Forums - Good, Bad and Ugly

Over on Branch there is a discussion about "Why forums work". I have asked to be invited to the discussion but they are in beta mode right now so adding my two cents will have to be done the old fashioned way, with my own blog.

One problem with forums is not knowing what's new. You have to visit each topic or forum to find the new posts. No "inbox" per se. So I was glad to see an inbox in Branch.

One of the problems that has begun to plague Stack Overflow is that new questions fall off of the front page quickly. This is a problem for HackerNews as well but in a different way. HackerNews requires users to go hunting for the new posts and doesn't make the new posts visible to the general audience. Posts that the audience may enjoy will go unseen unless you are a celebrity or game the system in some way.

Finding a way to bring new posts to the audiences that can "use them", answer the question in SO and read the article in HN, has to be a key factor to any forum these days. Sometimes it is as easy as an inbox like feature, and for the application I am building that is the way we are going.

One solution would be to notify users of "interesting articles". Learn what users are interested in and then bring new posts to them. The plethora of services trying to do that these days are all trying to use your social network to gain insight, but I think there is more value in just watching what the user does and determining his/her expertise based on actions instead of friends. Something along the lines of NetFlix suggestions but for articles or questions.

I think forums work because their hierarchy is easy to understand. It is organized and takes a minimum amount of moderating to keep things orderly.