I've had one going for just over a year, and to be honest, it sucks the life out of you unless you can get other people posting regularly. Ask friends, family (depending on the nature of it of course) and yes, create a dozen or so fake accounts. It helps if you have multiple peresonality disorder so you can remember which fake member is who.
I have thousands of members now, but still only a hundred at best regular posters. I think the general rule of thumb is out of ever 100 signups, 95% will never post anything, 4% will post once or very infrequently, and one will post regularly.
Basically hammer the social networking angles as hard as you can until it drives you nuts, and if the site doesn't start standing on its own legs after a year, ditch the forum.
I'm glad I persevered, mine is now self maintaining more or less, and earns me enough to have made all that initial hard work worthwhile.
GL
ps. not sure I like the sound of pedobear......WTF?
