@Professor 138159 wrote:
Please add the following to your list:
Pro:
1. Builds stickiness and daily visitors. Much easier to gain traction in the marketplace with return traffic then having to constantly bring in new eyeballs.2. Punters are much more likely to support you and your sponsors if they view you as a friend and fellow community member rather then just a site they stop by for odds lines at.
Cons:
1. An enormous amount of work, supervision and up keep. Far more work then most people envision or realize if you have any real number of participants.2. Much higher stress levels. You are dealing with a lot of different personalities and not all of them are pleasant. Its a balancing act to maintain a lively enviroment without it becoming a hostile one.
I agree with all of the above.
For most people it’s hard to populate the forum, and once it is, it’s hard to manage all the different personalities. They are not always going to get along and sometimes someone gets a bee in their bonnet and and you have the unpleasant task of deciding what to do about it. Sometimes it’s a lose/lose proposition when dealing with all these different people. One person or the other will be unhappy with you.
If you can handle the periodic stress that comes with management and the workload, I think it’s all good.