What features are most important in a forum?

[mbuna]

I run several forums and would like to hear what features are most important to you all.

Any and all thoughts are appreciated and if you want to show examples of what you mean that would be awesome!

[rishixrich]

People are not able to upgarde their forum.So their is only one suggestion that i have for you and that is upgrade your forum regularly.

[mbuna]

Thanks for the comment.  I guess I was looking more for things like the addon's such as Karma, Reputation, Post Ratings, avatar uploads, etc.

[karrar]

People are not able to upgarde their forum.So their is only one suggestion that i have for you and that is upgrade your forum regularly.

I haven't heard about that feature, what is it? I think there are patches which can easily upgrade a forum so I always use those patches.
I like avatars and always try to find new ones because avatars increase visibility and add some spice to forums.

[andrew]

it depend's on what type of forum you smf,php etc as they all offer diffent types of addons and thing's like karma are a good thing and a shoutbox

[sikander]

Everything new is admirable and it always fantasied me. I am using SMF and there is a lot of stuff to play with it. I like news and shoutbox features in it. Moreover I always browse smf stuff to apply new additions.

[Slay]

ease of use, tha karma system, a shoutbox, good smilies, clear announcements for all forum members to see and most importantly, a server that won't disconnect users at random times while they are contributing to the forum.

[sizzle]

In my opinion, topic ratings aren't that important esp. because they can be misleading (depending on who actually votes).  I think it's cool to have member status/levels, reputation/karma, and even forum currency.  But apart from the features it's important to choose the right name for the board titles because that can really affect who joins and who doesn't.

[rayww]

I think the most important thing is the suggestion thread. This is the place to gather related information about how's a visitor feel about the forum. So that the forum owner will follow that to fullfill each of its forum.