New off-shoot forum

[len backus]

I have a forum with 12,000 members. I am about to start a new one based on the interests in one of the sub-forums of the existing site .

I want to transfer about 500 posts from the existing forum to the new forum to get it started with some content. I am also thinking about bringing over the entire User database so those Users can login with the same usernames and passwords. I'd like to know how best to do that.

This would also make the new forum look well established to newcomers. I send out a monthly Newsletter to my current Users and I would do the same with these imported Users on the new site. The Newsletters generate a little revenue through ads and they promote activity by the otherwise "not recently active" Users.

Any thoughts on both the technicals as well as the marketing strategy of bringing over the Users.