What's your view on General Forums and Community Based forums?

In other words, many people have forums with general topics on just about anything... (IE: Life, Relationships, Teenage, Adult, etc.) Many also have community based forums. (IE: AdminFusion is based on Forum Owners, Management, and Administration of forums, etc.)

What do you see getting further in members, posts, and popularity?

In my opinion, community based forums get more members, posts, and popularity because it's wrapped around one topic which many people are intrested in. They all post about the same things, meet people intrested in the same thing to a point where everyone is like a big family. (Everyone knows each other, etc.)

So, what do you think about General Forums vs Community Based Forums?

General forums may not get as many users like you say, but more will hang around because the can talk about anything. While community ones will get more users that need help but few that will appear often unless they need help with the subject. Or am I just babbling?

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I think the only problem with community based forums are that if they are based on Media things. Like shows or movies, specific ones at least not just "TV Shows" but like Alias. Like another forum I admin. Since it's getting canceld, Alias is, we had to try and reinvent the board to still get members. We weren't just going to shut down the board especially since we spent money on it.

I confuse people easily so if that made no sense what-so-ever lol it's understandable.

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Both general and community based forums have their own pros & cons. I favor community forums due to everyone has the same intrest on one board which kills the whole, "You ice skate? You suck!" thing which will hurt feelings, cause fights, etc. Though I never specify out - if my community is about TV and Media, I wouldn't specify it to ONE SHOW, but to many areas where the community can speak about any show they watch on a regular basis, etc.

These are usually referred to as general discussion and niche forums - niche being "community based"

Niche is definitely the way to go, imo...General forums can be great, but in the end, what are the people really there for? It's really just to kill time...Killing time is a good thing, especially if you can find an enjoyable way of doing it....but I'm also a fan of getting something accomplished in the process, which is where niches come into play. I can be so productive in a forum with a lot of content that I'm interested in

Aww, you just have too many periods in the wrong place, 'z all.

I like niche forums. Although as Syd said, basing a forum on ONE tv show will probably die when the show no longer produces new episodes. Unless you find that one show that goes the distance, like Simpsons, Law & Order, Friends)

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I went to Vegas, and all I got was this Blister. - true story!

... *sobs*

Or ER forgot that one.

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When I create community forums, I like to keep them on topics which can't really be "canceled". For example: Programming, designing, and all types of internet related topics.

Hm. It depends. I run a genera forum for women... when it comes to things like that, I hate having to go to one site to post about my boyfriend, and another site to post about women's health issues and another site to post about my diet.... we take care of it all at our site. Plus our members see the cross posts in different forums and different things can be taken into consideration. "You have a headache, you say? Didn't you just post in the diet forum that you ate 319 chocolate bars? Could it have been the sugar??? "

A forum generated on one topic seems like an incomplete story to me.

OTOH, if I come to a forum such as this and I have to wade through forums on basball, lawnmowers, and kitchen towels to get to the admin stuff, that would sort of tick me off.

So my answer is.............it depends.

Niche based websites are better IMO. There are a few major off topic boards and that's all that is needed. Offtopic, Something Awful and LivingWithStyle.