Best Online Discussion Forums in the World: Top 10 - Bscholarly (2024)

Top 10 Best Online Discussion Forums in the World: Online Discussion Forums are internet sites where people hold conversations or discussions by way of posting messages. This is why they are otherwise called “message boards“. Online forums are in form of centralized locations where topics are discussed by different people who are in different places.

They are elements of social media technologies which are in different forms such as: business networks, blogs, forums, photo sharing, enterprise social networks, products and services review, social gaming.e.t.c. Participants also ask questions and get answers instantly from experts which has recently made forums good approaches in digital marketing and blogging for official digital presence of such participants and the corresponding experts.

Recently, online forums have become a key parts of the online world because they create spaces for people who have and share the same interests to centralize and exchange ideas on topical discussions. Now let us see the top 10 best online discussion forums in the world as at May 2022.

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Best & Most Popular Online Forums, Message Boards & Online Communities

1. Reddit: This world website or online forum aggregates news around the world and creates space for online forum users to hold topical discussions and rate the web content. Only those who are registered members are granted access to the reddit website where they can also post their contents which may include: images, links, audios, memes, videos.e.t.c in order to be voted on for ranking or rating.

Various topics are categorized into communities in the reddit online forum (those communities in the reddit online forum are also called sub-reddits). Reddit is a social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website and its registered members or viewers submit contents such as links, text posts, images, and videos to the website which are then voted or rated up or down by other members.

Reddit was founded in America in 2005 and since then till today, it has grown to have more than 500 million active users per month.

2. Quora: This world online forum is based on questions and answers in various topics and subjects available for the online forum users around the globe. It was founded by two former employees of Facebook social medium in Carlifonia, America in 2009 and since then till now, It has more than 300 million active users every month and it is still growing in terms of popularity.

Users of Quora online forum can collaborate by editing questions and commenting on answers that have been submitted by other users.

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3. GitHub: This is an online discussion forum used globally to converse on topics of common interest among the participants. It serves as a code repository host for the member’s content. Members are allowed to share their projects as the platform supports different types of files recently. GitHub developers can also collaborate or centralize on projects and they can also make the space or website better by suggesting new features and working together.

GitHub online forum has more than 65 million software developers or users and is currently owned by Microsoft. It is a forum that provides Internet hosting for software development and version control using Git and offers the distributed version control and source code management functionality of Git in addition to its own features.

4. Imgur: Imgur is an image-sharing website which started by hosting memes and images trending on Reddit. It is an online image hosting and sharing website that has more than 150 million users and reaches up to 250 million people every month.

The online forum was created in 2009 and now, its members receive subscriptions that allow them to enjoy free experiences with the billions of images hosted on the website.

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5. StackOverFlow and StackExchange: StackOverflow is a global online forum which centers on aggregating questions and answers for professional and enthusiast programmers who use it. It is the website that controls the StackExchange Network which is created by Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky in 2008 and since then till today, It keeps featuring questions and answers on a wide range of topics in computer programming.

StackExchange is a global network or forum which aggregates questions and answers on topical discussions in diverse fields with each website covering a specific topic and the questions, answers, and the network users being subject to a reputable award process. The reputation system allows the website to be self-moderating.

Both allow users to ask questions that bothers on software development and on topics related to STEM from around the world and receive answers from their programmers and the answers submitted can be voted or rated on depending on their efficacies.

Both websites offer quality online forum sercices to their users by scanning questions posted to ensure that they are strictly programming-based and are precise. Those that do not meet this requirement are rejected. Recently, the two websites have more than 50 million users.

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6. Discord: This is a global online forum popularly used for social gaming. Social gamers have gained more exposure and popularity given their online presence by using this online forum. Discord is an online community platform that offers real-time gamers’ communication and recently, it has recorded more than 15 million people logging in daily and more than 250 million registered users globally.

Its platform distributes messages and digitals instantly and its users communicate with voice calls, video calls, text messaging, media and files in private chats or as part of communities called “servers”.

7. Medium: Medium is a world best online discussion forum owned by a medium Corporation and hosts more than 60 million active users every month and allows users to post long articles for viewers to read. Its users has the capacity to link their social media accounts to the platform and by so doing, they can direct their followers or viewers to access their published works easily.

Medium is an American online publishing platform created by Evan Williams and was launched in 2012.

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8. Steam: Being a video game digital distribution service network, Steam allows the world social gamers to sell and buy games from one another and other gaming items, support, and communication among members of the gaming world. It was launched in 2003 and recently, it has more than 30 million users globally.

This forum platform has storefront by Valve in that it serves as a way for valve to provide automatic updates for their games and also expanded to the distribution and offering of third-party game publishers’ titles.

9. Archive of our Own: This is a repository online forum that is not meant for profit but with the contribution of fan-fictions and fan-works by its users. It was created by the Organization for Transformative Works in 2008 and since its creation till now, users can create profiles and add their works and contents in the website. Its users can create collections, take part in challenges, and also import or bookmark other works.

Those that share the same interests belong to subgroups or communities in this platform and recently, It has more than 2.5 million registered users who have contributed billions of works to the online forum.

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10. Imagine Games Network Boards (IGN Boards): IGN Boards is a massive online community or global message boards with gaming forums, entertainment forums, sports forums, and other topical forums such as cooking, dating, space, and pets. It has more than 229 million active users that have also made their presence on other pages.