Sim
Administrator
I'm not sure that a board like this lends itself to much further growth in real terms mainly because it's such a relatively small audience.
However if the owners had a 3yr, 5yr and 10yr plan for the site, they would probably have similar goals as other boards in having more members sign up and contribute more threads/posts, thus generating more traffic and page views which leads to greater advertising revenue.
Nope - the owners of the site just want it to continue to be a great resource for property investors. That was their goal when they started it, that still is their goal now.
However if it did grow exponentially, i think i'd do the following:
1) migrate to http://www.invisionpower.com/ away from vBulletin because it seems much more functional.
I disagree. IPB is good - but I don't think there is a need to migrate off vB, it does everything we need it to and is extremely extensible (have a look at what I've been able to make it to on ZooChat for some examples: http://www.zoochat.com/ ). We really aren't using the capabilities of vB to their full extent at this point. I am planning a redesign of the site sometime down the track to take better advantage of what this software has to offer in the latest versions.
2) start allowing advertising. After awhile you don't even notice it and people can opt out of viewing ads and support the board through subscribtion.
Jan and Ian have made it clear that they would prefer to maintain their independence and not rely on sponsorship or advertising. Advertising isn't the only business model available.
3) get a few more moderators on to mix it up a bit more (the current ones are good but i think some have been here too long)
Moderators come and go. It is a volunteer position and I think the moderators we have do a great job. We do ask new people to join the team from time to time.
5) create a sub forum for shares and managed funds.
Jan and Ian have made it clear that they want to focus exclusively on real estate. We tolerate discussion of shares and managed funds in the off-topic area (Coffee Lounge), but would prefer people focus on property. There are plenty of other discussion forums out there which cover shares and managed funds.
6) allow greater freedom of speech in the coffee lounge -- this place should be virtually anything goes as long as it's not racist, threatening or libelous.
The coffee lounge already does allow you talk about just about anything except where it goes against the forum rules or covers one of the few taboo topics we have on this site because (from nearly 10 years of experience on this site) they always end up breaking the forum rules.