discuss Age of forums

[Oshawott]

Do you think the age of forums are over?

I dont think that the age of forums are over, but it is a sad reality that it is declining significantly.

Forums must find new ways to integrate into social media, methods to create content with less time and effort and give members enough benefits for staying within the folds of forums. I used to be active over 15 to 20 forums when I was young, back in 2010 - 2015. But now, it has come down significantly to two of three.

 

[Cpvr]

I don’t believe the age of forums are over.

Forums will always have a place on the internet. They birthed social media. They’re the true “social media” and if it wasn’t for them, social media wouldn’t exist.

As a forum owner, we have to promote and work harder than we did in the early 2010’s, but that’s perfectly fine.

 

[Ja sa bong]

Nope, it's not over for forums. Even though we have seen a lot of forum come and go but there are still lots of them which have a better structure to keep it going on for decades to come.

 

[Unvarnished]

While forums lost user popularity, they maintain an active community of loyal followers today. To survive, the forums should always strive to serve users while using modern communication methods and tools. Adding social network connections plus unique features and member rewards helps forums maintain their active status and it will draw in fresh users.

 

[Oshawott]

I think now forums has to adopt unique niches that are constantly evolving. Things I can think of are political happenings, science and technology, artificial intelligence and things like that.

Gone are the glorious days of promotion forums and graphic design forums. Also, now we need to spend more in the form of licensing requirements and perks for members. No way out

 

[Cpvr]

I think now forums has to adopt unique niches that are constantly evolving. Things I can think of are political happenings, science and technology, artificial intelligence and things like that.

Gone are the glorious days of promotion forums and graphic design forums. Also, now we need to spend more in the form of licensing requirements and perks for members. No way out

You also need to spend more time actively promoting, but in the end, it will all be worth it.



The more visible your forum becomes, the more it will be noticed, making your chances of growth much easier compared to others.





Most forum owners who actively promoted their forums in the past were the ones who achieved the most success. This still holds true today.





Many tactics, such as post exchanges and social media campaigns, continue to work effectively.

 

[Shawn]

I don't think forums are done.

Forums are more about community. Social media is more about virality.

I can come here and know who to expect to see and talk to, which makes it easy to make new friends. On social media, it's all about timing, trends, and getting the word out before it vanishes because of another viral thing. There isn't a whole lot of room for community in that.

I have had a forum with 10K+ members and 200K+ posts and there was still an active community of great friendship there.

I have a group on Facebook with nearly 50K members and hundreds of posts a day. There is a little bit of a community, but it's always fighting with the algorithms.

I do feel that platforms and software are not advancing fast enough. It will be the ones we pay to have a forum that kills forums in the end.

 

[Oshawott]

I don't think forums are done.

Forums are more about community. Social media is more about virality.

I can come here and know who to expect to see and talk to, which makes it easy to make new friends. On social media, it's all about timing, trends, and getting the word out before it vanishes because of another viral thing. There isn't a whole lot of room for community in that.

I have had a forum with 10K+ members and 200K+ posts and there was still an active community of great friendship there.

I have a group on Facebook with nearly 50K members and hundreds of posts a day. There is a little bit of a community, but it's always fighting with the algorithms.

I do feel that platforms and software are not advancing fast enough. It will be the ones we pay to have a forum that kills forums in the end.

Those are some very powerful arguments.

However, you see, there is something call the time factor. We need to ease the way in which we are spending time in social media. Typing all that we need to express takes so much time.

Do you think bringing in an inbuilt speech - to - text engines in the forums will help in this process of popularising the forums?

 

[Yugi]

I think forums have been on the decline ever since social media started to flourish. But sometimes we need to stop the forums vs social media comparison and put forums into their bracket where it is about building community spirit and a different way to express oneself over social media. You often have "real" discussions and people you can get to know from all parts of the world. Social media is so massive that it becomes hard to get to know one another and forums are on a smaller scale where you can build online friendships easier than your IRL friends and family. I think forums will continue to stay alive, but there will always be "newer" technological advances that many people will flock to and become the trend of a period. To those who remain loyal to online communities, there will always be a reason for them to stick around, even if the interest in them remains rather low.

 

[Oshawott]

I think forums have been on the decline ever since social media started to flourish. But sometimes we need to stop the forums vs social media comparison and put forums into their bracket where it is about building community spirit and a different way to express oneself over social media. You often have "real" discussions and people you can get to know from all parts of the world. Social media is so massive that it becomes hard to get to know one another and forums are on a smaller scale where you can build online friendships easier than your IRL friends and family. I think forums will continue to stay alive, but there will always be "newer" technological advances that many people will flock to and become the trend of a period. To those who remain loyal to online communities, there will always be a reason for them to stick around, even if the interest in them remains rather low.

This I agree with.

The primary aim of any forum is the exchange of materials and information and a platform for community building. But these days, exchange of materials and community are taking place via social media and information is generated at the AI nodes and exchanged at social media.

The format of all these functions have moved away from the bracket of forums. Some lone warrior still fight the wave and I am happy for them.

 

[Cpvr]

This I agree with.

The primary aim of any forum is the exchange of materials and information and a platform for community building. But these days, exchange of materials and community are taking place via social media and information is generated at the AI nodes and exchanged at social media.

