Are forums dying?

[iMage]

I remember the days long before Facebook and all these other crappy social media websites took over the internet, spying on people and selling their privacy to the highest bidder.

I am still a member of a few Forums of old, including this one. And i would love to see them make a comeback. I find the community is much tighter, and ALOT better in the smaller communities such as this.

How many of you have a hard time breaking away from websites like Facebook? I have sort of been forced to a bit because of another recent Facebook jail stint, seems freedom of speech isnt allowed on there anymore, so chances are i wont bother going back again.

Thing is it has to start with the little guy again to bring forums such as this and other community forums back to the forefront again, and sure even bring back the trivial forum community wars that would happen from time to time lol (maybe alot of you are a bit young to remember what i am talking about hahaha.

Anyway end rant, just sad to see these sort of communties continue to decline, while those that sell your privacy to the highest bidder thrive.

Anyway have a good one yall.

 

[Jake]

No, they're not dying. It seems there are a lot of attempts to start brand new communities with a forum, and that is hard. When done properly, it can work, but the best way to start a forum is to have a community backing you first, such as a YouTube or other social following, a Minecraft server or another game server, or some other source that can influence people to visit the forum and join the discussion. They won't be inclined to join if there isn't content or it doesn't look active, and the latter is exactly what a lot of forums look like when they're starting out. For example, empty boards or a lot of boards with little content show the viewer that the forum is either new or dead.

A good example of an active forum is SpigotMC (https://spigotmc.org) which is the forum for the community that backs the Spigot Minecraft project. It's extremely active and one of the main methods of communication for community members.

 

[BeautifulAngel]

I don't think forums are dying. I think that it is much easier to create a forum so a lot more people have their own. Yes Facebook, Instagram etc are big however, there are always going to be those, like you and me that still enjoy a good tight forum.

 

[Bryn]

Even if they're not really "dying" as such, it's really not the same. I believe 2007-2011 were the golden age of forums. And it's not just the likes of social media that are slowly taking over them, Discord servers too. It's a sad deal but, forums will live on.

 

[Jason76]

I think if you can get 4 or 5 regulars (as in posting everyday or other day). then you have a forum, but ideally 20, 30 or more is better.

 

[Bryn]

but ideally 20, 30 or more is better.

That would really hard to do... I think you've got to be damn lucky to have that happening D:

 

[Deleted member 32117]

Ideally, they are dying I remember how active some forums used to be but nowadays there are less users I guess its cause of the timezone and its school and not summer time. Also I noticed one thing is the oldest forums have more members and activity compared to newer forums as they are more established compared to new forums

I think if you can get 4 or 5 regulars (as in posting everyday or other day). then you have a forum, but ideally 20, 30 or more is better.

 

[Jason76]

but ideally 20, 30 or more is better.

That would really hard to do... I think you've got to be damn lucky to have that happening D:

To be honest, a steady stream of traffic (probably paid) is needed also. I mean, unless you want this to be like some neighborhood kid's club.

Anyway, to get these regulars you would need either/or post exchanges, paid posters etc. (skilled in the niche preferred) - cause the odds are nobody will post in your forum.

 

[Deleted member 32117]

but ideally 20, 30 or more is better.

That would really hard to do... I think you've got to be damn lucky to have that happening D:

To be honest, a steady stream of traffic (probably paid) is needed also. I mean, unless you want this to be like some neighborhood kid's club.

Anyway, to get these regulars you would need either/or post exchanges, paid posters etc. (skilled in the niche preferred) - cause the odds are nobody will post in your forum.

Yes like FP is #1 on PostLoop

 

[Jason76]

Incentives are good for traffic. I mean, a lot of people want jobs, money. Look how PromotionSea quickly gathered a crowd.

 

[VirusZero]

I'm not even going to bother copy/pasting my answer this time...

Here's what I said in 2016. I think that it's still an accurate depiction of the current situation.

 

[Jason76]

It seems like blog commenting is a big thing in SEO again, so I'd expect a rise in that - and it would be a big new market for writers.

 

[Jericho]

They're not ''dying'' because they will never die.

They are on a decline in popularity, absolutely! Social media is king of user interaction, but it's not for everybody, this is where other platforms step in, such as forum.

 

[Jason76]

They're not ''dying'' because they will never die.

They are on a decline in popularity, absolutely! Social media is king of user interaction, but it's not for everybody, this is where other platforms step in, such as forum.

A big advantage of forums is privacy for users - and Facebook is annoying people for selling info - even, though, the customers knew what they were getting into.

 

[Yarik]

I don't like social medias, especially Facebook. On my phone the Facebook app opens it itself whenever it decides to...

 

[Jason76]

I don't like social medias, especially Facebook. On my phone the Facebook app opens it itself whenever it decides to...

I like it for free traffic, not much else. Well, I can probably get a lot of cool stuff on social media, but I'd rather stay off of it - except to get traffic for non-social media forums.

 

[Page]

if you think they are then they are, the rest thinks thay are not then they are not

 

[Azareal]

You don't even want to hear my opinion about Facebook, those people just keep pushing the boundaries where they can. The thing with all these companies is that they want more and more and more and they poke into more and more places.

And Instagram is a subsidiary of Facebook, so it's really the same site. Just another layer of paint. They buy their competitors whenever they have the chance, they don't even have to lift a finger.

 

[Jason76]

I think Vanilla Forums is more on the right track with forum structure and the structure might be one reason forums are dying. However, though, I'm sure mods can be made to make XenForo, MyBB etc.. more like Vanilla forums.

 

[Azareal]

I think Vanilla Forums is more on the right track with forum structure and the structure might be one reason forums are dying. However, though, I'm sure mods can be made to make XenForo, MyBB etc.. more like Vanilla forums.

Structure is a tricky thing. The more alien the structure is to current forum-goers, the more likely a software is to fail.

So, in theory, you might be right. But, it's a very, very tricky situation to pull the momentum of what people expect a forum to be like away from the vB model. If you look at all these software which do well, then excluding Discourse, you will find one thing in common.

They all copy vBulletin.

Even though vBulletin has largely crashed in some areas, it's shadow, or rather, it's legacy of what people fundamentally expect a forum to be is still cast over the market.

Unfortunately, at the other side of the pendulum, there are players like Flarum and NodeBB which subscribe to Discourse's model of making things as alien as possible for people.

While XenForo is probably the best example of a software shackled down by trying to be like vBulletin, albeit with it's own little spin, which was a novelty when it came out, but it hasn't kept up with the times well.

Why did XenForo not adopt live topics? Is it because live is bad? No. It's because of the technological limitations of the time, where you would make your server crash and burn. But nowadays, if you use the right stack, there is practically no cost, in fact things might run even faster.

Unfortunately, momentum builds up and builds up, and it can be annoying to get rid of.