Farewell forums and messageboards?

Is anyone of my followers still regularly visiting forums and messageboards? Apart from the genealogical one I am running with a friend, I hardly go anywhere these days. Occasionally I pop into one of the bigger forums or a messageboard, but not very often, and I don’t join any discussion anymore. The bigger international ones are still doing fine it seems, with quite a big community of people from all over the world. The old messageboards are still there, but don’t seem to be overly busy.

I wonder if all the Dutch people go to the big international forums nowadays, or have lost interest. I know a lot of people who used to frequent the existing Dutch forum(s) either have a busy job or started a family, which means they don’t have the time anymore they used to have. The community we had was quite a nice one, and people even met up at events, became friends. There were hardly any heated arguments.

There used to be All Things Royal, that turned into All Royal Things. Earlier this year they stopped, because there was not very much interest anymore. And of course a forum with its own domain name costs something. A member then decided to open a new, free forum called Royalty Forum, which I decided to co-moderate to keep it going. Then also the former owner of All Things Royal opened hers again too. But both forums are more or less dead. The free forum sometimes only attracts lots of spammers and we haven’t found a solution for that. If anyone posts it is always the same handful of people.

So, we’re all wondering now: have forums really gone out of fashion? Or do people not want to have civilized discussions in their own language anymore? Or do they think Facebook and Twitter are an easier alternative? I’d say a forum is a much better alternative than social media, where it is often much less easier to moderate and people are much ruder. If anyone has a solution, let us know.