What Does Your Forum Do To Celebrate Holidays?

[Ashley]

Does your forum celebrate holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving? Or even if you do, what do you do for those members who celebrate different holidays from what you've grown up with?



I have had forums open long enough for holiday seasons before, but I've never really done too much of anything, though, as not everyone will celebrate the same holidays as you do. Usually I'll just make a happy holidays thread in the Announcement section. I've seen forums go really out of their way with holding contests with cash prizes and the like, and I personally think the holiday season is a bad time to hold a contest at all, because 90% of your members will probably be spending the holidays with their families, so are they going to have time to even come on and post? Not likely. I've had members sneak on on relatives computers and such just to stay in touch with mine or other people's forums, and that's usually all they have time for is a quick hello and maybe even post in the general chat thread should you guys have one.



I try to keep all holidays in perspective, but it's kind of hard when you got loads of different countries on your forum, and everyone celebrates a holiday differently. One thing I've seen that I really kind of like is that, if there's a holiday being celebrated in a country that only certain members celebrate, one member from that given country will make a happy holiday thread for those certain members in the off topic section, and I don't mind them doing that at all. To be honest, that's better than doing an announcement.



Do you do anything for holidays on your forum, or do you just let members create happy holiday threads in the off topic section for certain members?

 

[awpoon]

If I had the time last year, I'll throw a seasonal theme. Not this year, though. Though there is some stuff happening at another forum I help run...

 

[beowulf]

tend to get various threads started.............yankees do 4th july and thanksgiving......aussies do aussie day.......halloween,easter,crimbo and new year always get one



most people tend to change thier av/sig to something suitable



one of the best things was a few years ago.........for a variety of reasons i was on my own and had no intentions of going any where on new years eve.....happened to mention it and was surprised how many others were planning the same......the week before we had a thread going saying that we would have a webchat room open and anyone welcome to drop in and say hi (which is useful since for anyone who dosnt knows webchat, you get options of voice/cam)...........in the end a gang of us around the world spent most of the day slowly getting blotto, and online, popping in and out of webchat and the forum.......celebrated new years in australia, south africa, uk and then across north america......mid atlantic was time for a nap

was great to see people just jumping in to say hi and happy new year

 

[Jazzy]

Would depend on the holiday. If you check the International Holiday Calendar then you would know what holidays are being celebrated by what country and what countries celebrate that same holiday. You should also know as a forum owner where most of your members are located. You then create a thread for the common holiday. Here such a thread would be created in the General Discussion forum. You could make the common holiday fun by asking members to change their avatars to the holiday theme.



To put up a contest during a major holiday wouldn't make any sense and wouldn't be worth the effort put into it.

 

[Flurry]

Last year I set up Holiday themes. And it was rather simple and easy to do since we were on Proboards. But took a lot of effort. This year, I'm just going for a simple banner that has a Festive spirit to it and a few icons of the Holidays.

 

[Ashley]

Would depend on the holiday. If you check the International Holiday Calendar then you would know what holidays are being celebrated by what country and what countries celebrate that same holiday. You should also know as a forum owner where most of your members are located. You then create a thread for the common holiday. Here such a thread would be created in the General Discussion forum. You could make the common holiday fun by asking members to change their avatars to the holiday theme.



To put up a contest during a major holiday wouldn't make any sense and wouldn't be worth the effort put into it.

I'm going to have to go out and get one, or look one up on Google. Some of the obvious International Holidays I'm familiar with are like Hannaukka, Kwanzaa, and I know there are some that have something called Bank Holidays as well, but I'm not sure what those are, though.



One interesting thing I have had happen on my forums in the past is that in the username change request thread, members will change their usernames to something related to that holiday. Christmas is the biggest one I've seen this happen on, and I think it's the only holiday I've seen this happen.

one of the best things was a few years ago.........for a variety of reasons i was on my own and had no intentions of going any where on new years eve.....happened to mention it and was surprised how many others were planning the same......the week before we had a thread going saying that we would have a webchat room open and anyone welcome to drop in and say hi (which is useful since for anyone who dosnt knows webchat, you get options of voice/cam)...........in the end a gang of us around the world spent most of the day slowly getting blotto, and online, popping in and out of webchat and the forum.......celebrated new years in australia, south africa, uk and then across north america......mid atlantic was time for a nap

was great to see people just jumping in to say hi and happy new year

That does sound like that'd be kind of fun. Spending the holidays with your members. But it seems like most of my members always liked to go out of town on the holidays. Like I said, there have been a few in the past who would sneak on aunt's uncle's cousin's whosever computer to pop on and say happy, whatever the holiday happened to be, but that does sound fun, though.

 

[Blake]

I'll either get a nice theme or make one or, like this year, change the banner.

 

[Ashley]

I'm not sure if Chatting Time will do anything or not. I think this is something the staff will have to put their heads together on.

 

[Masri]

Right now we have a Halloween theme up.

 

[McConnaughay]

Whenever I ran a forum, I would usually find something kinda entertaining to do during holidays however, it wasn't truly one of the things that I strove to do however, now that I run a website, I'll change the entire look of the forum and I'll review movies that fit the theme of the holiday. Such as last month at which I had the look of the website happily orange and I reviewed over twenty-six horror films.