What is the role of Forums in 2018+? AKA How can you compete?

[Gimgak]

I know, we're on a forum. But I think it's clear to everyone here that forums as a whole have seen their heyday come and go - There's no comparison between say the activity of boards in 2008 vs. 2018. Even the huge boards are slowing down, and really that leaves nothing for the smaller guys.

I'll be honest; I basically grew up on forums, but there's only one or two forums that I continue to utilize. Both are private sites that have a rather tight-nit userbase I've interacted with for years. They're also on the older end of internet demographics (~30+ or so) and populated folks who tend to be more concerned about their privacy. They're communities that have continued to thrive to some extent despite themselves moving past the relevance of most people. Another community that has more or less survived the new age of online discussions is RPGCodex - a community geared towards folks less likely to be active on social media, and also less likely to share the kinds of views they do on that website with people they know IRL.

Reddit's a popular platform but it's not one I contribute to; when I want a quick answer to a specialist topic I use facebook groups. Why? Because I know I can get a response from someone within minutes to an hour, vs. waiting days on a forum. I wouldn't care about this if I didn't feel like there's still something incredibly unique about what a forum can offer - every interaction on a platform like reddit is fleeting, this being even more-so the case on facebook.

My question to those of you still here - what do you think that forums can provide in 2018 that isn't available on these newer platforms? More importantly, how do you get that idea across to the millions/almost billions of folks who are now on the internet who never used forums? I sure hope that the answer isn't to just give up and accept that we live in a centralized age of online discussions.

 

[Azareal]

Well, for one, you won't have your data being sold to marketers lol

One thing to note is that some of these larger sites like plopping down algorithms which control what notifications you do and don't see, sometimes filtering out followed content entirely in favour of sponsored items you don't even follow and whatever it thinks you might like.

With a forum, you subscribe to something you like and you get notifications.
There is no algorithm going behind your back and hiding things you want to see, delaying them or introducing odd items.

Also, some regulators are apparently slapping down Facebook for deliberately making their products addicting and trying to get them to pull back on that.
The only one which can actually compete with forums is probably Discord.

 

[Gimgak]

I prefer forums over facebook groups myself, probably because I grew up on them. But forums are much slower paced and seem to have a hard time getting new users. I felt like I was on the younger end of forum users about 10-11 years ago and I don't think that's changed - younger kids just don't use them all that much (as far as global trends are concerned).

It's not so much a matter of who will compete with forums when it's pretty clear forums have already "lost"

 

[Jason76]

I like other people's Facebook groups to get traffic for a forum, but on Facebook prefer to use pages for myself as a traffic generation tool.

 

[Slix]

I'd say the main reason forums are still useful in today's internet age is simple. As you alluded to, things like Reddit or Facebook or Twitter comments are all fleeting, and it's really hard to go back and find old posts, or search old posts, or include new people in a conversation without tagging them first. It's all really in the moment, and that's great for some things, but less great for things like deeper conversations or sharing things like tutorials or thoughtful comments. Forums really excel at those things.