General Do you still think forums are dead?

[Cedric]

Agreed, I use forums due to my preference for the way info is presented - with structure as opposed to an infinite scroll. Everyone is different and has individual preferences. Can’t say one is better or worse.


This is about reddit, not forums. I’m happy to follow rules on reddit just as I’ve decided to follow the rules on forums provided they aren’t close enough friends.

I don’t know much about Reddit really. For all I care that can disappear rather yesterday than tomorrow. 😃

 

[Ravenfreak]

For those wondering about promoting on Reddit, I reached out to the owner of the Gex subreddit if my forum could be added to the sidebar. Not only did the moderators accepted my forum link and added it to their sidebar, they even promoted it via a sticky post and I got a few new members from the sub to join my forum. Of course this may not always be the case, but it doesn't hurt to ask! The most the moderator can say is "no" and move on. Also the forums subreddit is dead, and you have to request to post in the sub now.

 

[~ True Legend ~]

Private message is bad. When will you learn? 😉

For those wondering about promoting on Reddit, I reached out to the owner of the Gex subreddit if my forum could be added to the sidebar. Not only did the moderators accepted my forum link and added it to their sidebar, they even promoted it via a sticky post and I got a few new members from the sub to join my forum. Of course this may not always be the case, but it doesn't hurt to ask! The most the moderator can say is "no" and move on. Also the forums subreddit is dead, and you have to request to post in the sub now.

Good shout

I don’t know much about Reddit really. For all I care that can disappear rather yesterday than tomorrow. 😃

So how did you manage to make AJ so active? You have lots of friends (close or not) having been in the forum world for some time ?

 

[Cedric]

Good shout


So how did you manage to make AJ so active? You have lots of friends (close or not) having been in the forum world for some time ?

Having an audience is one of the most underestimated starting points. It's why I have said that numerous times before. What you need to consider is that I've been on forums for over 20 years. Many of our members are friends that I've known for many many years. That is part of my audience. AJ's audience has grown over the past year, significantly and as soon as someone from back in the day sees a familiar name (mine, @Reverie, or anyone else) they will likely join because it draws in memories.

Besides that, doing hard work, staying consistent, doing a lot of networking, promotions and advertising, keeping things fresh, staying humble and friendly, etc.

Creating forums is nothing. It's easy. Everyone can create forums in a couple of hours. It's managing them where it gets tricky. Staying relevant, staying ahead of your competition which has been around for much longer. Have a steady influx of activity and new members coming in. People often don't know what it takes to manage a forum. It's a full time job. It's like parenting, managing your members as they are your children. But don't handle them like children. Although, some can really act like some and can cause you a headache sometimes. 😅

Then of course, along the way I've managed to have a GREAT staff team behind my back which makes my work lighter.
And of course, our brilliant members who I'm eternally grateful to for their daily contributions, making AJ into a thriving forum. This may sound a bit ignorant for some but I can safely say we have beating our competition. But that's also because they have made crucial mistakes.

 

[~ True Legend ~]

Having an audience is one of the most underestimated starting points. It's why I have said that numerous times before. What you need to consider is that I've been on forums for over 20 years. Many of our members are friends that I've known for many many years. That is part of my audience. AJ's audience has grown over the past year, significantly and as soon as someone from back in the day sees a familiar name (mine, @Reverie, or anyone else) they will likely join because it draws in memories.

Besides that, doing hard work, staying consistent, doing a lot of networking, promotions and advertising, keeping things fresh, staying humble and friendly, etc.

Creating forums is nothing. It's easy. Everyone can create forums in a couple of hours. It's managing them where it gets tricky. Staying relevant, staying ahead of your competition which has been around for much longer. Have a steady influx of activity and new members coming in. People often don't know what it takes to manage a forum. It's a full time job. It's like parenting, managing your members as they are your children. But don't handle them like children. Although, some can really act like some and can cause you a headache sometimes. 😅

Then of course, along the way I've managed to have a GREAT staff team behind my back which makes my work lighter.
And of course, our brilliant members who I'm eternally grateful to for their daily contributions, making AJ into a thriving forum. This may sound a bit ignorant for some but I can safely say we have beating our competition. But that's also because they have made crucial mistakes.

