What do you consider to be a successful Forum?

[xHtmlPhP]

An original forum with many HQ members.

[DAMINK™]

An original forum with many HQ members.

Very simple. Yet quite true. Original and HQ posters. Thats about the nuts and guts.

[Ḱø♭ε Ḃґƴαηт]

It needs to have many active members, always new posts and threads, and also a good admin and mods.

[MarkW7]

For me, i'd say firstly one that caters to my needs, has active members, good content, mature members, friendly staff (power headed mods and admins aren't cool) and just a general nice place to be.

[Disease]

The questions in the Title.
It just came to me when I was thinking.
But their must be different opinions of successful Forums.

?

Success is defined by the individual looking at it. Everybody has their own criteria. And there are also varying degrees to success. If the discussion board is a business it may not be successful if it's not generating income; it might be successful once it becomes ramen profitable; or it might take even more.

For just a casual, non-business, discussion board my criteria for success are simple: respectable traffic and activity showing positive trends on various metrics.

[SadHappyFace]

IMHO a successful forum is where people don't have to think about this because there too busy on the forum.

[Twicks]

A successful forum is an active forum.