Is TFN the premier dedicated SW forum on the web?

Objectively speaking, Is TFN the central hub of SW discussion on the web? Like, if you were to recommend only one SW forum for someone to be a part of, would this place be it? In the sense of it being a dedicated SW forum, versus other active SW discussions that may appear on other forums like reddit, film discussion sites, or other nerd spaces on the web.

And if it isn't, where might there also be another dedicated SW forum? Other than RebelScum, which seems to be more a collector's forum.

I'm not trying to jump ship here, I'm just genuinely curious.

 

I might be biased, but I think it's the best by far.

 

I think that yes this is the best and most active Star Wars forum. I don't think your find a more active one either.
Just some basic facts for you
on average 3,403 posts are made per day
If you type in Star Wars forum into google the first two results are from this forum

 

Lol, that is literally how I found this forum. I typed that into Google, clicked on the first result, and here I am.

 

Rebelscum is actually our sister site - though as MotivateR5D4 pointed out, it is more collecting-oriented. We have a Collecting forum but it isn't our main focus. I'd say we are probably the largest SW forum site since starwars.com closed their boards some time ago.

 

I notice this forum gets a lot of traffic from non-users. Whenever I look at the column of Users Online Now I continually see that non-users tend to outnumber users about 3 to 1 at any given moment. I wonder what it is that prevents someone who frequents this forum from signing up. I even met a guy at Celebration who mentioned that he is always on here, but when I asked him what his username is he said he doesn't have an account and just reads the threads. There's plenty of times I might browse a forum every once in a while about a specific thing I'm trying to find information about that I otherwise would never visit, so I wonder if that's the case and there just happens to be that many passers-by at any given moment. But if you come here frequently, I don't see why someone wouldn't just sign up, even if they only post every once in a while and still continue to mainly just read the threads.

 

Maybe they just want to read and have no interest in conversing or are still thinking about it. I lurked here for a bit before signing up.

 

I lurked as well. What made me sign up was a thread in Lit about the SW Fact Files. Person maintaining the thread was missing a few issues and I had them so I added the information.

 

But that's kind of my point. If you find yourself coming back here that frequently, why not just sign up at some point? It just seems odd to me that someone would find so much interest here to come back regularly, but then not sign up for themselves and participate. Even if it was seldom that they posted, at least log in and be a part of the community.

I don't know, maybe it seems daunting to some. Maybe to a certain degree people feel like they couldn't just participate in these discussions, like members here are all some kind of insiders or something. I could see that, for the moderate fan towing that line into super fan. I guess to a certain degree I would feel the same on a forum focused on a subject that I'm only moderately interested in but curious enough to seek more information about.

I'm just curious is all. Not trying to judge anyone, nor am I trying to tout the members here. We're all just a bunch of regular j*** offs with nothing better to do. Really though, just sign up and start typing. Before you know it you end up spending more time here than you do with your own friends, and sometimes prefer it. I just feel like some people are missing out by not being here and realizing what a world this opens up to partake in the fandom.

 

I found this forum and after 2 days I signed up. The reason I didn't sign up sooner was because I didn't have the time then.

 

I wanted to familiarize myself with the place before posting and making a fool of myself. Getting the layout of the land never hurts..

 

We killed the official site's forum, so, yes.

 

It's a cool spot here. I've spent many a morning/afternoon/evening just hanging out here and discussing SW. It's really my only outlet for it other than any short lived conversations I might have with a friend or someone at work. But to do it is an in depth and as often as we do here, there's no other place like it. Only time I might find that outside of here is at a Celebration or other type of convention, but those obviously don't happen every day. I like this place, and think that others would too if they just take the plunge. Again, it's just recently occurred to me how much non-user traffic this forum gets, and how many people seem to come here frequently without registering. And I would invite anyone reading this to just go ahead and sign up and start typing.

 

I think it's good to remember that some people find established communities intimidating with respect to joining them. This place was long-established over a decade ago and turns 20 next year. At this point, I think we're among a tiny number of communities of this vintage or even close to it, although of course active membership has changed a lot over the years. I think what I'm saying is that the age and foundation of this place creates a lot of intangible gravity for people who haven't posted before. I know there are also a significant number of former regulars who lurk without posting, sometimes without being logged in.

 

That's kind of what I was alluding to in one of my posts, that it may seem daunting to register here, for whatever reason, as if there's some kind of inside track that members here have that others don't. But the reality is, it's not daunting at all. And for someone straddling that line between being an observer and a participant here, once you take that step and join, it opens up a whole new community that they would otherwise not be a part of.

 

First stop of new users should be the Welcome New Users forum - they can ask questions there without feeling daunted. (Hint for any lurkers afraid to sign up).

Edit - can't spell tonight..

 

google says yes (the first one is a german forum from the early 00s)


I was pretty active on SWNN before and it was also a cool and very active forum, but the community can be very toxic at times. (ST vs PT vs CT ....... etc).
tfn has by far the best community imo.

 

I don't know about other countries but I'd say yes this is the central star on the Internet of Star Wars fan discussion.

I have lurked here without an account-for over six years.

 

Although I'm sure there are tons of lurkers, quite a few of those unregistered users are bots.

 

I'd say that this and RebelScum.com are the best. Rebel Scum tends to be way too overloaded and you could spend weeks on there without seeing all of the threads. That's it's only real downfall to me.

 

I think Rebelscum is more of interest to the collector fan-base since that is their focus. We do have a collecting forum here but we don't have forums based on different figures, etc as they do. We tend to expand more on the films and other media (TV, books, etc).

 

Was Rebelscum created by the same people who created JCF? Because I always hear people say that they are our sister site.