Are Forums obsolete in 2019?

[Midas]

What do you think about it?
I've been following Old Communities lately, and almost 90% of them moved into a Discord Server because "nowadays, nobody likes Forums anymore". Call me oldie, but I love Forums, specially phpbb2-3 and vBulletin ones. I consider them very useful and ordered, and beautiful, I don't know.
Are they forgetting about us?
Am I obsessed with avatars, signatures and post counters?

[Poem]

Yes, definitely! I miss the forum days. There are definitely some around that are active, like CK, but the heyday was definitely passed.

[j03]

Maybe new websites choose not to go with the forum-like platform (vB, phpbb, etc) but lots of forum websites are still very, very active. Just look at all the car forums... Any topic you can think of, I'm sure there's a forum with a community still actively posting.

Plus, look at us after 7 years. Activity has only gone up.


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[Mama Bear]

I'd say that forums aren't obsolete. Chats like discord allow for a more instantaneous conversation with greater ease, but this is also their disadvantage in my eyes. When I wake up to 300 new discord posts, it's much harder to read through them all because they're not separated into distinct threads. I can't pick and choose if someone is going to be interesting/relevant to me as much, so will often have to scroll through a whole heap of crap and memes I wasn't a part of before I actually find meaningful ideas again. They're also much more difficult for new members to be able to find necessary information, because there isn't the archive of years of knowledge in posts.

[RealisticError]

I agree with bacchus, discord goes wild too easily and you can never catch up, also the interface doesn’t lend itself to multiple conversations like a forum with user-created threads does. I much prefer this style of communication to discord

[Maelstra]

I actively use both discord and forums; but categorize them differently in my head.

TBH, I do avoid the really large discord servers when I can, because you can shout til your hoarse and still be overlooked.

[Shoyru]

They're different styles of conversation, tbh. Discord is a chatroom vs a forum which is... a forum. Forums are better for an aggregation of information and Discord is better for spontaneous conversation that can last hours.

I'd compare Discord to IRC sooner than I would to a forum. I vastly prefer Discord, though. I like having the ability to delete my posts if I say something stupid. :rolleyes: And it's nowhere near as public. (Depending on the server, I suppose)

[Byte]

Forums are not obsolete, but the way people utilize them has changed significantly since the release of applications like Discord and Slack. The introduction of Skype gave us a very standardized platform and in a way made most other chat platforms (AIM/Yahoo/Live(MSN)) obsolete. I would argue that the combination of discord and slack has made Skype now obsolete, though it is still a flavor of choice for some. Discord has had a far bigger impact on Teamspeak and Ventrilo, than any other sort of application. We can even look at reddit as a platform that has taken away some forum popularity. As a result of these sort of programs with multi-channel, multi-role management based chat applications, the utilization of forums are not as strong as they once were for certain topics or groups. An example would be Guild Forums, which used to be a sort of staple-point in higher end guilds for MMO gaming usually delivered through Enjin CMS or perhaps a simple PHPBB 2/3 forum or dare I refer back to proboards which still exists. I think it really has changed what you're trying to create a communication system for.

We can easily compare this to the absolute crap that is the guild chat/forum on Neopets. A rather useless function that primarily exists for the sake of existing or to create a requirement of X posts to achieve X thing. In this sort of application, a discord server would be plenty. Whereas for a site like Clraik that can offer a wide range of topics not limited to one specific portion, as evidenced by boards, sub-boards, etc. a forum makes sense. I think this is why many forums have begun to die off as the content being delivered is not delivered optimally through a forum in the first place and can be done as a series of conversations over a discord channel in the right context with mature users not spamming up the channel. One such instance is a discord channel I belong to for Overwatch where you have to essentially register through a google form and be invited personally by an admin, and the amount of bot functions required to navigate through various channels is quite intuitive. It would not make sense for this to be done in a forum format to do an endless amount of looking for group posts, etc. but would have been the route to go pre-discord, you can still find LFG posts for GTA Online via reddit or LFG for league posts on League of Legends boards.

I think really where forums hit their groove now is:
1) You must provide content that exists for reference
2) Said content is large enough where searching is preferred
3) The amount of users is greater than 100-200 for such a community
4) The content must be lengthy enough so that it makes sense to not have it in discord
5) If a discord is incorporated into the same community that holds a forum, there must be a clear distinction of what is allowed in the discord vs. forum posts

I think clraik handles this well. I don't see ridiculous 2000+ character copy/pasted jellyneo guides in the discord channels for the sake of having content, and I do not see the random nature of spam on the boards where even the spam section has a more distinguished feel than the literal spam that sometimes comes across the discord server for clraik. Spam defined here as people chatting just to chat, not as advertisements, etc.

All in all, yes I think between reddit/discord/slack forums have become obsolete for certain forms of content and communities, but there is still content that really only makes sense to present in a forum based CMS.

[eltiolukee]

As a matter of fact, i've been missing this "old" aspect of the internet. Nowadays with the speed of social networks, it's nice to get back to the original, not-so-fast-paced method of posting in a thread, reviewing past replies, being able to talk about 40 different things at the same time without having to rush your thought fearing that the conversation could be lost in sea of quick pictures, likes and comments.

Fuck i feel old

[Milly]

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i always will love forums sigh

[Politoed]

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i always will love forums sigh

I second this, so many times in the past I'ved used old tech forums / blogs to figure something out.

[RealisticError]

I second this, so many times in the past I'ved used old tech forums / blogs to figure something out.

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I'll always be reminded of this xkcd when I think of that lol

[Politoed]

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I'll always be reminded of this xkcd when I think of that lol

Lol that is so funny, not sure xkcd is but comics are always good :P

[Bat]

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I'll always be reminded of this xkcd when I think of that lol

I often wonder what the etiquette is for sharing that information after you've obtained it. If you end up having to do all of the work to find a solution after getting nowhere with the various internet help communities, do you feel any personal obligation to share your solution afterwards?

[RealisticError]

Lol that is so funny, not sure xkcd is but comics are always good :P

xkcd is a webcomic of random nerdy stuff, you can find it at [Only registered and activated users can see links] :)


I often wonder what the etiquette is for sharing that information after you've obtained it. If you end up having to do all of the work to find a solution after getting nowhere with the various internet help communities, do you feel any personal obligation to share your solution afterwards?

Personally, I would most likely edit the post to hold the answer or reply to my own post, there's been too many times when I've seen "I fixed it myself" or something similar on tech posts with no explanation and it's soul-crushing!!

[j03]

^ Growing up and dealing with computer issues is when I experienced these scenarios the most. Your day can end with a slight headache when you've been searching and digging into search engines for hours with no reliable solution found. :(

[Maki]

I think so for the most part. Tis a shame, I like forums. I used to on/off RP on Gaia and I've noticed that more and more roleplays are moving to Discord for ooc chatter.
I think the appeal of forums/Private Messages and getting a letter in the mail from someone is the same, you know?
It might be weird, but the whole instant-ness of instant messages mentally tire me out a little. With forums/PMs, I enjoy that I get to really sit and think about what I want to say and how I say it. Of course, it's way slower to get a reply but I also like the anticipation of waiting around for what people will say. :)

[Synth Salazzle]

I miss when forums were more popular.

I like discord but it can't really achieve the same thing exactly.

It's sad that they're becoming less and less used.

[d-w-f-x]

Since I grew up with the forum format, I much prefer this. Most sites I use have forums...I couldn't imagine NOT having access to them.