There is a life to a forum... for badly run forums it's measured in years, for the best of the best a couple of decades. There is a tension... between the core

There is a life to a forum... for badly run forums it's measured in years, for the best of the best a couple of decades. There is a tension... between the core audience ageing and evolving, and the forum staying still. If the forum evolves too then it is less accessible to newer people, if it stays stagnant it drives away the core as it doesn't keep track with their growth. Those forums that walk a middle path extend the life of the forum the longest, at the risk of excluding some original members and being slightly less accessible... but overall good for all. The real key to it is not preserving the forums themselves but to preserve the connections people make... to split larger communities into multiple communities when they get too big so that they continue to serve each audience and those who navigate across those audiences will do so. I'm not a believer in the Reddit model of subreddits as I think communities need a stronger identity of their own, an independence and freedom to be whatever they will be... rather than a micro-clone of the parent and still living at home with the parent. What should be easier: Creating and running forums, cheaply, by yourself or hosted, and driving engagement around an interest. If the cost (mental, time, $$$) for this is massively reduced then it becomes easier to create forums and split large struggling communities into smaller thriving ones... in total the audience increases, but there's a natural limit to what a single forum can do.