They're ugly and clunking and have lacked innovation over the past ten years. But they're still pervasive (at least among techies) and their members swear by them.

Help me understand, what makes Forums so addicting and appealing? Maybe more important, what are the 2-3 key ingredients to their success?

Please feel free to invite folks that you interact with on forums, or might have something interesting to add!

Forums are built to discuss all of the activity surrounding a given subject and therefore they typically attract the people that are most into that subject. In that process, a passionate, tight-knit community is formed and it feeds off itself. By nature, forums feel somewhat closed off (even if registration is open) because they are driven by passionate, knowledgeable people and have a sense of exclusivity.

They are a great source of in-depth information, like-minded people and have a built in convenience that other channels lack. Forums haven't really evolved, but technology was never the main driver behind their success. Active forums continue to offer knowledge and a community that has remained intact even as technology has progressed.

Who "maintains" these Forums? Do a limited few start the majority of the threads? Or does everyone participate at a pretty equal level given that they're passionate about the niche topic?

I think the difficulty here is that the software itself has very little to do with the success of forums. Software doesn't create communities, it *supports* communities.

A group of people with a shared interest (or obsession) will find a way to organize themselves and share with one another, and most tend to be tolerant of any tool that helps them do so, even if that tool isn't particularly well designed or well implemented.

In short, I don't think it's any characteristics of the software that's responsible for the success of forums, it's the people they're serving.

There may well be a better way to serve the interests of a community interested in a particular topic, but the current model works *just* well enough that few are looking.

Like with anything, most people follow and a few lead. Forums are no different. Within forums you have very active users that maintain the momentum, less active users that contribute occasionally and then a huge population of 'lurkers' that may or may not have accounts but still follow along with the threads.

Agree with Whitney. For a number of years, forums were simply the best tool for many communities to communicate. Now with beautiful tools and apps, we see them as clunky (I agree) but for a lot of people, they were the only solution for a long time and for many they're still good enough now.

Also, from what I've seen, Emil is correct. In any large forum, there is a small % that actively contribute new content, a slightly larger percentage of commenters and responders and the vast majority are readers / lurkers.

It's the 1% creators / 9% curators / 90% consumers that people are talking about on the existing creation and curation platforms. The ratio applies to forums too.

Forums also vary in their cultures, even within forums that cover the same topic. One might be more accepting or tolerant of some type of behavior or reward some type of content, while another may not. People will naturally gravitate toward the vibe they are comfortable with.

More open platforms (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) that allow people to communicate cannot really replicate this, while almost every forum has its own distinct culture. The strong sense of culture has also helped forums persist while other platforms come and go.

Here's my take on the stages of becoming an active member of a community:

1. The narrative I tell myself as I enter the community, every time: this is a place with active members brought together by <Common Trait>. This is a tribe I want to to belong to.

2. I start visiting actively. Is this audience active? How big? Different sizes attract different people. HackerNews is too big. Three people talking about Flash is too small.

3. I decide it's worth my time, I try to participate. I post. I join a few conversations. Does anybody respond to me? Does anybody make me feel like I belong? If yes, I remain. If no, I leave.

Correctly deliver on each of these three steps and you have an active member and a successful forum / community.

I've been doing a lot of research on this topic for our new startup, so I'll try and sum up what I've discovered here.

First, forums represent one of the more basic, fundamental types of online communication (oncom?); somewhere in between email and chat. They're almost like an archetype in that way.

Forums are also the best-suited type of oncom archetypes for affinity-based communities. I think this is because, unlike email, forum posts are published in a format that is publicly consumable.

Communities thrive with the right balance of inclusiveness and exclusivity. Forums provide that, with being publicly viewable but having a barrier to entry (in technical terms, with registration; also in a cultural sense).

[Continued...]

They're also heavily customizable, so affinity groups (tribes, as Seth Godin calls them) can gain a deeper sense of identity and association. This customization also exposes some form of leadership -- or active cultivation. (Granted, leadership doesn't have to come from the very top (site owner). It can take all sorts of forms: moderators, crowd-sourced voting/rating, active posters, etc.)

The five stages of any tribe/community:

1. Aware of each other
2. Come together
3. Interact (be heard)
4. Stay together
5. Work together

(Clay Shirky also talks about these stages.) Notice the counter weight throughout these stages: awareness (inclusive), opportunity (exclusive), interaction (inclusive), association (exclusive), evangelism (exclusive).

Breaking it down personally, it looks like this:

1. I have to know you exist
2. I have to have an opportunity to engage
3. I have to be able to interact
4. I have to want to associate myself with you
5. I have to want others to be a part

You *can*, by the way, stall at stage 4 and still have a great community. It just never grows (or grows very slowly).

