Community Growth Message board communities do not grow on their own. You have to continually look for ways to mention them as you travel around the Internet landscape of today. I am not advocating spam here, but rather something like saying comments which show your community is active (or striving to become so). For example, don't say "my Runboard community," instead, you say something like "Sue is showing us how to cook on (insert board name)." This method of growing your site is slow when you are the only one doing this, so try and encourage others to follow your example.
Re: Community Growth I don't push this message board's growth because I am way too busy generating content for others to use in building their message board. Still, it would be nice to see some of you who visit the site take time to join by posting a message.