So how does it work? Creating a new online community.

If you were to create a website that is to be an online community (forum, textboard, imageboard, hybrid, anything etc) how do you get people to it if you were not to go out and ``advertise'' it and instead simply just created the website, made it searchable through search engines utilizing keywords and the URL of the site, and simply letting it sit? Will people discover it and then stay and start posting?

I always thought if I wanted to form my own discussion board I'd make it, post a lot by myself to look like multiple people, and drop references to it on other sites as if it's a place most people there would already know about.