Interesting that people seem to be talking about the people participating the forums, rather than the software that runs them. :)

But the code does have a role, so I'll toss this out: is there a characteristic or attribute of existing forum software that seems like a meaningful factor in supporting or managing community?

For me it's the firewalling created by the topic/thread model: members (and potential members) of the community can relatively easily find the areas within the community that match their own specific interests.

Subgroups within the larger community do not need to inflict their specific interests on the larger collective, nor suffer through the irrelevant or irritating posts of other subgroups on a day-to-day basis.

[No way to edit a branch, so:]

Oops, meant to say the evangelism is inclusive. D'oh.

Good point, Whitney. Okay, so what specific features do forums have that make them so good for communities? (I'm just thinking aloud here.)

- A published format (hyperlink-able)
- A simple organizational structure: be it folders, forums, threads or forums, topics, threads, replies, or whatever [totally agree with you, Whitney]
- Some form of membership requirement
- Customization (personal and corporate)

... and I think that's about it. What am I missing?

I own and operate a pretty large forum community. We have 15,000+ active users, 8 million+ posts, and 65 million+ page views per year. The key to what makes forum sites work is the community that calls it home. We know our software sucks, and in some cases we are actually proud of it. In fact, there are several examples where site owners have tried to "improve" the site with updated software and the community left as a result. Forum communities are a finicky bunch... I'm always super nervous trying to improve my site for fear of messing up a good thing by pursuing things that I think would add value. Instead, we've just created new "parallel" communities on Twitter (5k+) and Facebook (70k+). There isn't as much overlap as you'd think.

Sean, in addition to what you listed, almost every forum platform displays each user's posts and join date which are important to communicate the seniority and activity of each member. Certain forums are also configured to unlock content/sections when the user reaches a certain milestone.

All of these elements create mechanisms that help keep people engaged and promote content generation/activity..

Emil -

Devil's advocate time: while it's true that seniority (duration of membership, number of posts, what-have-you) is factored into most forum platforms, is it an essential component?

Is having been around for a long time, or having posted more often than most other people, necessarily an indicator of value to the community?

Whitney: I'd say yes. A person that doesn't get accepted into the community (nobody replies to them, nobody acknowledges their existence, community ignores them) leave by themselves.

Who would want to be a part of a community that doesn't acknowledge them? I think it's a self-regulating mechanism and number of posts are a good sign of accepted members of the community.

Whitney, great question. Yes. In addition to what Octavian said, it also displays the level of contribution and investment that member has made. Typically, if a person has invested a lot, they will stick around. If a poster has 10,000 posts, they're likely not going to jump ship.

Their number of posts and time on the forum also demonstrates their level of contribution and commitment to all other members. It is also really common on forums for members who have been on longest to have more weight/respect in the community.

What are the biggest challenges that forums face? Is it a lack of new threads / topic generation? Influx of new members? Something else?

Forums work because of mechanics like Whitney mentioned (branch.com) , This leveling up system seems to attract and keep mavens. People join forums in the first place to interact with these mavens.

The leveling up could be seen as gamification. I think forums today could benefit from more robust gamification.

I belong to one forum that I have been a member of since 2005 (bigblueinteractive.com). It is a giants fan forum and the site itself is extremely web 1.0. I think the reason that the forum works is not only the underlying comfort that members feel because they are all huge Giants fans (which plays in important role), but also because the members have been discussing the same football team for ten years in some cases. There is no leveling up system, but rather a level of comfort that members gain because they feel like they intimately know the other posters.

This has led to in person tailgates before games and meetups at local bars. There are also inside jokes that develop between posters and nicknames for posters that do certain things.

Having been an owner of a handful of forums and a member of a handful more. I think they are great. It is not different than Twitter, Facebook, or even Branch. The only difference is, there is a sense of "home" for some people on a forum. They get to go to a familiar website, and know people. Don't have to worry too much about random people bugging them.

Most forums have a focus. So, generally, people that are a member of a video game forum, don't get harassed by people that don't care about video games.

Lot of interesting discussion already under way. Forums work because they provide a medium where like minded people can communicate, vent and discuss about common issues/problems/topics. Even though they may not have inspiring visual design, their UX is about making it easier for end-user to

1. Post on different topics
2. View threads
3. Message (using IM's) to other members

Having been active on number of forums for last 7-8 years, I've come to conclusion that every forum's community make or break that forum.

..contd.

Some forums have excellent communities and some communities stink! Furthermore, all these forums have community managers in form of mods who are mostly volunteers. So mods/community managers set rules/guidelines for communities and you pretty much shape that forum.

I personally believe forums/discussion boards are not dead at all. I don't give utmost importance to their visual design (although it would be great to have great visual design). As long as they have good UX where I can perform basic tasks (like posting my opinions) and welcoming community then I'm game for that forum/discussion board!

