Are forums dying a slow death?...

Do you think forums are generally dying a slow death?

  • Yes

  • No

  • Haven't noticed

Results are only viewable after voting.
Yes & No.

Yes, because since the advent of Facebook and social media forums have sort of lost their purpose. Now you can debate and opinionate right from your personal profile amongst your friends and family. I think that trend started to kill off the forum trend. However, the problem arose that your privacy became lessened and many found social media to have bias. Instead of home grown and friendly managed communities you now had corporate giants with unenforceable rules and unfair moderation often unquestionable performed not by humans but algorithm or bot. That trend is slowly dying but it's still prevalent.

No, because as I can tell you from the political niche privacy is important. Not all of us want our opinions out in the open with all of pictures and contact information next to it. Forum communities guarantee anonymity because you can use a username, an avatar, any contact information you wish, and more. They are managed better, we're on the mobile platforms now, we utilize social media as well. There's really reason to dismiss forum communities anymore which is why I believe we're making a comeback.

I relate the entire situation to political argument - BIG BOX STORE -VS- MOM AND POP STORE.

Would you rather get your things from the big corporation (social media) or the smaller home business (forum)?
 
People keep saying social media is killing forums. But there's never any actual proof of that, just vague anecdotal evidence like people saying "my forum didn't do well". But having a few forums that didn't do well doesn't entail that all forums are dying.

Though according to some evidence, forum use is actually up by 8%. And that may continue to grow, especially as social networks like twitter decay (it's possibly up for sale at the moment... a sure sign that things are not going well). Even facebook was having issues, like where it was accused of censoring dissenting voices on political issues.

I think there's something else at play here... Years ago, back in 2004-2005 when facebook et al started, running a forum was harder. There weren't nearly as many options and you often had to know a lot about code to make them work. (Ever experimented with InvisionFree 1.3 and added a mod to it? If not, let me tell you that it's a bit of work.) But as time went along, a number of great options for forums. Options that allowed people to start forums with minimal risk and no need to know a lot about coding. This lead to more people being able to start forums. This is where the issue comes in... With no risk to try starting a forum and the barrier to entry low... why not start one? But some people are not qualified to be admins. Some might abuse their power, others get bored and wander off, others still have no idea what they're doing. (How many times now have we seen that sort of person show up who has more ads than content on their site and expects to get rich?)

Plus people often have unrealistic expectations about their site. They think just because they start one it'll get popular. That's a lie. There's a lot that goes into it that just never gets seen. They say success is an iceberg... Only the tip of success is visible, but not the much larger hard work that keeps the rest afloat.

Because of easy of entry the market started getting flooded with forums, there became too many options to pick from. The competition became much harder and many forums simply couldn't compete. But this isn't really a bad thing. I mean there are loads of people who aren't fit to be admins. This was a vital way to weed them out.

For example of this, I recall this issue a few years ago when Harry Potter roleplay forums were the thing. There were loads of them all trying to advertise and pull from the same member pool. Most of them only existed because that admin wanted to push their preferred relationship. In the end, most of them died off within a few weeks. If they were actually dedicated they wouldn't have given up. But they weren't, they were only interested in serving themselves. They would not have been good admins.

Another thing that likely factors in here is exaggerated perceptions. If I asked what percent of the US population is gay, most people would say around 20-25%. The truth? in 2014 it was closer to 3%. (Note, this is not the place to debate gay rights or what percentage of the population is. If you want to do that... another topic.) But what does that have to do with forums? Simply that people tend to think things are larger/more prominent than they actually are. (This is especially true the more they hear about it. So if you hear that forums are dying many times, you tend to think it's true and a larger issue.) Their forum (and maybe a few that they knew of) died so all others must be dying too. The thousands that are alive and well don't count, likely because they don't see them and aren't hearing about them. It's only usually the failed forums you hear of often.
 
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I don't think that forums are necessarily dying its just the newer ones never really get off the ground to begin with. The market is already saturated with every possible genre of forum imaginable. If you can come up with something people are missing, you'll probably do well. Otherwise, you might just be wasting your time.
 
Nah, forums in general are dead. It's only the really big ones that continue to thrive. There are lots of long-winded, interesting discussions enough as it is on social media. Most people aren't going to give the slightest fuck about going through the trouble of joining forums. With or without the controversies, people are just going to go with whatever is currently trendy these days.
 
Forces of Steel said:
Nah, forums in general are dead. It's only the really big ones that continue to thrive. There are lots of long-winded, interesting discussions enough as it is on social media. Most people aren't going to give the slightest fuck about going through the trouble of joining forums. With or without the controversies, people are just going to go with whatever is currently trendy these days.
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Yep, there are tons of opinions on this topic and no one person is 100% right. Personally I disagree as I stated above earlier in this thread.
 
Let's also add to the fact that most members here are not interested at all in joining other forums that get promoted alongside theirs, unless they can get something out of it. Examples include getting hits to their own forums or blogs, contests with real prizes, posting packages, and so on.

The forum scene is quite saturated. It's generally forums about gaming, technology, general discussion, and promotion that don't last more than a month or two. For every Forum Promotion that exists, there are many hundreds and thousands of forums in that niche that have failed.
 
I agree with NEB and FOS that one has to be offering something very different on forums these days, probably free cash would do the trick!

