Do you operate a forum on any of your sites?

[MichaelCorfman]

The idea for this week's poll was inspired by GPWA member ApostaGanha who recently asked about the platform folks use for forums in the following thread: Which platform do you use in your forum? For this poll I am expanding on that question.

Besides voting in the poll about whether your currently, or have in the past, operated a forum, be sure to include a link to your forum if you to have one so we can take a look at your forum. And please share what you've learned operating a forum, how much work it is, and how you think it benefits your site.

And also please share what forum software you use, how satisfied you are with that software, and whether you have used that software from the beginning or migrated from different software, and why.

Michael

[AussieDave]

I don't use a forum now, but a couple of years back was using vbulletin. IMO they can either add benefit to a site, or the complete opposite.

[sweetbet]

I thought about adding a forum to my main site, but the amount of time and work that it would take to start, maintain and grow a forum don't make it an attractive option for me. Unless the site is quite popular and has a decent number of loyal visitors, a forum would just add more work with little reward considering the amount of spam and moderating that one would have to deal with in my opinion.

[Casino-Matt]

I tried twice in the past but deleted them both entirely.

Problems:

1) very hard to get off the ground in this day and age
2) so much work moderating
3) spam and spam backlinks almost destroyed my whole site

I used mybb first and the phpbb the second time but both have way too many flaws and will destroy your main site even if you lock everything down.

Just not worth it.

Ps- I tried bbpress on a test site and that I feel leaves far too many gates open for hackers to kill your main site.

[Triple7]

No, and no plans to do so.

In my opinion, it just benefits if you're having an active community. If not, that it works out the opposite. A forum with sections with 0 posts or the last post 5 years ago, gives the whole website an outdated image.

I got the opportunity to give a comment on articles. If I see the level of comments there, a forum would need very much moderation-work.

[ocreditor]

Have a forum but it's a lot of maintenance ! so if anyone is planning on launching a forum take this seriously in to consideration

[Rostick]

I did operate a forum 7-8 years ago (phpbb, no complaints), but I don`t think it merited the effort. Many people still flocked to the comments.

A few years ago I was thinking about whether I should start a forum for my moderately successful website (my goal was to create a community). I received advice to decide against it and I think that was good advice.

Even if you have an active community (if you don`t, you shouldn`t even think about a forum), I think a properly implemented comment section will bring even more value than a forum would. And it`s obviously much easier to set up & maintain. How many of the industry leaders have a forum today? There`s a reason for that.

In this day and age, with so much mobile, fast & straightforward layouts, social media, I really can`t see the reason for starting a forum on your website aside for exceptional circumstances.

[ApostaGanha]

yes i do https://forum.apostaganha.com/

simple machines

[celena]

I have forums on a few sites, but informative forums, nothing more.
And yes, it takes a lot of work.

[wizard]

Nope no need for forums use to but i find it a waste of time these days...

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using Tapatalk

[TheGamblersClub]

Yes i have a forum on my site, but the hardest part is dealing with the spam registration.

It is small in membership now but am in it for the long haul

[ocreditor]

Yes i have a forum on my site, but the hardest part is dealing with the spam registration.

It is small in membership now but am in it for the long haul

Exactly, the spam is a huge issue with forums, you need to have a moderator fully dedicated around the clock for checking users and validating posts etc'.. otherwise it'll not work

[TravG]

I do not but wanted to in the past. However after talking with others who did or had run a forum they talked me out of it. They said it was tough to get a good base of contributors and keeping up with the spam was too time consuming. I had always thought having a forum would be good for SEO purposes....

[casinodonkies.com]

We don't have and honestly, I don't feel we need one.