About Big Boards

Big-Boards.com is a website directory aiming at presenting to its visitors a list of the most active message boards on the web. These message boards may be ranked by post count, by members count, by post per member ratio, using only recent (previous week) data, using alexa.com ranking system, or by traffic for the boards which have included one of the big-boards trackers. Visiting forums from this list may be very interesting for different reasons, for a user simply searching for particular information, searching for an active community on a particular subject, or for a forum admin to learn by looking at successful boards how to improve his own management.

The site is updated daily by a script which visits all boards in our database and retreives the board status. This script only executes one http request on the main page of the board, and at a time of typically low internet usage in order not to bother the forums' regular users. A daily status database is kept to be able to provide statistics of evolution of the board over time. Depending on the willingness of the board admins to share their knowledge, interviews are available for some of the message boards.

Visitors being aware of a large board not present on the list can let us know by using the free message boards url submission form. This url will then shortly be reviewed and added to our database (provided that it fits the requirements).

Finally, some extra information is available for forum admins to help them learn how to manage their forums, or find a good host.

If you are looking for software to run your forum, please check out our forum software section.

Big Boards is maintained by the following people:

Quentin Gouedard, creator and owner of the site.
Joris Vriend, volunteer editor.
Gary King, volunteer editor.
Scribbller, volunteer editor.

If you have any question regarding this website please read the FAQ or feel free to contact us

F.A.Q.

I have submitted my board. How long does the review process take?
I submitted my board and it's not listed. Why?
Some boards on your list don't have 500000 posts. How come?
My forum is listed but the stats seem not to be up to date. What can I do about it?
I'd like to change some of my board's information. How can I do that?
I'd like my board removed from your list. How to do it?
Why sorting by post count?
What is the best forum software available?
What are the arrows with +/- numbers in the rankings?
How to get the traffic information for my message board?
You seem to be missing some huge forums.
Do you take into account total posts ever posted or posts in database?
How to get listed in the resources section? How to exchange links with your site?
How to advertise on big-boards?

I have submitted my board. How long does the review process take?

Generally somewhere between a few weeks and several months. We get a lot of submissions and review each manually, which explains why it takes so long. If after 3 months your board has not been added, you may want to resubmit or contact us about it. The process may take a bit longer if the posts and members count are not easily accessible or if the board needs registration. In the first case, you may include the url where your stats are locateed on your board in your submission, in the second case it will make the inclusion process faster if you provide a test username and password to review the board.

I submitted my board and it's not listed. Why?

Either it has not been reviewed yet, or the posts and members counts were not accessible or it did not fit the requirement. The only requirement is your board must have 500000 posts, period.

Some boards on your list don't have 500000 posts. How come?

These boards had the 500000 posts at some point, were included in big-boards by then and for some reason lost part or all of those posts (server crash, hacking, pruning). We keep track of these boards although they do not fit the requirements anymore.

My forum is listed but the stats seem not to be up to date. What can I do about it?

This is because we could not find on your site the posts and/or member counts. A manual count was performed at the time of inclusion, and is performed again every little while (this little while being closer to 6 months than 1 week). If you can provide us with a page where those information are displayed please contact us or submit the stats page using the regular submission form, and we will change your board's status so that your stats get updated on a daily basis. If you are going to make a custom page for this, a perfect way to display the numbers on that page would be:

<members>23648</members><posts>813248</posts>

I'd like to change some of my board's information. How can I do that?

You can edit your message board's information from the profile which is accessible from the highlight page. If you would like the board name or short description changed, please contact us using the contact form.

I'd like my board removed from your list. How to do it?

Please contact us using your admin email through the contact form and we will remove your board.

Why sorting by post count?

Much more sorting options are available from the rankings page. The default is post count because we feel it is the primary indicator of a forum's activity. No indicator is 100% perfect, some boards prune posts, others members, others get memberships from other parts of the site than just the forum, the alexa ranking does not take into account only the forums, etc. No indicator is perfect, depending on what you are interested you can sort/filter by what suits you best.

What is the best forum software available?

We are often asked this question, however there is not a single answer. Each person has his/her own best forum software, which is the one that suits his/her needs. Some are packed with features, some put the accent on simplicity, some provide corporate support and services while others are open source projects. Many people on the big-boards list have switched forum software, and that did not happen in only one direction or another. The only think we can say about this is that probably all forum software that are used by either of the Big Boards can handle a lot of visitors.

What are the arrows with +/- numbers in the rankings?

They show the forum's change in the rankings compared with a week ago. Forums that were not in the rankings a week ago have a new icon besides them. The arrows and variation updates depending on how you sort/filter the rankings, always displaying the situation changed for the ranking currently displayed.

How to get the traffic information for my message board?

You can get the traffic information by including a tracker on your forum's pages.

You seem to be missing some huge forums.

We're doing our best to have a list as exhaustive as possible. However the internet is huge and it is very likely we are missing some huge boards. If you know of one we do not not have listed, please submit it. There are, however, some boards that we know are huge, but for which some information is missing and that therefore we cannot list. The following is a list of the boards that should probably be listed on big-boards, but that we cannot include due to missing information.

Board name	URL	Comment
Fryazino	http://www.fryazino.net/forum	russian .net forum, seems to have over 2 million posts, but no memberships information is available.
Tek Tips	http://www.tek-tips.com/	Apparently more than 900000 topics, but no post and member counts available.
2ch	http://www2.2ch.net/2ch.html	Huge japanese board, but no post/members counts available.
The Motley Fool	http://boards.fool.com/Index.aspx	20+ million posts, no memberships count available.
Chowhounds	http://www.chowhound.com/boards/boards.html	No memberships to access the board.
Tom's hardware	http://www.community.tomshardware.com/forum/categories.m	no member count available
Webmasterworld	http://www.webmasterworld.com	no member count available
Cigar Family	http://www.cigarfamily.com/cf4/index.cfm	Cigar smokers forum, has more than 500000 posts but no membership information
Tanya Club	http://www.tianyaclub.com	Chinese board with over 3 million posts, no membership information
counter-strike.de	http://forum.counter-strike.de/bb/	No members count available, more than 2 million posts.

Do you take into account total posts ever posted or posts in database?

We generally take what is available on the board. This may vary depending on the forum software, the board admin, and other factors. We are aware that this makes the rankings themselves relatively inaccurate, however we do not feel it is the most important, since it is very easy for a webmaster to cheat the rankings anyway. We intend to display a categorized list of the most active forums on the web, not to have a 100% accurate ranking.

How to get listed in the resources section? How to exchange links with your site?

The first requirement is to have a quality website. Then include a link to big-boards on your site, and use the contact form indicating the url where this link can be found, and under what category you would like to be listed in our resources section. We will review your website and if we find it to have appropriate quality, list it under the corresponding category. We try to answer every non spammy request, however if you do not get any answer from us by two weeks, you may consider that the request was denied.

How to advertise on big-boards?

Please contact us.