A better community site? Something more than forums?

[Ludachris]

I've been involved with building and managing online communities for about a decade now. Over the years, I've found that forums are extremely "sticky", meaning, they are great for return visitors. If you want a destination where people can chat and get to know each other, there's no better solution than a forum. But they also have inherent issues due to their structure.

I'm interested in building some sites with sections that do what forums can't always do - organize content effectively so that users don't have to ask so many questions in the forums. Not everyone likes getting their info by reading through Q&A sessions, and doesn't it get tiring sifting through replies to get the info you're looking for?

My question to you all - how many of you have built your communities around something other than forums? I'm not saying forums wasn't part of the community. But maybe the main focus was on member-written product reviews/ratings, blogs, articles, etc. What feature or solution was your main focus?

I ask this because I'm looking for some inspiration. I've grown tired of run-of-the-mill forum sites where the forums are used for everything. I think communities can be so much more than just forum sites, and I want to do some things that are different. Things that might help change the status quo and result in better communities for the audiences I'm catering to. Forums do serve a good purpose, but they don't do everything well. And I'd love to find examples of good community sites that don't rely 100% on forums for their content.

[Patrick]

Hello and welcome, Ludachris. Happy to have you.

I think what you think of as inherent issues, others may just look as differences in software or medium or features that need to be added. There are things forums can't do... unless you make them do them. There are things blogs can't do... unless you make them do them. There are things -name- can't do... unless you make them do them. These all serve a good purpose, but they don't do everything well... unless you make them do what you need them to do.

Hopefully you see where I'm going with this. If you want a feature that's missing, make it. Forums effectively organize information for those looking for the information in the manner in which forums organize it. But, if there is a way you want to organize it differently that you feel would be better for some people, totally go for it. If it's great, more communities will probably adopt it. And if you want to share your ideas for content organization, I'd love to hear them as I'm sure others would and we could all discuss them further.

With all of this said, there is nothing wrong with just being forums. While you may be tired of "run of the mill forum sites," as you say, some may be tired of communities trying to do too much, when they should just be focusing on forums. Generally, starting small and expanding is a good way to go. It's tough to launch with all of these things (product reviews, blogs, articles, etc.), especially if you expect them all to have activity. But, if you have very active forums, you can poll your memberbase to see if they want blogs and get verbal commitments that people will participate and then you can add them.

There probably an endless number of good community sites that don't rely 100% on forums that you could take a look at. phpBBHacks.com is one I run. Our community is built first and foremost on author submitted works and then the forums and tutorials within them. SitePoint, MLBTradeRumors.com, PowWows.com are ones that immediately pop to mind. But, you can go to http://www.big-boards.com/ and find a lot of large ones that are much more than just forums.

I hope that this helps. And, again, welcome.

Sincerely,

Patrick
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[harishankar]

I've tried to get my head around Drupal, which offers a community platform > a forum, but it's pretty complicated from a user and admin point of view.

A forum software offers something quite familiar and user-friendly for community sites. The more complicated a site, the less users will use it, at least that's my view.

Hope that helps.

Otherwise a good idea is to have large sections of static pages on a site and a forum as an "additional" space for community building.

Either a forum should be stand-alone or be an addition to an already existing community to enhance it. I think it's very tough to build a website "around" a forum.
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