What makes a great forum?

[MrCat]

If your forum gets a lot of Spam, it is an indication about how popular it has become

And also an indication that Mods can't keep up with their work, lols JK

[Penguino]

I think that a good forum is made up of friendly members who are accepting of newcomers and very active moderators who are not only willing to get rid of spam, but also to initiate conversation.

[sallyxu126]

I think as a good forum, it should get good poster firstly , and then it should have some skills to promote the forum and try to get more and more good poster here .
and then the forum can bring good information to peoples and be a good forum.

[Jacob]

Originally Posted by ablaye

Definitly the members.
A forum would never be great without dedicated members who keep the community alive.

qft

Forum.
3. an assembly, meeting place, television program, etc., for the discussion of questions of public interest.

A forum, or Bulletin Board, is built for the discussion of matters that appeal to its target audience.
If you had a forum, but no members, then your what we call, "FAIL".

But seriously, THE MOST IMPORTANT THING in a forum is the MEMBERS.

Originally Posted by MrCat

A well maintained and moderated forum with 0% SPAM would be a major indicator.

Active participation of members and admins/mods as well as very useful and related discussions are also some good qualities that a forum should have

0% SPAM isn't interesting, you need the odd bit of "epic lulz" randomly thrown in to lighten the mood of a thread sometimes.
But trying to keep everyone formal and mature can be harder then picking a name, but that depends on your niche.

Originally Posted by MrCat

And also an indication that Mods can't keep up with their work, lols JK

*cough*KB*cough*

Originally Posted by sallyxu126

I think as a good forum, it should get good poster firstly , and then it should have some skills to promote the forum and try to get more and more good poster here .
and then the forum can bring good information to peoples and be a good forum.

Definately, I mean, if you have random people coming onto your forum and posting about the latest D1 race, rather then how to code a CMS, then you have a problem.
I think the second hardest part of having a website in general is the advertising, its not moral to spam other sites, and if you hack another website and have their site as a link to yours, you get nothing but raged members who spam your place.

[Jontish]

Originally Posted by ablaye

If your forum gets a lot of Spam, it is an indication about how popular it has become

Or how mad someone is

[Jacob]

Originally Posted by Jontish

Or how mad someone is

Erm... keybase... ermm...

[chief]

success is relative but in my opinion a forum is successful when many user post in regular times. than you need a lot of topics which are interesting. If you want to start a new forum you should register some ghostwriters to let visitors think that the board could be interesting for them.