what about web discussion boards

During the recent technology workshop I did, someone asked me about setting up a discussion board for his church. It wasn't an easy question to answer on the spot, because there are so many brands and softwares for discussion boards (also known as: message boards, discussion forums, web boards, bulletin board systems). What sets this kind of an online community apart is its threaded messages on a topic, and having separate boards for different categories. (Each software has a different name for each component, which adds some confusion to the mix.)

One word of caution before I talk about software. I've seen many discussion boards get setup, but very few discussions happen there. A discussion board without lively discussions is like a digital ghost town. You'd really need at least a handful of vocal and opinionated people that login to the discussion board almost every day and posts something substantive in order to have a discussion board worth having around, in my humble opinion.

For example, the discussion boards over at debatingchristianity.com (powered by phpBB) has many lively discussions debating Christianity & religion, averaging about 150 users daily and 3500+ users registered. Compare that to the discussion at the discussion boards for The Shack book (powered by SMF). Contrast that with this church's discussion board (also powered by SMF), which has fairly light traffic, and that may be okay, but that is not very inviting for visitors to talk it up.

Now onto the softwares. At a website called ForumMatrix, it provides a side-by-side comparison 46 open-source discussion forum tools, so you can preview all the features and functions of each software. The top 5 forum softwares listed there (based on views) are:

• phpBB
• Phorum
• SMF (aka Simple Machines Forum)
• MyBB
• vBulletin

Any of these 5 softwares are popular, which means it's easy to find tech support from the open-source community, easier to install, and easier for people to use. It's worth noting that phpBB won the SourceForge.net 2007 Community Choice Awards in the Best Project for Communications category.

4 other web forum softwares I'll mention: Invision Power Board is nice for having the option to upgrade to their commercial product, which can get you professional tech support and other amenities that come with a paid service. Newcomer bbPress has a clean look, designed by the people who developed the very popular WordPress blog engine. Tangler.com looks easy to use, has a Web 2.0 kind of look & feel, and there's one called aimoo.com that I've used -- easy to configure and doesn't require software installation.

What do you think? Which web discussion boards have you used, and what do you like or dislike? Does your church or ministry have a discussion board, and what makes it work well -- in terms of keeping discussions going?

--- DJ Chuang, Director of Digital Initiatives + more @ Leadership Network

Comments

[Chris Walker]

I have used the phpBB system with a religious organization from college. There are daily regulars who post everyday and this keeps some conversation going, but it seems that there are seasons of discussion and drought. When there is big national meeting, a lot of information is posted and discussion happens, but most of the year it is pretty much exclusive to those who are regulars.
I like the software. It is pretty easy to navigate and easy to mark things read all at once so that I can catch up if it has been a while since I logged in. We are getting ready to upgrade to 3.0, so I am looking forward to seeing any differences there.