General Do you still think forums are dead?

[Cedric]

Do you still believe that forums are a thing of the past, rendered obsolete by the rise of social media and instant messaging? It's an interesting topic to discuss, especially as we witness the ever-evolving landscape of online communication.

Forums have been around for decades, and during that time, we've seen them go through significant transformations. Some have thrived and adapted, while others have faded into obscurity. But isn't that the nature of any online platform? Change is constant, and forums are no exception. All good things must come to an end sooner or later.

While it's true that social media platforms and chat apps have become dominant forces in the world of online interaction, I believe that forums still have a unique and valuable role to play. Here are a few reasons why:

1. Long-Lasting Knowledge Base: Forums are like digital archives of information. Threads from years ago can still provide valuable insights and solutions to current problems. This longevity can be a huge asset, especially for communities focused on niche interests or technical topics, much like Admin Junkies.
2. In-Depth Discussions: Unlike the quick, often superficial exchanges on social media, forums allow for more in-depth, thoughtful discussions. They provide a platform for members to ask questions, share experiences, and engage in lengthy conversations.
3. Anonymity and Privacy: In an age where privacy concerns are on the rise, forums offer a level of anonymity and control over personal information that many other platforms don't. This can be a significant draw for users who want to discuss sensitive topics without fear of exposure. Think mental health forums.
4. Community Building: Forums are excellent tools for building tight-knit online communities. Members often get to know each other well over time, creating a sense of belonging and friendship that's hard to replicate elsewhere.

Of course, it's important to acknowledge that not all forums thrive. Some do struggle to attract and retain active members, but that's not unique to forums; it happens to all types of online platforms. The key is adaptation and staying relevant. And don't forget: hard work and a bit of luck.

So, what do you think? Do you believe forums still have a vital role to play in online communication and community building? Have you witnessed forums that have evolved and remained successful? Or do you still think they're truly on the decline, with no place in today's fast-paced digital world?

Eager to here your thoughts.

Related threads:

Are forums coming back to life? I am getting tired of Social Media

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Are there too many forums?

Do you think that there are too many forums? I think the market isn't able to support so many forums and as a result it's going to shrink to a sizeable level. What do you?

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[Aussie]

still?

 

[Cedric]

still?

We've had people swear that they were dead, yet we've seen many forums still thrive.

I realize, this may be a bit of a weird topic. But if your opinion was that they were dead, do you still have the same opinion or have you reconsidered that opinion and now see we'll have forums until the end of times?

 

[Darth Cognus]

Dead is a strong word, I don't think they ever died. But they aren't the dominating format they used to be. Some people sick of social media leaves the grand majority of the internet primarily depending on it. Forums still need to evolve, don't ask me how exactly in technical terms, to really capture a broader moderns audience. And social media needs to make a series of mistakes that really get the bulk to push off shore. In the age of default apps on phones and TVs and putting as absolutely little time as possible into changing it, the battle is uphill and it largely isn't the fault of forums.

Question is if they can collect a 'captive audience' and produce search-worthy content for the ages. I see plenty which do. There may be a distinct issue on AJ because there are so many very general and very new boards, in other words a shortage of clear niches and experience at scale. Even with experience a community is not handed out, at best one is lucky to have the right people at the right time.. Just for example, Gaming is extremely general as a topic and with many rivals in the same space, matched only by the ultra saturated 'discuss whatever' forum with no central niche. Those are fine if you've basically already got a group looking for them or they have a sufficiently quaint theme to sell, but I would imagine that is a pretty full market and not a fruitful one to break into. But in all cases it comes down to seizing the right opportunities. Success is not out of thin air, it's capturing magic in a bottle really - you're just trying to keep your eyes open and make a good bottle.

I'm sold on 1 and 2 but as for 3 and 4,

Privacy cuts both ways. I know forums to have super accessible 'what's this fellows ip' buttons, various arrangements with staff, the known ability to read PMs. Can big media entities do this, well yeah that's how things get to law enforcement even if they're downright wrong. But some might see the smaller scale, perhaps a newer or rougher staff, and that fact conflicts with the sense that being a nobody in a huge bulk is safer. It's a very sensitive trust to build, at least for groups of people bothered about it either way.

Community is platform agnostic; give people a box, a means and a will and they will congregate regardless if it's somewhere jank, or a forum or a discord server, etc. Whatever grabs, right thing right time even if the delivery is weak. 1 and 2 are distinct merits but 4 is more of a universal rule of life.

 

[Aussie]

Out of fashion maybe, but dead...! never!

If Governments continue to try and censor the internet I can see forums making a come back. I would say at the moment forums are on life support and hanging in there just...

 

[Empire]

It's hilarious that people think forums are dead when there are many with tens of thousands of active daily members. I guess it comes down to one's own perspective. In my view nothing will ever replace a dedicated forum for proper conversations.

