Identify the Users of Your Forum

The next step is to identify who you expect to use your forum. It's a good idea to identify who the core group of your users will be, but the key decision will be whether you'd like anyone who registers on Forums@BU to post or view messages, or if you'd like to restrict access to only a few users.

Apart from helping you decide if or how you'd restrict access, identifying your users can help you decide how to publicize your forum. If visitors to your existing website are your target audience, you should consider adding a link from your site. If users of your mailing list are your target audience, it would make sense to notify those users with a link to your forum.

Next we'll see how these decisions should be used to make a request for a new forum.