General Do you still think forums are dead?

[NeoMetallix]

So I read a reply a few days ago on a different forum and it got me thinking. The reply was saying forums were dead and due to the lack of interest by the younger generation he said forums no longer work. Everyone wants a forum of their own and by doing so people are stretched all over the place. So instead of working together everyone's for themselves.

I mean, let's think about it... We're all passionate about our websites, forums, and online ventures. Imagine the collective knowledge, the shared experiences, and the skills we could have under in one place.

So you feel that like every webmaster is out for themselves? Maybe it's the fear of losing control or the desire for a personal brand? Why did you choose to create your own forum and not join an established one to work your way up?

I started mine because all of the forums in my niche were at best "meh" and at worst eye searingly bad. Either bland default themes with a graphic or two splashed here or fluorescent green with fluorescent yellow and bright blue.

Having everything in one place doesn't work well either. It's nice in theory but that's essentially what social media is and social media is homogenized and cannot offer the experience of a custom tailored site/forum. If every niche was under one umbrella? It would still stifle creativity. One person's vision of the perfect place isn't another's and you can't mesh it all into one.

 

[Chris C]

A number of the insightful responses in this thread.

I don't think forums are dead or dying, I just think they will need to become more niche-oriented, and be well designed and run. The more they offer people in the way of exclusive information, a sense of community and belonging, a chance for development and personal growth, etc. the more they will succeed. But so long as there is a need for community in particular there would always be a need for forums, though I do think creating one for personal rather than business or "success" reasons puts one at less risk of ending up disappointed.

One thing I have seen increasingly over the last 10 years, however, is the need for good moderation and site design. Genuine communities need protection from trolling, spamming, and the obnoxious types or they start losing the good members while attracting the bad. The more one takes an increasingly hard line, however, the more one needs to be able to offer others content and advantages that make up for it, so all of it has to work hand in hand. But everyone wants a genuine sense of community to share common interests in a cordial environment, and I don't see many other forms of social media offering it, so it's just a matter of whether it's being done right or not.

 

[Nomad]

One of the main problems with forums is people without SEO and digital marketing skills are running it. If you lack SEO and digital marketing skills, you will never be able to build users and traffic.

 

[Cory]

One of the main problems with forums is people without SEO and digital marketing skills are running it. If you lack SEO and digital marketing skills, you will never be able to build users and traffic.

I understand where you're coming from, but I'm pretty sure the SEO for my board is terrible and I generally gain 20+ members every month. I guess it just depends on different factors in how you promote your board and the audience you're trying to reach out to.

 

[Nomad]

promote your board

Promoting your forum is a part of digital marketing, right? If you know where to promote and how top promote and your strategies are bringing results, you are pretty good with digital marketing.

 

[Cory]

Promoting your forum is a part of digital marketing, right? If you know where to promote and how top promote and your strategies are bringing results, you are pretty good with digital marketing.

I think with a board like mine (forum resources) it doesn't take much to promote it if you're like me and post on the official support board almost every day where my signature is attached to every post I make with a banner linked to my site. I've had a hard time finding a lot of places to advertise on sites that could target the right audience, so I think probably 75% of my member base has likely seen my signature on the official support board and registered from there.

Targeting the right audience can be crucial to bringing in traffic and new members to a forum.

 

[Arantor]

One of the main problems with forums is people without SEO and digital marketing skills are running it. If you lack SEO and digital marketing skills, you will never be able to build users and traffic.

How exactly does one do SEO with content you don’t write, don’t predict and don’t control?

 

[Nomad]

How exactly does one do SEO with content you don’t write, don’t predict and don’t control?

If you have administrative excess, or moderation access, you can go to the post to tweak the title, add tags to topic, or even add some keywords and kephrase in the body. I am not suggesting to edit the user submitted post heavily, I am saying that making some tweaks can make the post ready for search engines.

 

[Arantor]

And you think your members would like you doing that?

Suggesting to edit user content at all beyond the thinnest layer of moderation (e.g. on a support forum changing the title from "Help!" to one summarising the problem) is rarely a good idea.

