How do you judge a forum

mooficat

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So I am looking for an active well attended Cookery Forum to join and I've been having a little look around, but I have a question

How can you judge before you join ?

One I've just been looking at seemed a bit miserable - the newbies that had joined yesterday or the day before had between zero and 5 welcomes
I checked the active members and it was at a similar level to TCS - could the lack of replies be an indicator ?

Membership numbers dont always mean that its active place either, many may join but only visit once a week or month

Subject matter - well again not necessarily an indicator of activity some people wouldnt believe how much we lot natter about all things cats


Advice, expertise and general content - well I would expect all forums to excel in these areas

Lurking
not something I've really done, I only lurked here for about 2-3 days.

well maybe its just a matter of joining to see how things go
 

adymarie

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Originally Posted by mooficat

So I am looking for an active well attended Cookery Forum to join and I've been having a little look around, but I have a question

How can you judge before you join ?

One I've just been looking at seemed a bit miserable - the newbies that had joined yesterday or the day before had between zero and 5 welcomes
I checked the active members and it was at a similar level to TCS - could the lack of replies be an indicator ?

Membership numbers dont always mean that its active place either, many may join but only visit once a week or month

Subject matter - well again not necessarily an indicator of activity some people wouldnt believe how much we lot natter about all things cats


Advice, expertise and general content - well I would expect all forums to excel in these areas

Lurking
not something I've really done, I only lurked here for about 2-3 days.

well maybe its just a matter of joining to see how things go
I think all you can do is leap in and give it a try. If you don't like it - leave.
 

lunasmom

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There have been forums I've been in that will give me 0 replies or 50+. Everything can depend on the type of question you have and the people that can answer the question.

If the forum is created by a chef/cook for example and a few of his/her friends, then you will probably see more answers. If it was started by some 20 year old college kid looking to pay for his rent, well that's a hit or miss chance.

Come up with some questions that you currently have and do a search for them on the site to see what sort of results you can get.
 

swampwitch

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I've found I can't compare other forums to this one. Most have a lot of rude people.

I wouldn't post in the "welcome" section first - I'd post questions and get a feel for the place instead. I belong to 48 forums last time I counted
and only one is as friendly as this place (it's a Mac site).

Good luck!
 

carolpetunia

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I wouldn't take the number of welcomes too seriously. I don't post welcomes myself because I'm on dial-up, and it takes me so terribly long to do anything here -- even limiting myself to selected posts, I still miss a lot! But that doesn't mean I'm not delighted when new people come along. I just wait to meet them in other threads...
 

adymarie

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Originally Posted by CarolPetunia

I wouldn't take the number of welcomes too seriously. I don't post welcomes myself because I'm on dial-up, and it takes me so terribly long to do anything here -- even limiting myself to selected posts, I still miss a lot! But that doesn't mean I'm not delighted when new people come along. I just wait to meet them in other threads...


I wait to meet them in the lounge and I am very happy they have joined the TCS family.
 

phenomsmom

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IMO TCS is the bect. Everyone tends to welcome people and talk to them no matter how long they have been here. I have yet to find another site like that!
 

natalie_ca

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Before I join a forum I lurk for weeks and sometimes months to guage how people are there.

I never join a forum that requires you to login in order to read the posts. To me that indicates "secretive."

The best thing to do is lurk and read, and even then sometimes that doesn't always really indicate the type of people that post there.
 

diego

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In my own world, its much nicer there
Whilst you are trying to find a decent forum, if you have any questions feel free to PM me.
Chances are I have the answer. The only reason I haven't joined a cookery forum is because if I don't know something I can simply ask a colleague.

When I was choosing a cat forum, there were only 2 I liked the looks of. This one and another, so I posted the exact same question in each forum and waited for the replies. I got 1/10 of sweet F. all from the other forum so I stuck with TCS, where I got a bunch of replies within minutes of posting.
 
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