Forum Board (e.g., I P B) V. Blog

[kaseytraeger]

Hi everyone,

 

I've been seeing a few posts flying about lately about Invision Power Board, and it got me to thinking...

 

What are the differences and similarities between running a forums board and a blog on your web site? Why would you choose to run a forum board instead of a blog? The reverse could also be posed ... why run a blog instead of a forum board? For those of you who are running either a blog or a forums board, how did one or the other meet your needs? What factors influenced your choice?

 

I'm not really familiar with all the tools and programs available for use on web sites. After all, blogging's been around for quite some time, but I just decided to install it last week! (Thanks again, TCH-Lisa!) Although I'm not familiar with all these tools, I know that the many members of our extended TCH family have played around with quite a few of the programs that are out there. I'm hoping to learn by your experience.

 

Thanks, everybody.

[TCH-Bruce]

This is just my opinion but I envision a blog as something that a single person adds content to with the exception of comments to the content added.

 

A forum on the other hand is more of a community endeavor where anyone can start a topic (content). Although you can restrict others from starting topics.

 

It depends on what you are looking to do.

 

I have a forum set up for support on my site since it's a shareware software site.

 

My wife has set up a forum for family members to stop by and share what's going on with them since our family is spread out over two countries and she also has a blog that she uses to post her daily musings.

 

So you don't have to limit yourself to one or the other.

Edited April 23, 2004 by TCH-Bruce

[DarqFlare]

For the most part, you can simulate virtually every type of interaction on both a blog and forum.

 

Forums usually have more abilities and options on the administrative end, but blogs have more publish-related features...

 

I'd go with what Bruce said as well.

[Guest LightKeeper]

I like to use either... I like phpBB forums better than Invision. I like the blogs too. They are cool!

[MikeJ]

As everyone stated, blogs are much more geared to "publishing" and forums are more geared to "community conversation". You can have community conversations in a blog but it takes more work (most blogs comment systems are meant to be easy and simple, and therefore tend to be somewhat primitive), and you can have a forum publish, but again, it takes a little more work.

 

I have, however, seen people take the best of both worlds.... A blog for publishing entries, and then replaced the comment system of the blog by incorporating forum software into the comments. Not recommended for those new to either though as that takes a bit of configuration to make it work.

 

Bottom line, though, if I were trying to decide between a blog and a forum... my primary basis would be on who is going to be creating the topics. If there's only 1 or very few authors creating the articles/topics (and then anyone can respond in comments), I would lean towards a blog. If you want anyone to be able to create topics for conversation, then a forum may be more appropriate.

[kaseytraeger]

Thanks for the comments! I appreciate the clarification of how each form of posting is both similar to and different from the other.

 

I've seen one post on the TCH forum be deleted by a moderator for some reason (don't remember what it was for). I take it that forums also allow the web site owner to modify (e.g., delete) posts made by other people? I would be concerned that a lot of flaming commentary would be going back and forth. Not exactly the kind of stuff I'd want on my web site. If anybody's going to be making flaming comments it'll be me!

[TCH-Rob]

I deleted a post today, at the request of the poster though. A forum board can allow you to delete, change or lock posts all you want.