If I ever found an admin doing this to my posts, I'd be immediately deleting my content and never returning.

 

[Tracy]

And you think your members would like you doing that?

In only VERY rare instances should a site owner/moderator/admin do this. I have had occasion to do this a few times.. but with the XF functions, the original poster was advised why it was done (since I used the feature to do so) with a detailed explanation.
I've not had any issues in the few times this has been done (usually a post being in an inappropriate area then moved to a more fitting area).

But the fact you state that

If I ever found an admin doing this to my posts, I'd be immediately deleting my content and never returning

in itself is telling... It indicates that you believe that YOUR opinion over-rides what a site admins/owners opinion of the appropriateness of your post/opinion is. As an example.. I personally see NO issue with adding tags (or in XF's case Prefixes) to a post that may need them for specificity. The nice thing is... when it is done in XF, the OP is notified in most instances.

 

[Arantor]

Editing a post for being inappropriate is moderation. Editing a post to add keywords and make it more SEO friendly is a no-no.

I never said anything about tags, because that’s not rewording my content. Neither is moving it.

Stop tilting at windmills.

 

[Tracy]

Editing a post for being inappropriate is moderation. Editing a post to add keywords and make it more SEO friendly is a no-no.

I never said anything about tags, because that’s not rewording my content. Neither is moving it.

Stop tilting at windmills.

By whose "rules"? As a site owner/admin, one of your core functions is to make your content "more friendly". If it takes editing (and in the case of XF notifying the user of why) that post... where is the issue? You have instructed the poster on a better process of how to do their posts, you have also gained better "content finding"... or is your position that one should not deign to enable those "poor users" in how to better enable their posts and also help the site they are posting on?
The actual "core content" itself... no, an admin should not change that since it changes the core post... but other aspects are open to moderation.
BTW...there are MUCH more than simple tags out there in the fora world.
Stop trying to argue.

 

[Arantor]

If my contributions were poor enough that they needed editing in the first place, better I don’t contribute at all, then no one has to edit my bad posts.

But don’t worry, I’ll stop arguing, too fed up with your straw man debates to have a useful discussion with you. I used to think you and I were not so different but somewhere along the line you decided I must always be wrong about everything. It must be so tiring being so miserable all the time.

 

[Cedric]

I've done it before, but only to a few topic titles. Some topic titles only contained two to three words, so I went and edit the topic title to a full sentence which was a copy from the first sentence the OP made.

It's not that I care much to edit topic titles and content for SEO purposes, but I kinda dislike half arsed topic titles. I want to know what the topic is about by reading the title. Not two words and having to guess what's it about.

 

[joelr]

If my contributions were poor enough that they needed editing in the first place, better I don’t contribute at all, then no one has to edit my bad posts.

But don’t worry, I’ll stop arguing, too fed up with your straw man debates to have a useful discussion with you. I used to think you and I were not so different but somewhere along the line you decided I must always be wrong about everything. It must be so tiring being so miserable all the time.

So, I think it's important to point out that in many cases, it may not be that your (and by your, I don't mean specific to Arantor, but broadly to internet users) contributions are "poor" in insight or thought, it may need to be edited for entirely technical reasons.

For example there are parts of my community that are highly organized. Thats the strength of those sections. My superusers follow a specific protocol for the topic titles, so it can be sorted alphabetically and systematically. My superusers follow a protocol for the first post and usually in a consistent manner. And then some sop of a new user posts something out of his blessed goodness of his heart, but the topic title is a mess and the first post doesn't follow the common template that the community has collectively developed over the years.

I've thought about this problem a lot over the years. Do I force new topics in this section to fill out certain custom fields? Do I force a template?Can I provide proactive suggestions? Can I provide reactive feedback to explain why, and while thanking the user for their contributions, encourage them to conform better in their next?

The honest truth is that the answer is honestly a function of budget, time, and mental energy, but I do think community design has a long ways to go about encouraging specific user behavior.

