Well, one of the major advances which have been made on many forum systems lately has been features. For example, just two years ago, Proboards design forums were limited to dynamic images. Those were all the rage. Now, even the least populated forums boast features unheard of a few years back - full admin governance, Sql storage, RPG's. But what are some of the drawbacks of these features?

For example, Provision runs a point system... it took thought to implement it, and yet it delivers little results: I haven't been active since it started up over a year ago, and yet I am still on the list of top point-getters, and am not incredibly far from the upper members.

Another example, Xino Evolution, my own forum, was formed on the basis of creating a forum with features and design never before seen. We did succeed... people raved about what we had accomplished. Yet, this abyss of features let down the members community wise and we shut down within a week - 50 members strong, only a 1000 or so posts to boot.

What are your opinions? Should forums be heavily loaded with special features, or is old-school the way to go?

Heavily loaded.

It makes everything better.

It's the old "style over substance" debate really, make the place look the bee's knees and forgoe on the content or keep it simple and understated and have a thriving community?

I'll almost always go for the latter. As shown with Xino Evolution, it can be the best designed/coded forum in existence, but there's absolutely no point if there's no-one using it. It works the other way too - look at Pulse, the music board: simple default skin, no other images really and it's got 1.4 million posts and over 4,300 members.

I don't think that right away a forum needs tons of features.

As a forum progresses features should be added, kept, and updated. Eventually it turns into a forum that seems to have tons of features but they are all useful.

When it starts off slow and builds up you can see what works and what doesn't. It lets you get a feel for what would work and how well it would. Forums that do this usually end up dieing eventually mainly because, or at least what I think, is people get bored. They are used to the common feature updates and they just want more. There is already so much that only little bits can be added.

It's probably better for a simple, or old school forum; sticking with little features. Although it will attract more members at first, it usually ends up you can't do much in the end. The old school forums usually go at a slower rate and by the time they get to that point they've been open for years and people are too emotionally attached they don't want to leave.

Posted By tricky.cb on 4th Mar 08 at 11:42pm

 

I don't think that right away a forum needs tons of features.

As a forum progresses features should be added, kept, and updated. Eventually it turns into a forum that seems to have tons of features but they are all useful.

When it starts off slow and builds up you can see what works and what doesn't. It lets you get a feel for what would work and how well it would. Forums that do this usually end up dieing eventually mainly because, or at least what I think, is people get bored. They are used to the common feature updates and they just want more. There is already so much that only little bits can be added.

It's probably better for a simple, or old school forum; sticking with little features. Although it will attract more members at first, it usually ends up you can't do much in the end. The old school forums usually go at a slower rate and by the time they get to that point they've been open for years and people are too emotionally attached they don't want to leave.

You make a nice stand. But the question then arises, can't features be used to attract members when you first open?

@ Virtuoso: Yes, but what happens after that? People think that since version 1 had all those nice features wont it have more. Not everyone is real crazy about that, but some people are. If its the first version, I guess packing it nicely with features that have been overlooked and thought out wouldn't be too bad.

Posted By Cryhavoc_ on 4th Mar 08 at 11:17pm

 

For example, Provision runs a point system... it took thought to implement it, and yet it delivers little results: I haven't been active since it started up over a year ago, and yet I am still on the list of top point-getters, and am not incredibly far from the upper members.

The points system at ProVision delivers exactly what it is meant to. When the forum first started, points were given out at a higher frequency - as we've grown in activity and number of members the frequency has dropped but obviously. The actual top10 list (till about a week or two ago) had the most active members, several of whom have eventually been assimilated into the staff team. As a result, we decided to remove the staff members from the displayed list (although they retain their points). Over the next month or two, the dynamic on the top10 will shift with current members rising over older ones as more points are handed out.

EDIT: and don't compare PV to Xino.