populating the forum

[overseer]

First suggestion: Probably need to have posts in every topic so as to stimulate organic growth from there.

[overseer]

Looks as though the Industry Announcements is also having permissions problems -- can't post a reply there either.

[Starburst-Admin]

OK, try now.

Looks like I'll be hiring someone who is familiar with phpBB to go over the config.

[clairedoyle50]

Glad the permissions issue is sorted. I've been in a few phpBB forums that had to slowly seed content in the early days, and it really does help to have a solid base of posts before inviting a bigger crowd. Empty forums feel intimidating to new users. One thing that worked for us was starting a few discussion threads ourselves — just normal questions or observations about the hobby — to give lurkers something to jump into. Also, maybe check the user group settings for that Industry Announcements section, because sometimes the issue is in the role-based permissions rather than the forum-level settings. Good luck with the hire, getting a phpBB expert to audit the config should sort out the weird glitches.

[clairedoyle50]

Just wanted to second what was said about seeding content. When I was modding a forum a few years back, we focused on posting genuine questions and sharing personal experiences in each subforum. That alone got lurkers to register and reply. Also, double-checking the forum-level permissions by user role took care of our posting glitches. Good luck with the phpBB audit—that should iron out the rest.