 

[an0nym0us]

long time a go..

 

[MrDawn]

We've had people swear that they were dead, yet we've seen many forums still thrive.

Not dead, just not as busy and bustling as they used to be due to things like social media and newer platforms.

 

[Arantor]

I think there’s been a more radical shift than people realise.

Firstly, a number of what were once forums have been replaced - when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail; when all you have is a forum platform... you get the idea. Sites that once existed for small local clubs about events and so on, that’s replaced by Facebook Groups, for example.

And if you already have FB groups for your local events, you’re already in the ecosystem and dont exactly need to go anyway else. Not least of which because going elsewhere is higher effort than where you already are.

Then there’s the fact that peoples’ attitudes changed. More and more people don’t have the time to participate in longer, slower discussions when they can dash off a one line reply to a one line post where the rest of their digital life already is.

Forums aren’t dead, but they’re not healthy either. And combined with the ever encroaching sense of it must be monetised or dead, I expect the classical free forum platforms to give up at some point, freezing out those who might have been part of the next iteration.

I believe honest to goodness community forums will be gone, irretrievably, in less than 20 years, and nothing is coming to replace them for the feel of the small community that can support slower, more complicated discussions. If the thought can’t be expressed in under 500 characters noone’s going to read it, so what’s even the point?

The above is why I shelved any thoughts of building a community platform and have basically given up on 25 years of culture and nearly 20 years of getting involved and actually building tools for that culture.

 

[JoshB]

I like to believe that forums are still viable even as most of the large social networks are going through struggles. True in that forums are not seeing a large influx of users and user engagement but, the simple fact that forums are a great resource of information that isn't going to be walled off.

 

[Arantor]

That’s just it, though.

Existing forums that are already hubs of information are only viable while they still have life - when they’re gone, they’re gone. And there’s not enough of a new generation coming in that’s living long enough to bed in to replace them.

 

[joelr]

I think there’s been a more radical shift than people realise.

Firstly, a number of what were once forums have been replaced - when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail; when all you have is a forum platform... you get the idea. Sites that once existed for small local clubs about events and so on, that’s replaced by Facebook Groups, for example.

And if you already have FB groups for your local events, you’re already in the ecosystem and dont exactly need to go anyway else. Not least of which because going elsewhere is higher effort than where you already are.

Then there’s the fact that peoples’ attitudes changed. More and more people don’t have the time to participate in longer, slower discussions when they can dash off a one line reply to a one line post where the rest of their digital life already is.

Forums aren’t dead, but they’re not healthy either. And combined with the ever encroaching sense of it must be monetised or dead, I expect the classical free forum platforms to give up at some point, freezing out those who might have been part of the next iteration.

I believe honest to goodness community forums will be gone, irretrievably, in less than 20 years, and nothing is coming to replace them for the feel of the small community that can support slower, more complicated discussions. If the thought can’t be expressed in under 500 characters noone’s going to read it, so what’s even the point?

The above is why I shelved any thoughts of building a community platform and have basically given up on 25 years of culture and nearly 20 years of getting involved and actually building tools for that culture.

You make a point regarding free forums software (classical free forum software will give up) that is skewed by your personal experiences. From the collective view of a general user, does it actually matter that the classical free forum software is dead? In it's place is a multitude of better, free-to-use replacements that offer a superior and more modern experience. Groups of users can talk, upload, and share much more seamlessly in some of these other platforms.

If we recognize that long form, in depth discussion is not the sole domain of forums, we have the awareness that there are now more tools than ever before to build online groups. This should be celebrated. It empowers more people with lower barriers to entry to host some great online groups.

 

[Arantor]

I‘d love to see what you honestly think is a viable venue for long-form discussion. Because I’m not really critiquing the free forum ecosystem in the way you think I am. I’m criticising the entire shift you’re defending, it’s just the free forum community is the most stalwart defender of community spaces that are that actual community feel (because anything you’re actively monetising beyond your base costs is a business with different goals)

In twenty years there won’t be those community spaces left (regardless of whether they’re being run by free or otherwise software) because of the reasons you’ve already outlined. Everyone’s going for these “newer” things, but you carefully avoid the most important question.

The recognition is that forums offer value through categorisation and archival. Discord and FB Groups offer the pretence of this but not the reality. And both are awful for long form discussion.

The alternatives you present are not viable for what the OP talks about, and as the current generation of forum owner (you included) phases out of doing so as they inevitably retire or otherwise move on, it’s not being sustainably replaced - it’s being supplanted with these spaces that explicitly do not grant the things forums were always known for.

 

[joelr]

1. This is going to be a bold claim, but one I'm going to stand by. When I visit hobbyist communities (these vaunted "stalwart of community spaces" that you so poetically proclaim!), 95% of their conversation is not long form discussion. It's all short, shallow, social conversation.