The format of all these functions have moved away from the bracket of forums. Some lone warrior still fight the wave and I am happy for them.

The ai nodes are actually linking to forums as a source of information unless the site owner is blocking those ai crawlers from indexing their site.

Especially ChatGPT as they have their own search engine built in now.

The key is, owners need to take the time out and engage with their audience on social media & bring them back to forums.

I see users all the time talking about that they “miss forums” on social media, but, they’re the ones that left forums in the first place for social media.

 

[Unvarnished]

Based on current research data forums still maintain their usefulness in digital society. The rise of social media has not erased the essential value that forums provide especially when has to do intense information.

 

[Ashake]

I read that the AI crawlers understand that forums maintain their significance as they index them as an information source. Through Forums, users create special interaction which also allow them to participate in meaningful knowledge sharing activities.

 

[Heatman]

Forums will never die. I can agree that the activities of forums might have reduced over the years with so many forums coming and going but the seed is still strong. Reddit have been waxing strong for years and some other top forums are still doing the platform proud.

 

[Augusta]

Yes forums would always be around but the thing is that we might have less ofbpsid ones now which I don't like

 

[Andyboi]

Do you think the age of forums are over?

I dont think that the age of forums are over, but it is a sad reality that it is declining significantly.

Forums must find new ways to integrate into social media, methods to create content with less time and effort and give members enough benefits for staying within the folds of forums. I used to be active over 15 to 20 forums when I was young, back in 2010 - 2015. But now, it has come down significantly to two of three.

Yo, I got a cool forum site.

NodeBB

Browse and share the Internet on unconventional devices

browsedns.net

 

[Harsh World]

Yo, I got a cool forum site.

Keep up the engagement on ROFLMAO to claim the last Signature Pro item before @Shawn does to get a backlink!

Signature Pro

A three line signature with emojis and a link

www.roflmao.com

 

[Jason]

There's a bunch of guitar and drumming ones still going strong, but probably many times more that have failed.

 

[Cpvr]

I read that the AI crawlers understand that forums maintain their significance as they index them as an information source. Through Forums, users create special interaction which also allow them to participate in meaningful knowledge sharing activities.

As long as forums are around, they’ll always serve as a knowledge base for others. I truly believe forums will always be needed on the internet. They’ve been here for over 30 years and there isn’t anything that will take them away from the internet.

People that claim that forums will be ruined from outside influencers are full of crap.

Forums will always have a home on the internet, especially since they’re online communities. They create a sense of belonging.

AI crawlers don’t just pull information from forums, they use them to serve users and link back to forums. Which in turn, also helps grow forums.

 

[Shawn]

Those are some very powerful arguments.

However, you see, there is something call the time factor. We need to ease the way in which we are spending time in social media. Typing all that we need to express takes so much time.

Do you think bringing in an inbuilt speech - to - text engines in the forums will help in this process of popularising the forums?

A good text to speech feature on a forum optimized for mobile might work.

But the current mobile responsiveness we see by default is just basically an attempt to make it responsive. Mobile apps look way better than a responsive forum on mobile devices.

Wouldn't you agree?

We all judge books by their cover which might be why forums aren't as popular anymore. Sure, themes look good but it still looks like something from the early 2000s.

 

[Yama]

I was introduced to forums in 2012 and started becoming active since 2015. There was a time when I was posting on as many as two dozen forums every day. I did not have my own forums back them yet I enjoyed posting on forums. The main problem with forums is they are pretty same, it has been 10 years since I started becoming regular on forums and there has been no single change in forum structure, design, and even content.

On the other hand, look at the social media, how much changes they have introduced. This is the age of broadcasting media and no one is interested in text based interaction.

 

[Cpvr]

I was introduced to forums in 2012 and started becoming active since 2015. There was a time when I was posting on as many as two dozen forums every day. I did not have my own forums back them yet I enjoyed posting on forums. The main problem with forums is they are pretty same, it has been 10 years since I started becoming regular on forums and there has been no single change in forum structure, design, and even content.

On the other hand, look at the social media, how much changes they have introduced. This is the age of broadcasting media and no one is interested in text based interaction.

The main thing here is, people are still using forums, they’ve just shifted into different forms. Substack? Threaded. Reddit? Forum DNA. Twitter, Threads, Bluesky? They’re essentially forums in microblog format. It’s the same core idea: post, reply, engage. Just quicker, shorter, and optimized for scroll culture.

A lot of users now prefer short-form interaction, but that doesn’t mean long-form is dead. The ones who have more to say simply post in threads or build newsletters. They’re still doing what we’ve always done on forums, just with different tools.

Facebook groups, too, same story. They function exactly like forums, just under a different label. As long as we’re smart about leveraging these platforms to drive people back to forums, they’ll keep going strong. Forums might not be front-page flashy like they once were, but they’re not forgotten either.

Search “forums” on TikTok, Reddit, or Twitter and you’ll see it, people miss that experience. They miss the structure, the community, the depth.

I’ve been running forums since 2005–2006. I’ve seen them grow, stall, dip, bounce back. Social media made things noisy, yeah, but it didn’t kill the signal. Strong communities built on forums don’t vanish. They endure, storm after storm. And they will again.