A question that people keep on asking me all the time, since I implemented a phpBB forum inside my WordPress installation (on my Dutch blog). Reality is that people think different about forums, combined with blogs.
Photo by Stewart
Many people think that a blog retains it’s quality, because it’s written by one person. Forums are for discussion and attract more people to give their opinion. That’s the reason why many people think a forum shouldn’t be used in combination with a blog.
But besides that, there are lots of people who think a forum is a great extra feature for a (successful) blog. Comments in blog tend to lose their overview, which keeps new visitors away from posting their comment. Threaded comments improve the readability of comments, but forums are way better in this part of discussion.
Improving the quality of your comments and discussions
As I mentioned above, a forum can be a great addition to the comments on a blog. When a discussion is fired up on an article, dozens of comments are going to be posted. Once there are a few visitors that post their opinions about the article in the comments, discussions will start.
As soon as a few comments are posted, the comments show their ultimate weakness. Five comments can be easy to read, but what if there are 25 comments posted on a single article? It will take some time read all that and get to know the connection between the comments. People respond on other people’s comment and the overview is gone.
With a forum, people can use the quote-function and so it is possible with the Quoter plugin for WordPress. But imagine yourself a article where the comments get a little offtopic. On a forum, you can split the posts to two topics, where two unique discussions can be running.
You don’t have that option in the comments of an article on a (WordPress) blog. For me, that is the biggest advantage of using a forum to extend your blog.
Forums ruin the feeling of a blog
Many comments on the implementation of my forums, found their way to my inbox. The majority of it was negative and the authors didn’t support my ideas about the forums. But what arguments did they give for their opinion?
Lots of people think a forum will make the special feeling on a blog, go away. Blogs are something special, where a few (or just one) authors can post their articles and people can respond to that. Adding some forums to the blog will kill the special feeling on a blog, and therefor a blogger will write the death sentence for it’s own blog.
What do you think about it?
Two different opinions and a lot of people that support these opinions. What do you think about adding some forums to your blog? Is it worth adding some forums, or is it the fastest way to kill your blog?
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Totally depends on what you want your blog to be.
If I want to have a blog that resembles a diary or some kind of ongoing novel style, I want comments to be discreet and in the background, I’d say. I’d want to make sure my thoughts get the main attention and everything else is a neat sidenote. As the name says: Just a comment.
If - on the other hand - I want to encourage an open discussion, the blog would be like a moderator in a TV show: My Blog would give the main topic, perhaps an introduction… But the main focus in the end would be the forum… IF the topic attracts enough interested parties.
Black/White examples.
As with any other project: Any feature might look great, have tons of usability, might be eye candy - but is it in concurrence with what I intend to have in the end?
So, neither for or against forums myself here. Just stay true to your intentions and plan wisely.