DEVELOPING YOUR COMMUNITY
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accounts for a certain number of days or months before they are able to do
so. This way, access to the advertising forum becomes a benefit of being an
established member of your community.
Reward-based participation aside, you could make it so that the forum is
invisible to guests and visible to registered or logged-in users only. That way,
when users discover the advertising forum (unless someone else told them
about it), they will have probably already registered because they wanted to
join your community. This cuts down the number of registrations for users
who just want to post an ad and leave.
Remember, though, that when it comes to straight-up advertising forums
and sections, no one ‘‘deserves’’ to advertise on your