>I’ve always found forums to be really helpful when searching for a topic but these days when compared to a voting system, forums feel dead or slow to update.
Voting systems create a lot of bad incentives. They encourage groupthink and filter bubbles. They discourage long-running conversations. I haven't felt that boards are "slow" if there is reasonable amount of new threads and posts per day.
The usual trouble with forums is that a lot of admins don't understand how to split one up into boards. They either create way too many, and those sit empty, or not enough, and then it's hard to keep track of conversations.
Maintaining the optimal number of boards and optimal average thread size are keys towards a healthy forum that doesn't seem empty, or overwhelming.
Voting systems create a lot of bad incentives. They encourage groupthink and filter bubbles. They discourage long-running conversations. I haven't felt that boards are "slow" if there is reasonable amount of new threads and posts per day.
The usual trouble with forums is that a lot of admins don't understand how to split one up into boards. They either create way too many, and those sit empty, or not enough, and then it's hard to keep track of conversations.
Maintaining the optimal number of boards and optimal average thread size are keys towards a healthy forum that doesn't seem empty, or overwhelming.