Speaking for myself, if was a little bigger than 20 members (around 100). The thing is that we wanted to keep the forum open to everyone, at least for the public parts. That's why I went with invisible tweaks (mostly just renaming fields) instead of a challenge.
But I could have came up with a challenge that anyone interested in our forum would have known. We were a rhythm games club, so a questions could have been "We organize a tournament for this game, in 3 letters". Anyone who heard of us would know it is DDR (it was our main event), and for those who didn't, all it took was a quick look at our website.
And even if it is just a hobby, you don't get the same thing from a forum compared to a WhatsApp or even a Facebook group. In fact, a few years after me and all the geeky admins left, they switched to Facebook, which completely killed the already dying online community.
Maybe nowadays we could use a Discord server, which does a bit more for a community than an WhatsApp group, and is more accessible than IRC, and saves history.
Another great thing about the forum is that I still have a backup from the time I still had admin rights, and I could bring it back to life on a private server with some friends, even though the club is now completely dead.
Memories are not lost, except for most of the external links (ImageShack...).
The one's I've seen are not difficult questions. I.e if it was a forum for some TV Series fandom, a question could be 'What is the main character's name?'
It's an offshoot forum of a video games guild subforum built from another larger forum. It's not going to grow (indeed, it is dying / dead at this point).
But I could have came up with a challenge that anyone interested in our forum would have known. We were a rhythm games club, so a questions could have been "We organize a tournament for this game, in 3 letters". Anyone who heard of us would know it is DDR (it was our main event), and for those who didn't, all it took was a quick look at our website.
And even if it is just a hobby, you don't get the same thing from a forum compared to a WhatsApp or even a Facebook group. In fact, a few years after me and all the geeky admins left, they switched to Facebook, which completely killed the already dying online community.
Maybe nowadays we could use a Discord server, which does a bit more for a community than an WhatsApp group, and is more accessible than IRC, and saves history.
Another great thing about the forum is that I still have a backup from the time I still had admin rights, and I could bring it back to life on a private server with some friends, even though the club is now completely dead.
Memories are not lost, except for most of the external links (ImageShack...).