I love the input so far. Lots of stuff I was going to say has already been said.

A few thoughts...

1. Successful forums are almost always based around a topic. This is different from social networks which are rarely topical. I'll participate in forums about topics I care about and make friends there. I'll go on social networks where my friends are and talk about whatever.

2. Forums are most definitely NOT only for techies. We host a forum for our customers at help.ting.com and we get lots of non-techies and even forum newbies if they're motivated to engage.

Are the most successful forum communities centered around specific (Flash) or broad (Gadgets) topics? Do threads within those communities often wander off-topic?

Typically there are sections for whatever topics that should be talked about. Then most forums have a "spam" section, or off topic. Where post counts may not increase.

Today, it is hard to say what kind of forums would be successful. Some of the biggest forums I have seen, are just general forums, with sections for every topic possible.

In the past, my most successful forums had a focus on anime and gaming. Those tend to die out when whatever anime you're focus is on is finished running new episodes.

BTW, this is a relevant branch on Reddit. Thanks, @zaleary!

I've run a forum for 16 years now (murmurs.com) and trying to decide what to do with it. I"m against continuing it as is for a few reasons:

1. No one wants to invest time in another piece of software that is so specific anymore.

2. Maintaining software is a pain.

3. Too many features that do too little to further discourse and dialog.

4. The forum->thread->post hierarchy is broken.

The broader trends in social software are toward simplicity, and enabling people and getting out of the way. VBulletin, Invision, even Vanilla don't do this.

Branch to me is interesting because it is similar to some ideas I was kicking around for rebooting forums (ie, topics as tentpoles and conversations extending from them).

Ethan,

That's fascinating. I started this branch because we're currently designing Branch's hierarchy and want to learn from what works and what doesn't on forums (we should chat next time I'm home in Santa Monica).

With that in mind, what is broken about the forum > thread > post hierarchy? How could it be improved?

Forums of today are trying to evolve past Facebook. Which may or may not be successful. vBulletin, by Jelsoft. What I currently own a license for, has included additional software that allows you to run an actual website and have members post blogs. They are highly customizable, but sadly the biggest forums I have seen use the default style.

Josh, the forum->thread->post hierarchy is broken because it imposes order on something that should be fluid, and impose that order from a top-down way that limits any fluidity. Fluidity is a big element within discourse, so its kind of counter intuitive.

I toyed with a lot of ways of tackling this, hacking onto vBulletin a system that changed forums into a cluster of "rooms" and made people aware of who was in them, and who was adjacent to them when they were in a room.

The other thing that I toyed with is using stimergy (ant pheromone trails) as a way to cluster discussions around use of connections rather than explicit connections, including a decay function to normalize the graph.

I'd argue that posting in topical threads (like we're doing now) works just fine.

The issue is findability across threads.

Forums try to impose hierarchy on the discussion to make threads of potential interest findable. But as with wiki another other free-form user-generated content, structure is REALLY hard to impose.

That's why the community is more important than the software. It's the COMMUNITY that puts the structure in place and maintains it. Forum hygiene is a huge challenge and only works with the most dedicated of moderators/hosts and/or members.

I'm liking Branch so far, but have no idea how I'd FIND this thread had @branch not tweeted about it.

Its interesting that we think there is such a challenge in finding things to talk about. Processing, analyzing and clustering text by subject, lexical similarity, etc is not rocket science really. I once applied the Kohonen self-organizing-map algorithm to my board and it created a much better clustering topology for discussions than any forum/thread organization ever did.

What fascinates me about forums (I've never been a member of any) is the opportunity for ideas to reach the right audiences.

For example, if I want to discuss urban policy planning in Los Angeles I don't want to tweet to my Followers or share with my Facebook Friends – those are the wrong audiences.

But what's the right audience? Is there an Urban Planning Forum out there somewhere that I should be on?

Ethan, you seem to think that topical-based hierarchy is the wrong way to go. But how else would my bike lane policy branch get in front of the right people?

Josh, I think that is an excellent point. Forums are a great way to discuss specific topics. If you are an entrepreneur and create a new product that is in a specific vertical, getting early adopters and feedback in a forum for that vertical where passionate people are hanging out is far more useful than tweeting to your followers or sharing with your facebook friends.

In a lot of ways I think Branch has the potential to really create the same communities around specific verticals in a web 3.0 world.

Topics bring us together, but once we are together we can talk about whatever...

Case in point, my website (quattroworld.com) we have quite a few "social" forums that include non Audi related topics including Off-Topic, Beer, Sports, Politics, Photography, etc... in fact the Off-topic forum is our most popular and half the people in there don't even go into the actual "on topic" forums! Not to mention, we have very popular "regional" forums for local topics and events. Many of our regional forums even have weekly in person beer night meetups.