Thanks for sharing!

And what are the most crucial mistakes you’ve seen… besides reputation damage from PM advertising ?

 

[zoldos]

Weird, it was really none of that ever. I could see this being a fact on TapaTalk, but on ZetaBoards? Everything was fast, minimal ads and definitely no malware. Not that I ever experienced in the 10 years I was there. I think ZetaBoards was released in 2008 until 2018.

I don't recall when it was. So it might have been after the "takeover".

But still, I just don't like freely hosted forums (lack of features and cumbersome to navigate), and I'm partial to Xenforo. 99% of the forums I regularly use are XF.

 

[zoldos]

Because zetaboards is no longer? Brandon did deals with the devil and sold out to crapatalk..despite saying he wouldnt

That's pretty shitty....

 

[Senkusha]

I think that a forum is only as good as it's memberbase. If you have quality conversation starters, you'll eventually get a community gathered together. If people what information, they'll goto Wikipedia. If people want fast, cheap up-to-the-moment posts, they'll use something like Twitter or Facebook or Threads. If somebody wants entertainment, they'll use YouTube or TikTok.

Forums have the advantage over something like Facebook Groups because a forum can archive conversations using multiple boards, tags, and other ways to organize content, and has a search feature built in (yes, I'm aware FB does too, but it's hard to sift through the mountains of "one liners"). Forums have the advantage of having a group of like-minded individuals (hobbyists, etc) who come together to discuss a specific topic, and is usually highly maintained by a moderator/administrator. Forums have the advantage over FB groups because most people who participate in forums will patiently put together a more thought-out dialog.

Recently, I've participated in a number of different forums, and was relieved to learn that many of those members prefer forums over things like FB and Twitter, granted, most of the people making these comments are the older folks. Personally, I don't think forums are dead or dying. I just think that it's yet another way for people to communicate in a sea of options.

 

[Dismal_Bliss]

My niche is an example. Several of the sub-reddits I particiapte in have no issues linking to other sites for images, nor even articles of support.

I tried doing this last night, sharing an article I wrote on my website, and got banned for 3 days, lol

 

[Tracy]

I tried doing this last night, sharing an article I wrote on my website, and got banned for 3 days, lol

Was it a post you started, or was it used as part of an ongoing conversation to point someone to specific topical reference for an ongoing conversation?
I can see if it was a first post with link.... but what I am referring to is like an ongoing conversation about how crappy an EQ35 mount is on tracking... link to my guide on how to improve that tracking by disassembling the RA axis, cleaning it up and reassembling was allowed in the niche areas I participate in.
Then you have those mods that are "hell on wheels" and don't want anyone going anywhere else so ban all outside references... I know some forums that are like that.

 

[Bluezone777]

The thing I think could make someone believe forums are dead is that so many of them are opened without there being a group of people ready and willing to be there on day one. They just open one without a community hoping by some miracle that one will stumble into their board and fill it which just doesn't happen. What you should do is to get a group of people together willing to join your board first then build it not the other way around. You do this by building relationships with people and show yourself to be competent enough as a leader to risk your time investing it into your board. Go on boards that are already established and get yourself on the staff team and do good work for said board. This is how you can show yourself as a person and when you do decide to open the board, you will have made friends, earned the respect of your community that some will fill your board on day one so when you advertise it that you will always be advertising a board that's never empty.

When I was opening Rapture( a general chat board), I first posted a thread in Hireem's( an advertising board) elite lounge( I was a mod there) of my plans and that is where feedback was given, ideas were thrown around and interest was cultivated in said board so when it finally opened, it had a sizable community there on day one which is why it took off even though it was on Invisionfree at a time most had left Invisionfree behind for Zetaboards. It didn't need gimmicks or contests or prizes or premimum member groups to work. It just had your standard general chat forum sections, a chatbox on top that anyone can use and a chill atmosphere and the people who went there made it into the hangout spot it became.

