The Future of Forums?

[budatalk]

KTBleeding, if I didn't elaborate into technicalities, that doesn't mean that my opinion is ignorant.

Sure there are many things hidden to the future, but most will fall at refining things. You mentioned HTML, CSS, etc. it's correct that they evolve and add a lot of new things, but that doesn't mean that they are all breakthroughs, they are refinements. Only the first idea was a breakthrough.

Social Networking on the other hand is a breakthrough, Forums were a breakthrough at some time. Forums will evolve but will remain forums. In my opinion, with the strong invasion of social networking, forums got the biggest setback, but they proved two things to me:

1- They will always remain, they will evolve, get refined, change in aspect, but remain forums.
2- The quality of forums improved after the emergence of social networking websites. For the simple fact that people who want to waste their and other people's times by silly posting went to social networks, whether people who are willing to discuss more or less seriously stayed loyal to forums. That's a very general opinion, but it still holds some truth.

In the end, what defines a forum? It's a space where people can discuss, with protected anonymity their ideas, where they can elaborate, and most of all, the contents are all archived. Something that neither chatting, social networking, or blogging can provide. And this CONCEPT of forums will always remain, no matter what technology hides.

Moreover, with the increasing alarming voices against personal information diffusion, forums are quite an important refuge, and I wouldn't be surprised to see people "moving back" to forums.

[mpasternak]

what i see is a dedicated forum community disappearing. there are too many websites out there and too many communities that it's hard for any one "forum only" page to truly succeed. More often than not we need these extra features as a means to draw people to return. Forums make a great addition to existing sites but not so much as the core anymore.

as i see it at least

[cheat-master30]

Originally Posted by budatalk

KTBleeding, if I didn't elaborate into technicalities, that doesn't mean that my opinion is ignorant.

Sure there are many things hidden to the future, but most will fall at refining things. You mentioned HTML, CSS, etc. it's correct that they evolve and add a lot of new things, but that doesn't mean that they are all breakthroughs, they are refinements. Only the first idea was a breakthrough.

Social Networking on the other hand is a breakthrough, Forums were a breakthrough at some time. Forums will evolve but will remain forums. In my opinion, with the strong invasion of social networking, forums got the biggest setback, but they proved two things to me:

1- They will always remain, they will evolve, get refined, change in aspect, but remain forums.
2- The quality of forums improved after the emergence of social networking websites. For the simple fact that people who want to waste their and other people's times by silly posting went to social networks, whether people who are willing to discuss more or less seriously stayed loyal to forums. That's a very general opinion, but it still holds some truth.

In the end, what defines a forum? It's a space where people can discuss, with protected anonymity their ideas, where they can elaborate, and most of all, the contents are all archived. Something that neither chatting, social networking, or blogging can provide. And this CONCEPT of forums will always remain, no matter what technology hides.

Moreover, with the increasing alarming voices against personal information diffusion, forums are quite an important refuge, and I wouldn't be surprised to see people "moving back" to forums.

I'd agree on the personal information part. That's why I personally never go anywhere near social networking sites like Myspace or Facebook, because of the kind of stuff people share there, and the laughable ideas I heard online about people claiming their website designers because they made a Myspace page...

The personal information angle is also what worries me about these so called forum replacements, because voice and video based systems give out a whole load of personal information that many people I know wouldn't actually want to disclose to the general public.

So yeah, I do kinda agree there will always be forums, and I don't plan to ever move away from the forum style system online, or text based chat in general (as in text + pictures + cool stuff, not as in plain text).

Still don't think the invention of Myspace and such like has improved forum quality, at least in the forums I've seen. It may be because of the subject matter though.

Originally Posted by mpasternak

what i see is a dedicated forum community disappearing. there are too many websites out there and too many communities that it's hard for any one "forum only" page to truly succeed. More often than not we need these extra features as a means to draw people to return. Forums make a great addition to existing sites but not so much as the core anymore.

as i see it at least

I agree in part. I don't like forum only sites to be honest, and do prefer sites which actually have nice, written content to go along with a forum as well as maybe a few other features, since the amount of forum only sites reminds me of the vast amount of forums (especially free ones) with no real content trying to compete in saturated markets and shutting down within a week...

[mpasternak]

Originally Posted by cheat-master30

I agree in part. I don't like forum only sites to be honest, and do prefer sites which actually have nice, written content to go along with a forum as well as maybe a few other features, since the amount of forum only sites reminds me of the vast amount of forums (especially free ones) with no real content trying to compete in saturated markets and shutting down within a week...

this is the folley of many a web master. I call it the field of dreams folly.

"if we build it, They will come". Forums such as this generally fail. Unless you have a core group of users that love each other from somewhere else, there wont be a draw.

My forums are a tricky case. We're a dedicated forums built around hockey Goaltending. We at least have a common grasp, However, there are others with us in this field. We've had to try and stand out against others. we've linked up with an equipment manufacturer so that users can find out how things are made and get deals. We've got an NHL goalie coach posting so that people can actually get information and articles from a professional. Without stuff like this we would have easily dissappeared as just "another goalie forum"

Despite those things too, there's still the strive to increase the community. as a stand alone forum it's hard to do. I'm always looking for ways of adding ontop of the forum with thigns to draw people. we've got classifieds and a chat. Still it's not enough as everyone wants to do everything in one place.

My next step is to do exclusive content hosting such as video's.

[cheat-master30]

Originally Posted by mpasternak

this is the folley of many a web master. I call it the field of dreams folly.

"if we build it, They will come". Forums such as this generally fail. Unless you have a core group of users that love each other from somewhere else, there wont be a draw.

My forums are a tricky case. We're a dedicated forums built around hockey Goaltending. We at least have a common grasp, However, there are others with us in this field. We've had to try and stand out against others. we've linked up with an equipment manufacturer so that users can find out how things are made and get deals. We've got an NHL goalie coach posting so that people can actually get information and articles from a professional. Without stuff like this we would have easily dissappeared as just "another goalie forum"

Despite those things too, there's still the strive to increase the community. as a stand alone forum it's hard to do. I'm always looking for ways of adding ontop of the forum with thigns to draw people. we've got classifieds and a chat. Still it's not enough as everyone wants to do everything in one place.

My next step is to do exclusive content hosting such as video's.

I'd agree, but mainly on the article and classifieds and chat and just stuff. Just the fact it seems your site has information of use and is more than a forum provides a draw. I would never join most forums since they're just social chit chat half the time with no relevant content. I even drew up an article a few weeks back saying the same...

[lisss001]

I like forums because discussion is over a longer period. Also I don't mind paying for vBulletin because it has a reasonable price tag and isn't over-priced like a certain competitor IPB. VBulletin speaks quality and the staff are a decent bunch when you need help. You can find thousands of free templates and modifications. So for a while at least I can't see forums going down the drain. Also if you haven't noticed vBulletin is constantly evolving, now it's going to have more Social features because we are in a Social Networking era, something that constantly changes will live to be competitive. the vBulletin developers are sure on the ball.

[Rapscallion]

I have to agree with the helpfulness of the VB staff. I posted a request for help about a hack, and ScottM was good enough to trawl through my access logs and find out just what had happened.

As to the future, I don't know what it will hold. Social networking is just the current state of affairs, whereas Internet fora have always brought together people from all over the world. I honestly don't see what more can be done, but some beggar will be devious enough to invent something.

VBTube, anyone? VBazaa?

Can't see it, but maybe someone will add file sharing or similar to their code...

Rapscallion

[Transverse Styles]

I think that the height of forums was last year... which is why Jelsoft was sold