Tennessee Firearms Assoc. Inc.

I visit firearms related sites that have huge traffic and a few of those are state specific. I am wondering what is it about the TFA forum that makes it different (lower volume of users and posts)

Is the the URL to get here?

Is it that users are not finding what they want or need?

Is it that people come here, look and don't come back?

Do we need other or different moderators?

Do we need other or different topic areas?

As we work on TFA's web presence, I want to know what to do different.

I'm on one other gun forum and although the number of postings are much higher than this one at least 1/3 of the posts are "me too" and if there is a poll listed many just respond with what the last poll numbers where when they voted.

There is a lot of fluff there to say nothing of thread drift, i.e., changing the subject often with silly comments.

Our forums seem to be more serious and issue related in accordance with the mission of the TFA. We expect our members to act on the information provided here rather than using the forum as a community chat room. That's not to say we can't discuss all issues and have fun but we seem to attract a more serious group.

I've noted we don't have post after post trying to tear down the efforts of other progun groups which occurs on a regular basis on at least one other site.

I gotta tell ya, the link on the tennessefirearms.com is really hard to find. The first time I went there looking for this forum, I think it took me 10 minutes to find it.

In addition to the link at the very top of the page, there should probably be one on the right. Between the Yahoo Group box and the Letter Generators box was where I expected to see it.

We are redesigning the sight and will have the forum placed at the top, left side and footer of the new sight based on the current template.

Most of the last 2 weeks of work on the forum have been directed toward navigation, coordination, etc.

This forum is focused, and as such all of our content tends to go towards one goal: Preserving our rights. We are very serious about that, and it shows in our forums. We do not have much of a social atmosphere, and while we could change that, I am unsure as to whether it would be wise to tinker with it too much.

Another way to increase traffic, might be to chat with the owners/operators of other gun forums, and ask them to urge their membership to be involved, especially Tennessee based forums. Possibly get them to have a link to us prominently posted in exchange for us doing the same to them. Of course, this will likely be met with the "Why get involved" grief from lazy gun owners, but it may be worth a shot.

This site tends to be more formal, technical oriented. The other sites with more traffic have a more personal / neighborhood feel to them and aren't necessarily totally focused on firearms.

Those are interesting observations.

I guess the question is then would it be adverse to this forum to seek to change the tone or could it benefit from some adjustment.

That's a difficult question to answer. The only other state-specific site I visit is Florida shooters network which has high traffic. I believe that in most cases the "Buy/Sell" forums drive most sites.
Many of the sites like AR15.com also have a state specific section and the Tennessee section seems to get some good traffic also.
TN Gun Owners seems to get some good traffic too.
Still in the end, I believe that it's because there are only so many hours in a day and with the huge number of good gun sites out there many of us are just set in our ways and are comfortable with the "older" sites we have visited for years.
This is a great site and there is nothing wrong with it as it is. It just takes time to get an audience built. I do believe that you are doing a great job trying to get the word out and your patience in the midst of such apathy is admirable.

Bravo Zulu - keep up the good work.