while.
Indicate the plan of action. What result do you want to achieve?
What will you do if you do not achieve the result?
What will happen with the user data?
Voice the paid packages. Will you transfer everyone to paid packages? Or will the first customers always be left untouched? Or how? We need to know what will happen.
Put yourself in the Client's place and think what questions you would ask.
sorry for my English
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Fla Thanks & no need to excuse your English, it is very understandable.
Now, all of your points are very valid. This service & its marketing have lots of potential for improvement. However, I would like to get clear before investing in extra services and marketing: does the high user churn indicate a problem with FreeFlarum or with Flarum ? In case of the latter, FreeFlarum should wait for Flarum to grow first (it's a baby right now as you wrote earlier).
A basic break even point for a commercial service like this is 500 subscribers who pay $10 per month. At the moment, there aren't even 500 Flarum forums active[1] globally. So it just doesn't make sense at the moment. That's also the very reason why Toby & co shelved their SaaS plans in favour of stabilizing Flarum first.
However, I still think a non-commercial service right now is a very valuable service & also a marketing tool for Flarum itself (easy trial). So I'd be happy to continue running this as a free service for the foreseeable future.
[1] assuming active means at least 10 posts per month for the last 3 months
Sanguine Perhaps I should drop the "free" in the name altogether. It deteriorates the perceived value, while in fact you get a very high quality service.
I would not drop "free". It could be marketed several different ways. (Free can mean "freedom" as well as "free beer" after all.)
You might consider providing more information on your page, where you explain what you offer, it's limits and compare it to a self-hosted solution (Cons and Pros), and later, as I said earlier, provide "pro" versions of your hosting with less limits.
And I am glad you are not shutting down. You could provide a donate option at least ?
Oh, and also, don't stop developing just because you want to wait until flarum is more mature. Decide what you want to offer commercially, and build the systems for it so you can launch it at the right time ?
I am sure your framework could be used for any number of applications later on, especially if you add/have cloud capabilities for it.
Sanguine does the high user churn indicate a problem with FreeFlarum or with Flarum ? In case of the latter, FreeFlarum should wait for Flarum to grow first (it's a baby right now as you wrote earlier).
My history. Why Flurum?
I have long been nurturing the idea of the forum project. I chose the discourse, ran it on Scaleway and ... realized that the Discourse is too complex and powerful for that idea. Powerful at the initial stage. The next was Vanilla. Terrible appearance and bad templates. I dropped it. Nodbb -
similar to the discourse. ??? Why pay for hosting a Discourse $ 20 - 40, if you can get less functionality, but for free. Ta Dam! FreeFlarum and the ability to connect your domain! What is my next step? If Flarum will develop longer than, my project, then I will switch to the Discourse for $ 20 - 40.
That's how I chose Flarum.
Nah, you never should switch to Discourse, it's a Ruby hell 
In my opinion, Discourse loads very slowly. It doesn't look that nice by default, and it's kinda hard to use if you just want a simple community. In my opinion, Flarum is a beautiful simple forum software that's easy to extend, and with the right extensions, you could have all the features you want without making it overcomplicated.