 

[~ True Legend ~]

Was it a post you started, or was it used as part of an ongoing conversation to point someone to specific topical reference for an ongoing conversation?
I can see if it was a first post with link.... but what I am referring to is like an ongoing conversation about how crappy an EQ35 mount is on tracking... link to my guide on how to improve that tracking by disassembling the RA axis, cleaning it up and reassembling was allowed in the niche areas I participate in.
Then you have those mods that are "hell on wheels" and don't want anyone going anywhere else so ban all outside references... I know some forums that are like that.

I can see how intent can be misinterpreted though. Some mods may see posting links to forums as sneaking in links casually

The thing I think could make someone believe forums are dead is that so many of them are opened without there being a group of people ready and willing to be there on day one. They just open one without a community hoping by some miracle that one will stumble into their board and fill it which just doesn't happen. What you should do is to get a group of people together willing to join your board first then build it not the other way around. You do this by building relationships with people and show yourself to be competent enough as a leader to risk your time investing it into your board. Go on boards that are already established and get yourself on the staff team and do good work for said board. This is how you can show yourself as a person and when you do decide to open the board, you will have made friends, earned the respect of your community that some will fill your board on day one so when you advertise it that you will always be advertising a board that's never empty.

When I was opening Rapture( a general chat board), I first posted a thread in Hireem's( an advertising board) elite lounge( I was a mod there) of my plans and that is where feedback was given, ideas were thrown around and interest was cultivated in said board so when it finally opened, it had a sizable community there on day one which is why it took off even though it was on Invisionfree at a time most had left Invisionfree behind for Zetaboards. It didn't need gimmicks or contests or prizes or premimum member groups to work. It just had your standard general chat forum sections, a chatbox on top that anyone can use and a chill atmosphere and the people who went there made it into the hangout spot it became.

💯 you should never open a community without a group of ppl already active and posting. It looks so bad if you are the only one who actively posts. Before you consider making all active members staff, it doesn’t look good to have only staff posting and no one else.

Also when did you open Rupture? It makes such a difference if you opened it decades ago.

 

[Jane]

I don't recall when it was. So it might have been after the "takeover".

But still, I just don't like freely hosted forums (lack of features and cumbersome to navigate), and I'm partial to Xenforo. 99% of the forums I regularly use are XF.

I respectfully disagree about free forums being cumbersome to navigate.Jcink is idiot proof..it is SO easy to use. PB was…ok.,but you have to add smileys to each theme for example,..such a faff. Cant be doing with faffing. I find Xenforo confusing..the ACP especially. I had a demo and thought,,wow..where to start? It isnt very user friendly..but you may think otherwise. 🙂

 

[Arantor]

I respectfully disagree about free forums being cumbersome to navigate.Jcink is idiot proof..it is SO easy to use. PB was…ok.,but you have to add smileys to each theme for example,..such a faff. Cant be doing with faffing. I find Xenforo confusing..the ACP especially. I had a demo and thought,,wow..where to start? It isnt very user friendly..but you may think otherwise. 🙂

Jcink has a fraction of the functionality that XenForo has. And your other comparisons have been… less than charitable by not realising that you’re not comparing like for like. Self-hosted services require you to take steps that hosted services do not, but you complain about some of those steps because Jcink doesn’t have them.

Meanwhile your complaint about PB is actually a blessing for those of us who had animated emoji and both light and dark themes, because you could add light/dark versions of the emoji that didn’t look weird.

Of course Jcink doesn’t have these issues, because it chooses to simply have fewer features and be done with it - there’s plenty of functionality that Jcink doesn’t have, and can’t ever have, that any self-hosted SMF I ever had. Of course, they’re things you’d never use, so for your purposes Jcink wins because you don’t need things it doesn’t have - but the rest of us, on the other hand… you’d never be able to run AJ on Jcink for example.

