The importance of forums

[Cedric]

With the explosion of social media platforms in recent years, some people have been quick to write off forums as a thing of the past, something only relevant to the early days of the internet when we were all connecting via dial-up. But as we all know, that couldn't be further from the truth.

Forums serve a unique purpose that simply can't be replicated by other forms of social media. They allow for many-to-many conversations centered around specific topics, which can be incredibly useful for sharing knowledge, troubleshooting problems, and building communities around shared interests.

Think about it: when you're scrolling through your Facebook or Twitter feed, how often do you really engage in meaningful conversations with other users? Sure, you might like or comment on a post here and there, but it's not the same as actively participating in a forum thread where you can share your own experiences, ask questions, and learn from others who are just as passionate about a topic as you are.

Of course, there are some downsides to forums as well. They can be slower-moving than other social media platforms, and it can be difficult to sift through all the noise to find the truly valuable conversations. But overall, I think forums are an incredibly important part of the online ecosystem, and I'd love to hear what you all think.

Forums will never disappear, no matter what some might say.

 

[Uncrowned]

To me, the worst modern trend is the move away from support forums to social platforms like Discord. In all the battles of forums vs social media, at no time would I ever put social media on the winning side for support sites.

Otherwise, I also completely agree with you that forums offer a solid foundation for a slower style of communication online and seem to outright dominate in most discussions that range over time or need to be rediscovered over and over.

 

[Cedric]

To me, the worst modern trend is the move away from support forums to social platforms like Discord. In all the battles of forums vs social media, at no time would I ever put social media on the winning side for support sites.

Otherwise, I also completely agree with you that forums offer a solid foundation for a slower style of communication online and seem to outright dominate in most discussions that range over time or need to be rediscovered over and over.

I’ve seen this happening with MyBB and Flarum. Their discord is more active than the support forums. Pity. They’re just feeding the whole problem we got into the first place.

 

[Uncrowned]

I’ve seen this happening with MyBB and Flarum. Their discord is more active than the support forums. Pity. They’re just feeding the whole problem we got into the first place.

I have been told that the main move to this is the fact that Discord is free and forums cost money. But that doesn't make them good at support. Trying to search "how to change ABC" on Discord or Facebook is a nightmare and probably about 99% of the support I need from most official support forums.

 

[Reverie]

The move to Discord only is a little silly to me honestly. I have never been able to have a true conversation on a channel I just randomly joined. There are so many users, and I feel like just another number. I suppose on forums people can feel the same way, but I think there are more chances to get to really know users on forums and much less of that ability on Discord. Now I think Discord could be a great place to have premium content - set up gaming chat rooms and etc, it could be another factor that could be made use of.

Forums will always hold a special place in my heart, but I don't feel like new forums will survive like in this climate. It takes something special - and somehow reaching people outside of the forum world as well.

 

[Heatman]

Forums will never disappear, no matter what some might say.

If forums would ever disappear, I wonder what the likes of us are still doing here on forums?

It's just a myth because of how explosive and popular social media sites got, so most people probably have the conception that it's the end of forums but that's not the reality.

 

[Ravenfreak]

We need forums. For example, on Sonic Retro someone brought up reasons why he believes discord is the way of the future for communities. Here's his quote:

Yeah Discord is basically the future of communities like this in my view. Forums were good in an era of desktop computers, dialup and not having internet access all the time on your phone. I've never found a single forum that has a good mobile experience, it always feels clunky and awkward. Discord solves these issues, it's simple, you can create threads and upload attachments and photos just like a forum. Only downside is it's centralized as opposed to self-hosted, but that's just the way the modern day internet is, I mean even with self-hosted websites you're still paying a company to host your data.

This was my direct response to his:

Forums will always be better than Discord, even Discord is trying their version of forums but it's not the same. Hell Guilded is even better than Discord, it had forums long before Discord and is better structured. Also good luck finding anything in a Discord server, I think the hacking community is better suited on a forum than a Discord server since if someone is looking for a specific topic, it'll be indexed by Google on a well established community. Sorry, I'm a grumpy old fart that still loves forums. Also as for mobile friendly forums, pretty much all the main forum software have mobile support right out of the box these days. There's only a few platforms that barely anyone uses that don't have a mobile design out of the box. Xenforo has been mobile friendly for sometime now.

We still need forums and they will never die out. I wonder if there will eventually be a huge surge of forums becoming popular again someday. They're just better for having more meaningful conversations and lots of Youtube channels that talk about certain internet culture always have easy access to forums to get information to make their videos. Likewise there's a forum that has helped solve many cold cases and it just wouldn't be suited for a Discord server.

 

[Arantor]

I can tell you why the move to Discord - and 'it's free' isn't the answer. It's because it's perceived as being a place you can go to get an answer in real time, which for a support venue is the dream outcome for users, at least in theory. In practice, I've never gotten a good outcome out of such because they're either too quiet (and the people who would know aren't online) or it's too busy and chaotic for that to ever meaningfully work even if everything is hived off into Discord threads immediately.

But somehow these people never realise that this is in fact a disadvantage. Over in RP land you see many discussions about admins feeling like they have to be 'always online' because Discord makes them feel like they're *available* that whole time, so discussions around office hours, having boundaries etc. are all things that we never *have* to talk about on forums.

 

[Uncrowned]

I can tell you why the move to Discord - and 'it's free' isn't the answer. It's because it's perceived as being a place you can go to get an answer in real time, which for a support venue is the dream outcome for users, at least in theory. In practice, I've never gotten a good outcome out of such because they're either too quiet (and the people who would know aren't online) or it's too busy and chaotic for that to ever meaningfully work even if everything is hived off into Discord threads immediately.

While I do like Discord for things, the chaos is something that I agree hurts communities and is probably my least favorite part of the platform. I have yet to be on an active Discord where starting a conversation and leaving fro 15 minutes didn't result in 50+ nonsense messages overrunning the chat and the conversation barely loading right as Discord kind of hates backtracking.

 

[Ravenfreak]

As someone who is on a few very active servers, it's annoying to try and keep up with conversations. Not only that, but every once in a while I find myself replying to old conversations because the server didn't refresh and I didn't scroll down to the bottom of the chat log. Discord is just good for quick and easy solutions, not really long term conversations. It's good for gamers needing to chat with people in real time via voice chat, or just a quick place to hang among friends. Forums are great, you can still hang with friends and like minded people but you get lasting results as long as that forum is online. Internet archives can also easily archive conversations, if the forum ever goes offline forever.

 

[~ True Legend ~]

While I do like Discord for things, the chaos is something that I agree hurts communities and is probably my least favorite part of the platform. I have yet to be on an active Discord where starting a conversation and leaving fro 15 minutes didn't result in 50+ nonsense messages overrunning the chat and the conversation barely loading right as Discord kind of hates backtracking.

Sure it also depends on the kinda forum though. Some forums are very active and either don't have strict rules on staying off-topic or staff just don't have the resources to deal with the chaos ensuing from thousands of members simultaneously being online and a build up of vitriol