Are forum's obsolete?

diddy

It's a discussion which comes up often and I always find it fascinating on what others think about the question.
Forums seem to be a copy of each other (Flarum excluded), a couple forums, make posts maybe like a post done.

I find people much prefer faster communication methods like Discord or Slack these days to interact with their community. I myself am I sucker for forums, I love them. But how can a forum software 'stand out' from the basics of a forum? How can a forum software add more content to make it more interactive so that users don't get 'bored'?

This thread is not attacking any forum software but is just so I can see how others feel and how they think that Forum Software could be improved for the user!

Thanks! ?

luceos

diddy Are forum's obsolete?

Question 1.

diddy But how can a forum software 'stand out' from the basics of a forum?

Question 2.

diddy How can a forum software add more content to make it more interactive so that users don't get 'bored'?

Question 3.

diddy is just so I can see how others feel and how they think that Forum Software could be improved for the user!

Question 4.

I'm stubborn and going to answer a generic underlying question I felt in your post from my perspective: "as a huge fanboy of Discord, what value does a forum like Flarum bring".

I'm a maintainer of two open source packages, Flarum being one. What I've noticed in terms of support is that Discord (chat) is way too fluid. I see the same questions being asked over and over again, which makes giving above average support a real challenge. Communities that depend only on the here and now, without any wish to create a mutual history together will be satisfied by a chat. But when you want to create an archive, something like a forum (where your data is in the owners hand) might be more fitting.

Digital

Obsolete? Reddit would greatly disagree. You'd be surprised there still a lot of interest in the Forum space.
The fact that you posted something here is proof that people are still looking into Forums. ?

Chat systems or better known as Instant Messaging are not ideal for long-form or in-depth conversations (like this post). It is also not designed for topic management (tags/categories segregation).

I do see chat/instant messaging use-case for minor or should I say, short conversations (Quicky, they call it lol). Versus forums, which I explained above.

The big downside of chat/instant messaging is chat history - which all messages gets buried too deep and makes it very hard (sometimes impossible) for users to review each one of them. Again, versus Forums, we can just "search" everything and you'll get multiple threads related to that keyword.

diddy But how can a forum software 'stand out' from the basics of a forum? How can a forum software add more content to make it more interactive so that users don't get 'bored'?

You need to be:

Creative
Interesting
Unique
You already said it - you need not to be Boring.

Justice

The thing is most forum softwares are outdated compared to services like say discord. I'd say a forum should be fast, it should be functional and simple to use. It should just have the features needed by the user. What I would like to see is the ability to deactivate features. For example lets say the forum has a like system but I dont want to use it:I should be able to deactivate it so that it doesn't occupy my screen. I personally dont like services like Discord because they are very crowded and way too complicated for what i need. The only reason I like Discord is the fact that I can easily activate dark mode(actually I'm not even sure if they have a light mode). I usually keep the brightness on all my devices at the minimum especially at night.

Hopefully I didn't go off topic too much ?

SolidOrphan

One of the main advantages of a forum is to be able to search it in a more efficient way. It looks like some sort of archive. I use both but Discord, if you can't keep up with the conversation speed, you get overwhelmed and you can't miss things you'd like.

Prosperous

SolidOrphan Not to mention the numerous times when the same question is asked and answered already.

SolidOrphan

I'd like to add that Flarum is the response when you look for the future of forums. It's modern but keep in mind its core values (shared hosting, easy to use & install, mobile friendly out of the box, etc.).

Timmer

To answer the OP's question, I say, "no."
A forum can't compete with Facebook, but there are some advantages. Privacy, advertising, and humane policies are subject to local control. For example, my site has no advertising or tracking cookies, not even Google Analytics, and no invasive javascript.
For reasons like that (and more) I believe forums outside of the long arm of big social will always have their place.