Mind you at some point I’m sure John will get bored of trying to keep 20-year-old software running on newer versions of the server and retire it.

 

[Dismal_Bliss]

Was it a post you started, or was it used as part of an ongoing conversation to point someone to specific topical reference for an ongoing conversation?

The latter. Someone asked a question and had a fair amount of replies. I also answered her question and linked some of my words to an article that would contain additional information.

Note from the moderators:

Rule 1: No advertising or self-promotion of any kind.
Please do not link to your own website.

Yes, it was a link to my website. But no, it was not advertising or self-promotion. I could have easily linked to an article on a dozen other websites. Clearly they looked at my profile and made the connection that it was my site.

 

[~ True Legend ~]

I can see how intent can be misinterpreted though. Some mods may see posting links to forums as sneaking in links casually

@Dismal_Bliss see my post on intent, as for self-promotion

 

[Kale]

Guilded is better than Discord IMO, and it's completely free. I also don't think Discord is as organized as any forum, or even Guilded for that matter. Forums definitely aren't what they used to be but important communities just do better on a forum over a Discord server. Especially if the community shares guides or other helpful information, you can't easily locate that on a Discord server.

I don't think I'll join until Discord finally shits the bed and tons of my friend circle jump over to that. My friends and so many did this with Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, and even Skype. My Discord server did start as a community till it didn't take off as well. I made it my own thing for friends and friends of friends. I invite only select people these days due to a small raid that happened a while back.

And honestly? Discord servers I am in are just as inactive as a forum is nowadays. My server is pretty dead alongside so many others I am in.

The reasons cited: decline in activity and too hard to manage (even with a team of a bunch of people)

This is why HMOtaku and so many Harvest Moon forums and fan sites shut down. The forums were not active, and some moved on from being interested in the series/franchise. No one wanted to do guides etc I gander too is a reason alongside news posting. It doesn't matter as Fogu does a ton of work still to this day. Her website is still thriving and started in 2000.

 

[~ True Legend ~]

I don't think I'll join until Discord finally shits the bed and tons of my friend circle jump over to that. My friends and so many did this with Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, and even Skype. My Discord server did start as a community till it didn't take off as well. I made it my own thing for friends and friends of friends. I invite only select people these days due to a small raid that happened a while back.

And honestly? Discord servers I am in are just as inactive as a forum is nowadays. My server is pretty dead alongside so many others I am in.


This is why HMOtaku and so many Harvest Moon forums and fan sites shut down. The forums were not active, and some moved on from being interested in the series/franchise. No one wanted to do guides etc I gander too is a reason alongside news posting. It doesn't matter as Fogu does a ton of work still to this day. Her website is still thriving and started in 2000.

I disagree - discord groups, especially ones that are of a particular gaming niche or that host regular virtual events - social, gaming and what not… they tend to thrive.

 

[Arantor]

Communities function like communities, who knew?

 

[Jane]

Jcink has a fraction of the functionality that XenForo has. And your other comparisons have been… less than charitable by not realising that you’re not comparing like for like. Self-hosted services require you to take steps that hosted services do not, but you complain about some of those steps because Jcink doesn’t have them.

Meanwhile your complaint about PB is actually a blessing for those of us who had animated emoji and both light and dark themes, because you could add light/dark versions of the emoji that didn’t look weird.

Of course Jcink doesn’t have these issues, because it chooses to simply have fewer features and be done with it - there’s plenty of functionality that Jcink doesn’t have, and can’t ever have, that any self-hosted SMF I ever had. Of course, they’re things you’d never use, so for your purposes Jcink wins because you don’t need things it doesn’t have - but the rest of us, on the other hand… you’d never be able to run AJ on Jcink for example.

Mind you at some point I’m sure John will get bored of trying to keep 20-year-old software running on newer versions of the server and retire it.

I sincerely hope he doesnt. IF that happens I will probably have to convert back to Mybb which will be a humungous task according to Skyon. Of course if I had just stayed with it in the first place…