 

[joelr]

By whose "rules"? As a site owner/admin, one of your core functions is to make your content "more friendly". If it takes editing (and in the case of XF notifying the user of why) that post... where is the issue? You have instructed the poster on a better process of how to do their posts, you have also gained better "content finding"... or is your position that one should not deign to enable those "poor users" in how to better enable their posts and also help the site they are posting on?
The actual "core content" itself... no, an admin should not change that since it changes the core post... but other aspects are open to moderation.
BTW...there are MUCH more than simple tags out there in the fora world.
Stop trying to argue.

You bring up an interesting point that I wonder if most admins have thought deeply about.

How much of a responsibility do you (as admin) have in respecting and preserving the publishing of your user versus the responsibility to make your site as readable and approachable to the masses? What are the demands of the One versus the Many?

 

[Arantor]

Here’s the thing: the original question was strictly for SEO. That to me suggests editing content not for value to the end user, but to search engines.

It also comes with a baked in assumption that this isn’t particularly done with the user’s consent or participation.

If it were an article, specifically as part of a content area designed to attract new people (for which SEO is practically an expectation), I’d expect that sort of thing to come up in a review pass. Because that’s what realistically should be happening - that sort of content gets passed to someone else to proof-read, check for tone, clarity etc.

Alternatively if it needed editing because it didn’t meet the published rules, that’s on the creator for failure to adhere to the published rules. SEO is not implied to be a reason one would be editing the topic in that case.

But for general topic participation? There should be no reason to edit that for SEO. Tagging/categorisation isn’t about editing the content, and Tracy was as ever tilting at windmills to make some, any, kind of relevant point, by setting up the argument that adding tags is somehow overriding my authorial intent (it’s not, and tagging being done by the moderators is a good thing because it implies a sense of consistency that is useful to everyone)

Note that there is a huge difference between editing for SEO and editing for clarity and comprehensibility. Note that there is also a huge factor about getting the author involved and it being a discussion - you come along and edit my posts in the name of clarity and tell me you’ve done it, why the heck should I keep participating if you’re just going to edit it without talking to me about it? If you take the view that how I write content isn’t up to the level you deem acceptable, you can write it yourself, or you can talk to me about it and we figure it out together. Editing it after the fact and merely “doing me the favour of telling me you've done it” is pretty rude, really.

For all Tracy’s assertions here, I‘m pretty sure he hasn’t actually been on the receiving end of it, and the moments he would have been, he would have acted exactly as I would have.

It’s about respect - if you want my contributions, respect the effort that went in. And if you want to improve it, come talk to me first, easy as that. Editing it behind my back for SEO (which, note, isn’t the same as editing for clarity) isn’t respectful.

The One vs the Many is an interesting debate. In my case when I use words, they are because they are the words I feel best makes my point. Editing what I have to say distorts that in all cases, even if the intent of what I was trying to say is preserved. But I’ve also been in the situation where things I’ve written were edited “for clarity” without telling me which ended up being less clear and eventually being factually incorrect. (Things I would not have gotten incorrect.) But because of the editing process, things were attributed to me that weren't my doing. This is why you need to involve the author - if their name remains on something, you need to be involving them so that you don’t misrepresent them!

Few people who create will pass up genuine attempts to improve their work as long as you work with them to do it. Even for SEO.

 

[Tracy]

Here’s the thing: the original question was strictly for SEO. That to me suggests editing content not for value to the end user, but to search engines.

Already stated editing the users content itself is IMHO a no-no... but title, prefixes, tags, etc.... not a big deal. And those do have to do with SEO aspects. No different than moving a post from one area into another because it fits better.

 

[Arantor]

Then what the heck are you arguing about?

 

[Tracy]

Then what the heck are you arguing about?

Seems you are the one arguing... I simply stated that modifying stuff like tags, title and such are valid... but modifying a post (unless it clearly is against site policy) is a no-no... you seem to be of the postiion of "Hey bitch, keep your hands off my posts" aspect instead? Reality does tend to bite. Simple moderation needs will frequently require what I refer to. SEO impact will frequently be a secondary or tertiary consideration.