The decay of Muslim forums

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Alamgir

Alamgir

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Asalamu Alaikum

Well, I'm sure you guys have noticed this over the past few years. Muslim forums have been becoming less and less active, with once famous ones like Ummah.com being almost completely vacant now. In fact, as far as I know, IslamicBoard is the last one standing (hence why I came here about a year ago), and even then this forum isn't exactly buzzing with activity.

Do you guys know of any other Muslim forums that are still active and promote traditional Islamic values? And how do you think we can reverse the current situation?
 
Salaam

I think one of the reasons is that there is so many different social media platforms to choose from.
 
Junon said:
Salaam

I think one of the reasons is that there is so many different social media platforms to choose from.
Click to expand...

I don't think so, the only real competitor to IslamicBoard is Ummah.com, and that one's doing even worse (but it's recently improved from how terribly empty it felt for the past year).

r/Islam is pretty active, but the people on that subreddit are mostly a bunch of liberals with an inferiority complex who don't seem to like conservative Muslims very much. Same goes for Quora, but the latter has the additional baggage of a toxic moderation that will ban anyone who gets reported by users enough times.

The Durkestan discord would be perfect, but it's run by hardcore Sufis who don't tolerate dissent at all (and they crack down much harder than the others).

Defence.pk isn't a bad place in theory to discuss Islam, it's very active and has a pretty large Muslim userbase (even if many of them are only cultural Muslims). The only problem is that the main theme of the website is politics, so naturally there are too many nationalists online who really don't place their Muslim identity as high as they should (a lot of them view their nationality/ethnicity as being above or equal to being a Muslim, and quite a few are even open about this). They are also very racist at times, and the non-Muslims on there can be pretty toxic (mainly the Indians and Persians). But honestly, the fact that it has such an active userbase who (mostly) aren't a bunch of liberals with an inferiority complex and don't silence people for being more conservative really makes it the only viable alternative to IslamicBoard.
 
Alamgir said:
Asalamu Alaikum

Well, I'm sure you guys have noticed this over the past few years. Muslim forums have been becoming less and less active, with once famous ones like Ummah.com being almost completely vacant now. In fact, as far as I know, IslamicBoard is the last one standing (hence why I came here about a year ago), and even then this forum isn't exactly buzzing with activity.

Do you guys know of any other Muslim forums that are still active and promote traditional Islamic values? And how do you think we can reverse the current situation?
Click to expand...

Once ummah.com was a good place but gradually it started to decline.
Now no healthy discussion is expected there.

Sunniforum.com was an excellent forum but now it's part of history. Some of its members are with muftisays.com

as far as islamicboard is concerned it's the best forum I ever found.
 
Yes, I agree and often wonder why these forums are so quiet.

When you consider that there are over 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, or whom a significant proportion speak English, of whom a significant proportion are actively on-line, it is pretty disappointing that none of the leading forums like IslamicBoard have more than a handful of posts every day, when we are all supposed to be sharing knowledge and encouraging each other to improve our worship. Is it because everyone is on Facebook?
 
Ummshareef said:
Yes, I agree and often wonder why these forums are so quiet.

When you consider that there are over 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, or whom a significant proportion speak English, of whom a significant proportion are actively on-line, it is pretty disappointing that none of the leading forums like IslamicBoard have more than a handful of posts every day, when we are all supposed to be sharing knowledge and encouraging each other to improve our worship. Is it because everyone is on Facebook?
Click to expand...
most of them like to share videos, photographs and chit chat on Facebook, whatsapp etc instead of Islamic forums. It's due to them being indifferent to religion.
 
there are over 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, or whom a significant proportion speak English, of whom a significant proportion are actively on-line, it is pretty disappointing that none of the leading forums like IslamicBoard have more than a handful of posts every day, when we are all supposed to be sharing knowledge and encouraging each other to improve our worship
 
Ummshareef said:
Yes, I agree and often wonder why these forums are so quiet.

When you consider that there are over 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, or whom a significant proportion speak English, of whom a significant proportion are actively on-line, it is pretty disappointing that none of the leading forums like IslamicBoard have more than a handful of posts every day, when we are all supposed to be sharing knowledge and encouraging each other to improve our worship. Is it because everyone is on Facebook?
Click to expand...

MazharShafiq said:
there are over 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, or whom a significant proportion speak English, of whom a significant proportion are actively on-line, it is pretty disappointing that none of the leading forums like IslamicBoard have more than a handful of posts every day, when we are all supposed to be sharing knowledge and encouraging each other to improve our worship
Click to expand...

These days, religious Muslims are mostly just active on YouTube, social media and Q/A websites, with a few bloggers here and there too.
 
One nice thing though, is that the information gathered over the years is still available to read for anyone looking for answers.
 
