Thinking aloud - I've seen people create web dev/programming forums for Nigerians (Africans at large) and then it packs up after some months.

My questions are :

1. What would be the cause? Lack of Publicity? Zero drive? Lack of "Quality" contributors? Poor business model?

2. What can be done differently?

On a different note - If one was to start a web dev forum today:

1. What PAID "forum software" would you recommend?
2. Is it advisable to have a chatroom feature within a forum (i.e. where members can chat themselves up like the Facebook chat)? Pros? Cons?

Thanks in advance for your contributions.

The only reason i see some of those forums shutting down is because the owners have no clear goals on what they pught to achieve, they are not fully determine and not aiming to produce value or stand out uniquely.

I have a forum: www.nct.com.ng where every creative Nigerians are free to share ideas with themselves.

I also will strongly go against having a chat room within a forum because it will seriously destroy the essence of creating the forum.

Slyr0x, there seems to be a conflict of interest situation going on. As the mod of the webmaster section, you shouldn't ask this sort of question.