

Ask YC: forums still a viable format (group-enemy problem)? - petervandijck

I have a hypothesis: forums still exist and are still popular, despite being (feature and ux-wise) stuck in the 2000s. The 1 issue they could never solve is the "a group is its own worst enemy" problem, which Twitter addresses with the follow mechanism, Facebook addresses with the friend mechanism, answer sites by structing the discussion as an "answer", yc and co with upvoting etc. Forums rock though by bringing people together around topics, I don't think social networks/twitter/blogs/... compete with them there.&#60;p&#62;My hypothesis is this: forums can stand their own against social networks/blogs/... etc, but they have to be able to definitively solve the group-enemy problem.&#60;p&#62;Thoughts?
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jacquesm
I could never ever get the same kind of use out of facebook or something like
that that I get out of this particular forum, so as far as I'm concerned
they're here to stay.

The group-enemy problem is a serious one though, and one that every forum has
to contend with sooner or later.

There is an interesting article on K5 on that subject:

<http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2009/3/12/33338/3000>

I don't agree with all of the conclusions but it is one of the better stabs at
defining the problem.

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petervandijck
Thanks, that's a good link.

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petervandijck
Or are the new formats (facebook, ...) simply better and stronger, and will
forums go the way of the dodo?

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jacquesm
If you want paragraphs put in two consecutive newlines.

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petervandijck
I didn't put in those p tags, the system did that all by itself (which seems
like a bug?)

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jacquesm
hey wow. Yes, that is a bug for sure then. There is other weirdness happening
today.

