If your goal is increased traffic (for whatever reason), the solution is pretty simply. MARKET IT! You can get lots of traffic by promoting 'Loan Scenarios' - that's what built the Mortgage Grapevine (they wanted big traffic numbers so they can sell advertising); that's gonna change over there in the next 30 to sixty days BTW, since now almost 95% of their topic/threads are 'Loan Scenarios' Same case with that Brokeroutrpost, TONS of 'Loan Scenarios' - that seems to be the soup of the day for LO's the last few years. We market our own Discussion Board, now 2 years old, but resist Loan Scenario posts, since that is NOT what we want there. 'Loan Scenarios' are a great money maker for AE types to increase their own income (who for the most part, don't run paid advertisments on these discussion boards).
Boards develop their own personalities which ebb and flow over time, I have carefully studied this for some time - figuring out WHY your board exists and where you want it to go is the trick. I know why Grapevine exists, it's owned by a publisher that sells ads for a living. I think I know WHY Brokeroutpost exists, seems like the answer to that lays in the techo background of it's owner. Secret! University's board exists as one small part of the overall educational & training effort of the company.
Focus on WHY you have created THIS discussion board, and MARKET to that end -- those are my thoughts.
Yay!
