Serious question. This forum is top-notch. The layout, design, speed, and even the minimum amount of ads are all great. If this site wasn't mostly exclusive to Rocket fans, it would probably create a billion hits. Of all the forums I know of, compared to this site, are all inferior in many ways. They all get caught up in the avatar and worthless crap that don't help the site. I love the way the message box size, the thread size, are perfect. I would invite everyone I know and their moms to this forum if it wasn't for Rocket fans only. What do you guys think?
My firefox says this website is ranked 38,182 in the world. For comparison: Lakers (lakersground) is ranked 80,703 Heat (heatinfopop) is ranked 34,216 Spurs (spurstalk) is ranked 58,546 Liverpool (tia) is ranked 35,282 But this is based on traffic though. I don't know how else they can measure popularity... or if firefox is even a reliable source. btw I had to google the Heat forum, so I'm not sure if that's even the right one.
I'm guessing you're saying this is the facebook of BBS' because of how it layed out/functions, not the way the members act. If that is what you're saying, then we owe that to the guy who designed vBulletin. Which is the platform/template that the BBS runs on. But I do love how Clutch keeps this place clean and speedy!
I've been to Spurstalk and this site is miles better than theirs. Everybody curses like crazy on there and their signatures have pictures that are distracting and pointless.
I hate facebook and I have been asked by many people to join it, but I refuse. My family pretty much says that my facebook is clutchfans. The only difference between me now and back when I first started here is I would post every thought that came to my mind (sorta like what a lot of people on facebook do); I don't do that as much anymore here.
Funny how often I see this around here. The internet version of the sun revolves around the earth. CF.net is great, but it isn't even close to some of the larger forums I've come across. As a sports site, it's probably in the top 3 of those I can think of though... Sons of Sam Horn being really the only big well run one I can think of off the top of my head. SomethingAwful NeoGAF SoSH to name a few. There's also stuff like reddit...digg, but I consider those closer to news aggregators than forums, despite pretty much having very similar content aside from the actual site specific stuff (video games, or Rockets in CF's case) As far as layout, Clutch uses vBB then hacks it to bits and puts it together in a way that runs efficiently/smoothly. Some nice add ons and an awesome color scheme (DARK THEME OR NOTHING) and off we go. The major thing is how the forums are broken down and how strictly/loosely things are moderated depending on the situation. That's the major part I think to any forum, and usually what determines how long the site will last. Clutch and the rest of the crew are usually on top of everything and it's no surprise that the forum has been going strong for 12+ years.
Sons of Sam Horn...yea, that is a great BBS. They are so elite, that you have to be invited to post and even then they expect high quality of your posts - which means, me and about 96% of this board would be unable to post there, lol. Obviously, it takes a lot of work to moderate that board, probably those guys' full-time jobs.
This is my most favourite forum. I belong to others, but don't really post on them. Most people here are pretty polite and respectful, which is not often the case on other sites. The moderators do a good job in getting rid of troublemakers here. Also most posters adhere to proper English grammar and spelling format. I noticed the site is quite open and receptive to newcomers and most discussions don't evolve into a bunch of inside jokes that only veteran members are aware of.
