Has anyone tried marketing their forum and holding a mass posting contest, like if someone reaches up to a certain ammount of posts first wins prizes and so on... What should be the general rules for something like this?
Nah, this is ridiculous. For one, you will end up with a crap forum because instead of posting with purpose, they will post chasing some prize. And you'll only attract people who want the prize (unless it's something like money). It will be a spam fest and once it is over they will leave, and you will have a crap forum that no one joins (because it's full of crap) It could work if you incorporated - and made it your gimmick - some way to rate posts. So that people would be less inclined to chase a prize and more inclined to add value to your forum in return for a possible prize, if that makes sense? Good luck, but you may be much better off buying some traffic/posts with the prize money