It is about community, and forums seem to provide the very best vehicle for this, despite their archaic software and technical limitations. Go figure.

This xkcd seems appropriate to the discussion...

Ethan -

You mentioned that Kohonen "created a much better clustering topology for discussions than any forum/thread organization ever did" -- I'm curious how that played out in terms of user behavior and experience.

As a user, how did I know what to expect from each cluster (in terms of types of content)?

Whitney - I never implemented for the user, mostly because it would have entailed rewriting a lot of vbulletin and I was lazy. It's always a back-of-mind project though.

Joshua, I agree with your point that once people are together they will discuss a variety of things. In some ways Branch's current model is the reverse of a forum. With a forum you have a central theme (like Audis) that is the initial draw and then a variety of topics stem from there. With Branch, conversation itself seems to be the theme and attracts people that want to have conversations about a range of topics.

Forums have a ceiling because they rarely have mainstream appeal. Casual fans don't have the desire to engage that frequently or deeply. Branch, while it's not specific to any one topic, requires a similar level of interest from its users.

What are the things you guys think Branch should/shouldn't control in the UX?

Firstly the forum-thread-post model is broken and there has been a lot of innovation in the last decade to improve on that model.
1. Reddit (Every sub-reddit is a forum in itself, every link is a thread)
2. StackOverflow (Every tag is a topic, Every question is a thread)
3. Quora (every topic is a thread. every question is a post)
some added votes, some added central dashboards etc etc but essentially Reddit, SO and Quora are forums. they just don't look like your traditional forum software.

2 key things forum software need to get right --
1. Identity -- there should be a way to attain celebrity status within the community. ex -- thanks-groans count, total posts, badges, karma points, mods. not everyone in the community is equal and attaining celebrity status is one of the key reasons why some people contribute a lot to any forum. (Reddit,SO,Quora have this in different forms)

2. Knowledge accumulation -- the discussions people have in forums should accumulate and preserve in some form for a decent amount of time. this timeframe in traditional forums is less. reddit has a bigger timeframe where that knowledge is useful. SO and Quora has much much bigger timeframes.

I agree with Emil that with Branch conversation is the central theme. Namesake was similar. The big challenge it faced and I think Branch will face is keeping the momentum going. That's because conversations are transient. Topics are not. Whether you are discussing Audi's or the New York Giants or Gemology the central topic and it's major spokes are unchanging. As newbies come and go the same issues keep bubbling up. But it also keeps the conversation fresh sometimes to the annoyance of the old timers. Quora addressed the issues of discovery, momentum and engagement by using "questions" as the starting point instead of topics like forums or conversations like Namesake. It will be interesting to see how this plays out going forward.

Maybe I am an old school forum poster, but I don't care for some of the ways those forum software handles things. I think that in order for order to be maintained, you need the topic - thread - post hierarchy. There is a reason why I stay off Reddit. I don't like how unorganized things are. When things are put in an order that most people can understand, it just makes it less daunting for a majority of newcomers to this type of place.

Thats a good point Chase. I dont like the upvote and bury system. It leads to conversations getting really confusing. Every forum I've been an active member of is comprised mostly out of friends, via games or real life... so when something is posted, I know who said it, and what was behind it. It's a more personal experience. I think the hard part for Branch will be have an infrastructure in place where someone can just throw a thought bubble out into the public without knowing anyone to add to it, and it being visibile enough to get the attention of the public to grow a conversation through.

An important consideration for forum software (and forum design, too) is the user's motivation in visiting the forum. There's a continuum to explore here that I think looks something like:

Problem solving (Stack Overflow, Quora to some extent) <----> Learning/Focused Exploration <----> (Quora, subreddits, any bike or health forum) <----> Entertainment/Time Waste/Fun with like-minded folks (Reddit, Digg, Gawker/Jezebel, Hacker News).

I think that forums that do a good job of enabling any of these things, in alignment with what the community is interested in doing, have a greater likelihood of cultivating a participatory and engaged community.

Hi Joanna, I like your description of the continuum of forum uses. In my experience most forums address the full continuum to certain extent. I've mostly been involved in hobbiest forums which involve problem solving, learning, and entertainment. The key things people tend to do in the hobbiest forums are ask and answer questions and share accomplishments and acquisitions. These are sort of the fundamental use cases for all forums. Implementation is where it gets interesting. The simplest solution is just a curated email list. Which actually works surprisingly well.

Hi Joanna, I like your description of the continuum of forum uses. In my experience most forums address the full continuum to certain extent. I've mostly been involved in hobbiest forums which involve problem solving, learning, and entertainment. The key things people tend to do in the hobbiest forums are ask and answer questions and share accomplishments and acquisitions. These are sort of the fundamental use cases for all forums. Implementation is where it gets interesting. The simplest solution is just a curated email list. Which actually works surprisingly well.