:salam:

Forums in general are on decline, not just Muslim forums. Forums had their prime time well before 2010. The old generation of members who were active during those days are all grown up and moved on with their lives. The new generation finds other social media outlets as more handy, specially with widespread smartphone use.

Earlier people used to use either desktop or a laptop for browsing, and now everything is on mobile. Forums were slow in adapting the new technology.

We have added several mobile-friendly features recently over the past few years. We also have our mobile app. If anyone has any suggestions for improvement, we are ready to implement them :ia:.
 
:sl:

Yes social media is a big reason. Since everyone is on their phones, not many use web based sites regularly anymore for discussing.

Many forums are still thriving though, :ia: with right strategies can become active like them.

Things we can do:
- Make full use of the mobile app, try and get all the mobile users of instagram, facebook etc. Show them this is more beneficial, and like minded individuals would be prompted to download it and check it out.
- Advertise banner ads everywhere, including reddit where they can discuss here too. Also run facebook ad campaigns and instagram, which will market the benefits of a forum.
- Set up push notifications on mobile, so if someone replies on your thread, can be notified to reply.
- Referral programme to give rewards, more forum upgrades if you refer someone.
- Keep the place active and post everyday which will increase more activity.
- Think of more unique benefits so it can stand out from social media and apply them.

Hopefully that should help boost the forum :ia:
 
I found a pretty active community on Discord, called MuslimChat. If you guys are interested let me know.
 
Free speech would help.

This forum needs to change

Why should I spend time writing a thoughtful post if my effort may go to waste because the post is censored?

[TABLE="class: grid, width: 100%, align: center"]
[TR][TD] This forum needs to change
Salaam and peace to all This forum is getting more restrictive each day and needs a mental change to better itself. Mods delete the posts and close the...[/TD][/TR][/TABLE]
 
fschmidt said:
Free speech would help.

This forum needs to change

Why should I spend time writing a thoughtful post if my effort may go to waste because the post is censored?



[TABLE="class: grid, width: 100%, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD] This forum needs to change
Salaam and peace to all This forum is getting more restrictive each day and needs a mental change to better itself. Mods delete the posts and close the...[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
Click to expand...

Yep, sums up why this is my first post here in several months...what spare time I do get online I am not going to waste typing posts that need approval or get deleted...
Seems a shame as I was learning a lot here and found it a warm and respectful place to be even though I might ask difficult questions...
 
Assalamualaikum.

Everyone out there who know I join in Muslim forum always wonder how could a Muslim like me interested to join in forum like this?. ... I am not 'masjid Muslim' type or 'Islamic Muslim' who love to talk about sharia or khilafah. I am just ordinary Muslim like majority of Muslims in the world. I indeed sometime attend Islamic lecture. But if I must join in majlis taqlim?. .. Wow!, I feel my level of iman is still not as high as people at there.

But what I saw in Islamicboard in that time did not make me feel alienated. There were many ordaninary Muslims like me at IB in that time. And they discussed about daily life that I could follow, not only heavy Islamic topic. So I decided to join.

Later, one by one of them leave the forum and back to their origin life. But new members who came later look different. Now I notice, newer members are dominated by those who love to discuss about heavy Islamic topic, and the youths who came to learn Islam and seek some answer. While the adult ordinary Muslims like me seem no longer interested.

Is it because the forum now is more conservative?. ... I don't know.
 
ardianto said:
Assalamualaikum.

Everyone out there who know I join in Muslim forum always wonder how could a Muslim like me interested to join in forum like this?. ... I am not 'masjid Muslim' type or 'Islamic Muslim' who love to talk about sharia or khilafah. I am just ordinary Muslim like majority of Muslims in the world. I indeed sometime attend Islamic lecture. But if I must join in majlis taqlim?. .. Wow!, I feel my level of iman is still not as high as people at there.

But what I saw in Islamicboard in that time did not make me feel alienated. There were many ordaninary Muslims like me at IB in that time. And they discussed about daily life that I could follow, not only heavy Islamic topic. So I decided to join.

Later, one by one of them leave the forum and back to their origin life. But new members who came later look different. Now I notice, newer members are dominated by those who love to discuss about heavy Islamic topic, and the youths who came to learn Islam and seek some answer. While the adult ordinary Muslims like me seem no longer interested.

Is it because the forum now is more conservative?. ... I don't know.
Click to expand...

:wa:

Bro, why don't you discuss the topics of your choice...?

Start a thread, would love to join you.
 
azc said:
:wa:

Bro, why don't you discuss the topics of your choice...?

Start a thread, would love to join you.
Click to expand...
At the moment I have no enough mood to create new thread since I am busy and hard to concentrate. But In Shaa Allah, later, after my mood going good again.

:)
 
I will disagree the idea of internet forums being generally declining because of other social media platforms. I have been a member of a famous christian forum since 2006 and they are increasing not decreasing. Thats somerhing the mods should ponder.
 

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