In a couple different forums I've seen lots of 'goodbye' posts pop up in a small amount of time (a few days to a few weeks or more). Logically, there has to be a first 'goodbye' post in a group like that. It seems one person posts that they're leaving (usually because they're being flamed by pm, a mod deleted their post, they think that there are too many trolls in the forum, etc) then a couple more post and it turns into a stream of members leaving.

One example of this is a forum my sister goes to: virtualhorseranch.com. There's 3 or 4 "i'm leaving"/"quitting..."/"please stop flaming me" type posts in the first page right now. In most forums you might see one of these every half a dozen pages at least.

I'm guessing that it's related to "Copycat suicide" <- Good page from wikipedia; especially relevant is the 'social proof' section. If you want to read more about this get Cialdini's book from the library; I read it and thought it was really interesting. (Disclaimer: I don't work for Cialdini or Wikipedia, and that isn't a affiliate link. :-P )

So what can you do in your forum if you see a "I'm leaving!" post to keep your members from flooding out?

Someway of disproving the 'social proof' that the leaving member is proving? What do you think?

When you see a thread, delete it and talk to the user who wrote it via PM about it

Grr, I better delete that good bye thread in my forum then XD, oh wait, she came back the next day (cry for attention?).

Anyways, I've seen this in another forum, it was pretty sad, but luckily the forum didn't die.

Don't worry about it. It happens all the time. If they want to leave, then let them leave.

Call them attention whores and stuff

It's best to just ignore.

Depends on the context. The only "I'm leaving" posts I get are from drama queens the community are happy to see go.

*However*, if I saw established members all announcing an intent to leave, I'd review my management policy ASAP, because the chances are it's symptomatic with real problems in how the forum was run.

2c.

There are waaaaaay too many things to be worrying about when you rn a board besides this. Anyone who announces their departure to the WHOLE site clearly wants attention. If they weren't seeking attention, they would simply email the people that would actually care.

I don't meant to sound harsh, and I *have* emailed certain members in the past when they have said they were leaving, but for the most part, just be courteous and say your goodbyes.

Worrying about your members leaving because another member is leaving is kind of like avoiding any outbound links on your site for fear that people will follow them and never return. If you have a mass exodus from your site, take a look at your SITE, and not who left first. That's where your problem is.

As an aside, social proof is a fascinating concept to apply in marketing, so don't fear it.

Laura

If there truly was a problem, its up to you and your moderators to fix it. This could also be the reason for many people leaving.

^ Agreed.

To clarify: I didn't say I ran a board where this was happening, I was just wondering what could be done for damage control.

Thanks for the answers and the interesting discussion! :-P

Um..give everyone on the forum who makes enough posts a free ipod? That should keep them

IMO you need not worry too much as nothing can be done if one wants to leave a forum. At the most you should ensure that the exodus does not turn to be viral ay taking appropriate action. Every thing that comes has to go one day. You must think positive that there'll be new enthusiastic members registering in the forums.

People who leave....leave.

People who whine...stay. And whine more Whether they make "Bye Bye" threads or not.

It depends on forum size. If your forum is big it doesn't matter. If it's small you nee dto work to keep members early on which is what I think some of the advice givers here are overlooking.