Do you prefer minimal or fully featured?

A minimal forum is a basic bare-bones forum. The forum is the main feature and all emphasis it on the forum being the main feature.

A fully featured forum is that with many addons or additional features that expands the forum into something more.

Now, my question isn't what you prefer to provide to your members...

My question is what you specifically prefer when being a part of any forum. Also, give me an example of how you use forums that are fully featured versus standard ones!

I joined a forum not long ago with a bunch of features.. I really felt uncomfortable. To many things I don't use and occupying screen space/distractions.

Features should be modular, That only shows if user choose to use them.

I like more the simple.
And really don't like ads within posts and/or images on signatures and/or large text in signatures. I find it disrespectful/very intrusive.

Depends on the niche.
If it is discussions only, what is the need for an article, review, link directory, classifieds, gallery section?
If the niche deals with images, then a gallery can (and usually is) beneficial. If it also deals with the equipment used in the niche, then an articles, review and even classifieds can bring benefit.
It is not a "once size fits all" solution.
That is why I liked Invision better when you could purchase their offerings a la carte and didn't have to pay for things you did not need. But now, for my primary site the "all in one" offering they provide would much more capability than Xenforo and all their 1st party add-ons. For the other sites I have running, both Invision and even Xenforo would be overkill. Discourse provides the same core forum features that Xenforo does (and some extras) and does it for free if you self host.

Mike30 said:

Features should be modular, That only shows if user choose to use them.

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I like that idea.

That would be very helpful and handy. Be able to activate and deactivate features for your own view. I feel like that wouldn't be hard to program, either!?

Shawn Gossman said:

I like that idea.

That would be very helpful and handy. Be able to activate and deactivate features for your own view. I feel like that wouldn't be hard to program, either!?

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You can suggest that feature to addon creators. It should be easy to add that option for users.

While modular features sounds cool, in reality most of the audience you have doesn't care about features and customizations. They really won't bother personalizing your site for their usage. It either clicks, or it doesn't. Us, legacy forum users think it's cool because we come from a different time.

Cedric said:

While modular features sounds cool, in reality most of the audience you have doesn't care about features and customizations. They really won't bother personalizing your site for their usage. It either clicks, or it doesn't. Us, legacy forum users think it's cool because we come from a different time.

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I agree with that...