I think it's important to note that having good communities can really make a difference in esports. I know that a few communities I've been a part of over the last 10 years (NoHunters, Team Liquid, etc) have made big differences in my path in esports. GotFrag's shitty forums (and the CS community in general) drove me away from that game even though I loved it. TL kept me in BW through many years that I otherwise might've drifted away.

A good forum can foster growth in so many important ways.

Sorry for the gifs. I'll use them minimally from now on. -_-

I was part of a Call of Duty forum called CODsource/TheTZ. It was basically the CAL COD forums just in a different domain. What made it a really bad forum, in my opinion, was that the trolls got the best of everybody. Eventually, the forum made for the worst when it was just had a lot negativity in regards to posters and content that was being posted. I've lurked in ESEA forums whenever I have Premium. Even there, it's hard to find really good conversations with over members without other members having at it at each other. Same goes with HLTV, lurked there and the forums was downright atrocious. I don't know what it is with FPS oriented forums but there is far too many Debbie Downers, I believe that is the correct phrase.

I think what makes a good forum survive is that you respect other members for their opinions and you don't attack them for what they said. Otherwise, if you do attack them it loses the idea of speaking out your opinions and just turns into Reddit. Overall, a forum is to facilitate discussions not attack each other. Trolling should also be kept to a minimal, I would /ban them if I came across them or /tempban.

Respect is key for growth because it makes you not look like fools. If I looked like a fool recently, I'm sorry.

[EDITED: Too much space in the bottom]

I've nothing to add, really, to what everyone else is saying - just wanted to say that the thing about a simple layout is something I feel is overlooked too often when someone is creating a new forum, and that I agree whole-heartedly with you when you say you want to keep it simple. Kinda, sorta, almost reminds me of Usenet.

I'm pretty sure we're on the wrong track when we start comparing a community to /v/....

I'm not sure what you mean by quality. I see a lot of red lines around here where people have gone back and edited their posts, which is good, but without a common definition of "quality", I'm not sure I understand how to control that.

I agree that respect is big, and I'd even mark that as part of quality. When I was a child, I did child-like things, but I am no longer a child- so I've left those communities.

Meme's are a mix batch... so you can't label them one way or another. On one hand, they're great at proving a point-simple and visually appealing, but on the other they can be a circle jerk list of inside jokes and can definitely de-rail conversations.

There are degrees earned on this topic, so it's no simple matter.

I would agree with that. Facebook etc... has gone DOWNHILL with them. Not just Memes, but media in general. It's like the ass of powerpoint, 2.0. Minimal effort, minimal quality.

Don't create em, don't use em, don't bring that junk in this house. Reeeeeeeeeeejected. No but really, they're lame as shit. Not here :)

I always thought sticking to text-only was a first good step, and by text-only I don't mean reddit's "self posts" where half the time the post contains nothing but a link. With text-only, people who actually want to participate (and not sound like idiots) must take the time and read what's being posted and usually that ends up in higher quality discussions. A meme, a screenshot of a tweet or a facebook will rarely lead to good discussions because there isn't enough "meat" to discuss in the first place. I think that's a big problem online though, and I have to admit I'm a victim of it, everything is just so quick and easily accessible nowadays that the average internet user has a very small attention span.

As mentionned by @chobopeon in the original post, I think the layout is really important. @var1ables mentionned 4-chan's /v/ and although I can't agree the content is usually worth it (it happens though) I love the layout of it. The text-only boards also have the perfect layout to display long discussions. If I could make one criticism to the current layout of turrbull, it would be the space between the OP and the first reply isn't clear enough. I, for one, would get rid of the share buttons as I doubt anyone will use them (how hard is it to copy/paste the URL and post it on Twitter yourself? Do you really need a button for that?) and there are a lot of privacy issues related to those (FB getting feedbacks from the users visiting this site, for instance). I don't use FB/Twitter so that might not be a popular opinion though. What I'd do to quickly fix the issue I mentionned would be to change the background (white) of the "sharing" section to the grey background of the main site. I think having some spacing between replies would make it look better as well. I should mention that I am a console kind of guy and have absolutely no design experience so take this entire advice with a grain of salt!

Obviously the biggest factor in a community is the people. Big numbers are good because they often lead to good things (see reddit) but the more people you have the higher the chances of having bad seeds. On the other hand, having a smaller user base will most certainly lead to better content but might quickly become boring if the same people contribute over and over again without much interaction. This leads me to give my opinion on moderation and moderators. I've seen a lot of angry mobs on reddit crying to censorship when a moderator deletes something s/he believes isn't contributing to the community and in most cases I have to side with the moderators (although I'll stop talking about reddit as I think it's a pretty bad community and the only advantages it has is the huge pool of members which comes in handy once in a while). I think moderators should delete everything that isn't pushing the community forwards while being impartial to opinions.

Lastly, I think a good community should have a fairly small scope when it comes to the subjects discussed by its members. I think TL has lasted for so long and is so popular because, no matter what was happening in the gaming world, they stuck with starcraft. There were a few years between BW and SC2 where the Starcraft franchise was nowhere near as popular as it is now and I think it would of been tempting for a community like TL to just say "screw it" and start branching out in a bunch of different games. Sure the forums have sections for DotA and Diablo and whatnot but the main focus was always Starcraft.


EDIT: Oh and IRC. An IRC channel is, in my opinion, very important to a good community. It's a good way to get all the out-of-topic stuff out of the way!

Well I think that's it. I feel like I rephrased some ideas already posted but oh well!

I think these are all good points. I'm at the girlfriend's so I'll save long replies for later but on the topic of off-topic stuff, I think an [Open Thread] can handle that. If we wanted, I could make this auto-update quickly becoming essentially a chat room in that way. The main reason I haven't is because of potential load problems to the server. I might give it a try and see how it's handled.

The share stuff I'm not sure about yet, they might stay or go. However, most members here do use Twitter a lot. It's a big deal in the esports community at large.

Your forum design is lacking more than a little something. I'm not sure of the software, but you need to first of all get the text not occupying ~30% of the screen.

As well a white+black colour scheme, kills more lives than it saves. A dark background would be a good choice.

Well, I am going to re-iterate most peoples thoughts. It seems every time I am available to actually write something with substance and meaning fams or someone else has already beat me to the punch. Excuse me if some of this has been regurgitated. I'll try to keep the paragraphs down and write concisely as possible.

1. Simple layout – text based.
High level discussion seems to be the focus. That being said, the discussion is what ‘makes’ the website, not the actual graphics, design, or any other unnecessary garbage. I love the layout of the website right now. However, I do think the postings should be extended to provide better readability.

2. Invite Only. Perhaps make people apply to get in? Perhaps use a pay-to-post model like SomethingAwful or FOHGuild.org

3. No images unless statistical graphs or use only images that serve an important aspect of the discussion.