I had a few members in my last forum but only around 4/5 regular posters l I could have had more from previous forums but as I'm a Labour voter most wouldn't come into my forum as they were Conservatit voters!..

Oh the ups and downs of politics eh!( oh up and down!)

Nah but that is how petty some can be , I like to think robust but civil debate can be had with folk of all political persuasions but sadly it's not the case , though one or two on the RW did join my site and we chatted and had some civil debate without scratching each other's eyes oot ken!

But in general the response was ...' I'm no joint JD's forum , he is a LW labour voting scum! Lol ...though I've started a new one it seems a heap of effort is needed just to get folk to look in amd politics just isn't everyone's cup of tea..I can't even be bothered myself noo! Lol, ken. 😉

Bless.
 
Social media doesnt help forums growth but I feel if you have a good niche then forums wont dye. They may decline in activity, as we have all witnessed, but I certainly dont feel they shall die.
 
Been waiting for some times, but I have made my vote now!!!!
 
Eh, for sure. There probably not as active as they once were back in the earlier web days, although forums are still doing pretty well. I guess it comes down to what your forum can offer and how unique of a site you look. When it comes to joining a forum if I see similarities of a forum I've already been apart then it sort of turns me away(Same sections/theme/etc). I also feel like people much prefer lighter software now, things what are so much easier to navigate around, hop into the conversations and such. For example Reddit, etc.
 
People here have said they seem slower. But there are 2 main problems with that statement.

1- "Seem"
Perceptions don't always match reality. Like I stated in my previous post people get this horribly blown out of proportion.

2- Conflation
Related to above issue, people are conflating the problem that a few forums have as representation of all forums. The problem is that doesn't hold true. (As stated before, there is no evidence. Only a few vague anecdotal bits.)
Think of it this way... Some pizza places are busy/crowded. Others are less populated for various reasons (location, competition, price, etc...). But you wouldn't walk into one that has fewer patrons and say "This pizza place is deserted, therefore all pizza places must be this way".

Forces of Steel,
Don't conflate an issue with promotion forums as an issue with all forums. They're not the same. Promotion forums, for years, have struggled with this issue (and it's something I've pointed out in the past as inherent flaw in their design). But that does not mean all forums have the same issue.

As I've stated before there are very good reasons why people would choose forums over social networks. (Privacy being one... I mean who cares if CanucksFan207B said <politically charged statement>? Though if John Doe, owner of Doe's Deli-Delights, said it on their own personal facebook account, even one not connected to their company? Might cause some more issues.)
 
Somewhat. There are still people who like to meet others on forums, but Facebook and the various burst of new social networks is killing this off. To me, I think they are, but it'll take years to completely die off - I mean, guestbooks and visitor counters were popular online until around the early-to-mid 2000's, and that's a long time considering the Internet only gained a huge usage around 95/96.
 
Empire said:
social media's has made an bad inpack to forum owners, however social media's also helps to promote websites and social media's is one of the biggest ways to get traffic. I use social media's and when there is an post or new content made on my website it gets tweeted or posted on the social media's wide. Yeah I might say that I only got about 5 users out of it.

There has been topics and talks about this before and I'll say this again they are dying but NOT DEAD. I'm on websites that have like over 200 active members a day, so what can't be wrong? www.lspdfr.com is one of them in fact. I'm into an gaming ways and own an gaming website and yes I'm having an hell here, it's dead and when I spend hours working on it I get nowhere.

I gave up once, but it's still running.
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True, posts on Facebook pages and groups can be a good way to get people to your forum. In fact, I think you don't have to pay Facebook a boosting fee for the groups, but on the pages, you have to pay or your post doesn't reach many of the followers.
 
Jason76 said:
you have to pay or your post doesn't reach many of the followers.
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yeah, You do. They just seat there not doing anything unless you add over 100 friends to your list then they will get the posts/messages
 
I would argue yes forums are dying a slow death. We now live in a society and web world where instant and quick activity and interaction is expected on social websites. That is not something forums were really designed for. Forums were more designed for more in-depth and "reply when you can" interaction rather than instant response stream type things like Facebook and Twitter. Granted, many forum softwares are trying to hybrid their software between what forums used to be and also adding live notifications and automatic displaying of new posts as they are added. But to be very honest, I still think forums are slowly dying. They still lack what live activity streams bring for the fast-paced quick and instant expectations of the modern social world.
 
The new ones are failing to come up but those that were established before still thrive because of a loyal member base. People these days, are too busy and all they want is instant information and are unwilling to give indepth contribution.
 
With the 'Groups' on Facebook, ya i would have to say Forums are unfortunatly dying. I would love to see them make a comeback though. Facebook is just all about trolling and reporting other people in those groups. And because of Facebooks left leaning policies you end up banned for dumb reasons sometimes, so much for freedom of speech eh lol.

I much prefer posting in forums such as this myself, mainly due to the people that Admin them have some experience running a larger community, unlike Facebook where anyone that wants to be popular or some garbage on Facebook can start one with no real work involved at all.

Members of forums like this need to help bring forums such as this back to life, simply by posting in them daily. And stay off the crappy "forums" (groups) on Facebook. Lets not let the machine take over
 
some say they are some say that they aren't. But some says what to think. Yeah Facebook is taken over but Facbook is also one big option to advertise the forum. so it's still going and not going to be dead yet
 
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