All of this can be swept into modern platforms that, quite frankly, are much more suitable for this conversation and can build a sense of community without any of the baggage of website administration.

2. Are forums actually good at categorization and archival (and by archive, I really mean search and retrieval)? This is an honest question, and one I've pondered at depth. Just because they offer the feature doesn't mean those features were thoughtfully created. These features are a byproduct, not an intention.

3. Have you checked out HumHub?

This is a good conversation, so I look forward to your feedback.

 

[Arantor]

1. I rather suspect this is a certain amount of self bias depending on what you engage in and where. The other forum I frequent has some of that, sure, but it also has reads of much longer form discussion too (but it’s not public for various reasons so I can’t just show you). But it’s natural in any community to have *some* social content.

2. Careful with that leading question there. Forums at least have a fighting chance where the likes of Discord do not, because the likes of Discord expressly focus on the here and the now, and while channels exist and while “threads” exist, neither scale to any degree. Finding content on Discord that is more than a month old is routinely a challenge. A forum gives you tools that help - but it’s not automatic. Some pruning and care is required, but that’s true of any useful resource: it needs curation and upkeep.

And the reality is that it’s certainly possible to consider new ways and means for doing this that don’t currently exist and more importantly don’t require being connected to much larger entities whose interests are not in that of the community being served (looking at you, Meta)

I think in the next few years we’ll start to see categorisation done meaningfully by AI to aid, not replace, human guidance, and I think we’ll see changes coming about making it easier to find things than it sometimes is today. Google is a great example of what happens when the needs of the user are not aligned with the ongoing service offering (in particular, the revelation that Google alters search queries to bias paid keyword terms to bias whoever spends more on advertising), and Meta is not so innocent here either.

I also think the rise of connected identities is a problem, that in order to participate there is the feeling that you’re plugging yourself fully and completely into a community space rather than whatever part of yourself you feel safe and open to do so. The big venues do not help with this as it is explicitly in their interests to profile you as deeply as they can.

I also dispute the “features as a byproduct angle” because even forum platforms that try to pivot away end up coming back to the same formats and structures over time with little real distinction other than, perhaps in presentation - and that can’t keep being “shrug we don’t have any better ideas” but reconverging on the same solutions because they work.

You may remember I floated the idea of topics being malleable between boards (or categorisations) and that “what if topics could live in multiple categories”… well it turns out there are surprising side effects to doing just that, if your model for visibility of categories of topics is at any point spatially based. As in, if you make this category of topics restricted, you massively complicate the permissions model for “who can see this content” which is a major inhibitor for content production - it turns out to be much, much simpler for people to grasp if you define a topic in an area where the visibility (and often, code of conduct/expectations) are defined and precisely knowable.

I mentioned that forum earlier on that I still participate in. It has some great rules on the subject. There are areas, categories, where only a limited subset of people participate, with the built-in expectation of privacy. Things get said in there that would not be said outside that area, and it is largely self policing, with all members understanding the first rule of fight club. There are also areas that carry their own expectations of what is appropriate. The notion of an area that essentially requires one to don flame-proof gear before entering naturally implies some localised behaviour that differs from the norm in all sorts of ways.

Yet by defining it as a specific area and everyone agreeing (broadly) to conformance, we can have suitable categorisation, appropriate rules for where topics should belong (e.g. politics outside the thunderdome is usually a bad idea)

The categorisation tends to coalesce whatever happens, unless the volume is such that it’s just a stream of content. I’d even argue that to a point, FB Groups is really an attempt to build forum categories but at the only approximation of structure that works at that scale, especially given the imperative need for FB to prioritise you always seeing *new* things (because monetisation)

3. I hadn’t seen HumHub. My initial look at it makes it seem very focused on the corporate world (whether an internalised one for knowledge sharing, or possibly a larger one involving users). The fact that you have to dig a bit to find the community edition (as opposed to the generously priced editions) and the scary-looking (but actually not that scary) install steps really don’t endear newcomers.

Might give it a go at some point but honestly… I’m trying not to fall too far off the wagon. A relapse isn’t going to do me a whole lot of good at this point, I’ll just get all hopeful, have ideas then be crushed again by naysayers talking “reality.”

 

[Ravenfreak]

If forums were dead, would be participating in one right now? They're not dead, they're certainly not what they used to be but is that necessarily a bad thing? As much as I don't care for social media, if everyone who was on social media used forums these days I have a feeling they would be sharing low quality posts like they already do on Facebook, Twitter, etc. and there wouldn't be meaningful conversations.

 

[Arantor]

They're not dead, they're certainly not what they used to be but is that necessarily a bad thing?

That's not what the OP is asking, nor is it the spirit of the conversation thereafter.

Forum culture as a whole is dying, and at some point it will be gone, irretrievably, and that *will* be a bad thing because all that will be left are the memories of those who remember the communities of old and more importantly the spirit of small communities that come together with a purpose.

It's not implicitly a bad thing that things have changed, change is normal. But it's a bad thing if the *spirit* of the thing is lost, even if the thing itself transcend and transmutes into something else.

The internet I remember of 20 years ago had a lot more hobbyists doing things and a lot less corporatism, a lot less grifting to make a buck everywhere. That's not to say it was perfect - it really wasn't - but it had a genuine sense of people coming together to help each other out without it needing to be a grift or a move towards being a second income. The posts referenced in the OP are describing that loss, not the loss of the forum format.

 

[Dismal_Bliss]

Some forums have died. Others have evolved.

Today, you have to stop thinking in terms like "forum", "webmaster", "administrator", and "moderator" and start thinking in terms of "community", "manager" and "leader" or "coach". You have to have something of value that you are providing.

In the past, the "if you build it, they will come" philosophy worked with forums. People congregated because there were no other options. Today there are a multitude of options. You have to make yours worth signing up for and worth staying for.

 

[Arantor]

That sounds an awful lot to me like “unless you are providing a service in exchange for money, don’t bother” which is the antithesis of what the OP is talking about and is, exactly as I said, the death of the culture of like-minded people coming together to share something.

What made the original forum culture work was not the “if you build it they will come” (which I’ve never entirely believed in) but the fact people did it for the love of doing it without expecting something in return. But if you start turning it into this game of ”providing value” thus now comes with an expectation that if you provide value, it’s not out of the love of doing it.

I think there’s two distinct mindsets here. There is what I can describe as the mindset Joel has always had: that it’s about providing a curated space for a collection of like-minded people to interact and that you have to functionally treat it as a business because it is a business. And there is the mindset I have which is much more nebulous and free spirited.

Now this is not to say there aren’t parallels and overlaps. Bump starting a community relies on an investment of time and energy and putting together things people would want to come for. (In that respect, “build it and they will come” applies equally - you need to build something people would come *for*, and few people have the presence to draw in a community on their own)

But the intent and the outcome is where things differ. Let’s take here as an example. When AJ started, it felt much more like the view I take in the world: passionate people coming together over a shared love. It’s now transitioning more the other way, that it’s a service provider that happens to have a community attached. Right now it’s still got a vibrant community where people who come here do so for the community not the resources and “the value”. But the big wheel keeps on turning, and I suspect in a couple of years, things will look a little different around here.

I suspect it’ll have grown, changed as you seem to want to defend as viable, but change isn’t unilaterally a good thing. If you came here for the community, there’s a very real chance that the community here in 2025 will not feel as cosy as it does today. And that’s the problem. In the age of the service provider and the value provider, we seem intent on phasing out the humanity of it all.

 

[Cedric]

But the intent and the outcome is where things differ. Let’s take here as an example. When AJ started, it felt much more like the view I take in the world: passionate people coming together over a shared love. It’s now transitioning more the other way, that it’s a service provider that happens to have a community attached. Right now it’s still got a vibrant community where people who come here do so for the community not the resources and “the value”. But the big wheel keeps on turning, and I suspect in a couple of years, things will look a little different around here.

I suspect it’ll have grown, changed as you seem to want to defend as viable, but change isn’t unilaterally a good thing. If you came here for the community, there’s a very real chance that the community here in 2025 will not feel as cosy as it does today. And that’s the problem. In the age of the service provider and the value provider, we seem intent on phasing out the humanity of it all.

Do you think it's inevitable that such a change is going to happen? I mean, our community is one of the best compared to many communities online at the moment. Okay, that might be biased, but still - what we have is, is something special. Of course, in a year a lot changes to a community due to the people who come and go. That is inevitable.

It works both ways: People who come for the community, stay for the community and services. People who come solely for the services, often stay for the community. I've said it before but a community needs to be treated as a business, but still looking at it like a community. There's more about that here:

Do you treat you community as a business?

Have you ever wondered if your forum could become more than just a hobby? Let's talk about turning your forum into a successful business adventure! Many of us started our forums because we're passionate about certain topics and niches, but do you treat your community as a business? And what can...

admin-junkies.com

Having that said, I wouldn't turn AJ into a business only, not caring about the community. Because it's not a business. It will always stay as a webmaster community. Will it eventually adapt to other needs? Most likely. When? No one knows. But the community will always exist and overrule the business part. I can't speak for what we'll be like in 2025 but my goal will always be to improve AJ as a webmaster community and not as a business. Obviously, I can't do this alone, but I can try to steer it in the right direction.

I imagine, if we take the same metrics of past year and compare it to 2025 that we'll likely triple in size by then. By then a lot of people have come and go, and it's possible either we stay cosy as today, or we grow into a much bigger and more active community. What I can promise is that I'll be here every day trying to keep everything close together.