It hard to really make suggestions to improve the forums because from the years I have been on here, the number of people who use it is quite small. I think even Tapas notices this, which is why they prioritize the Discord. It appeals more to younger creators/readers.
The Forums however is just a relic of the past that Tapas just keeps around. I personally prefer it over Discord, but I am someone who is older who grew up on the pre-Twitter internet.
i can definitely recall a time when cross promotion had been pretty common, not super huge but still present. I can't vouch for how successful it was but if you dig far enough you can probably find some of the older threads that organized these kinds of practices so it's not like it hasnt existed it just hasnt come back in a while (unless someone want to prove otherwise coz i'm totes here for it)
speaking more broadly this isnt the first and definitely not the last time anyone's brought up gripes with the way things are or have been on the forums. folks who've been here a long time have taken to muting certain categories or just frequenting the place less often and there's pretty obvious discrepancy between the volume of promo threads versus discussion threads and even in those boxes a heavy lean towards creator conversation than ones that readers may feel inclined to jump into. plus there's just whatever biases and opinions that bounce around that people may or may not want to engage with so i dont doubt it sometimes feels...prickly? if that makes sense
attempts have been made to try to guide user habits but not everything sticks and while it'd be nice to see the forums return to their "glory days" there's the inescapable reality that those days are just kinda gone. plus at the end of the day tapas staff and mods can make a million tries at setting certain guidelines or enforcing rules but it still falls on the users to truly put to practice whats being taught and sharing that knowledge/info with one another and when you've got massive influxes of new users it becomes harder and harder especially if there's only so many folks doing the teaching. like i'm pretty sure there's rules about spam or types of promo and other "bad habits" that keep showing up but again it's up to users to even bother reading and following those rules
as an old time user i've been in the camp of pop in engage if i feel the need (and sometimes when i should probably just drop it 
) or muting/un-following stuff that doesnt catch my fancy or i'm not really interested in seeing (or straight up dunno how to interact with it), plus i just dont frequent the place as often as i used to since i'm more active on other sites and i think thats kind of the natural flow of things where some may find (or try to find) a permanent home here on the forums while some move onto other places that better suit what they're looking for. it does suck to see how things have changed but thats how things go on an internet thats constantly changing with it's user demographics changing along with it. you do what you can but all things change eventually 
Tapas has done a few things to punish “community” creators in the relatively short time that I’ve been here.
First and foremost was their decision to hide “community” works. Yes, we all know that our stuff is still there, and it’s only a few extra clicks away, but those few extra clicks are everything. A new visitor to the site is not going to notice the community tab. They’re going to have the so-called “premium” stuff crammed down their throats.
And that is another biggie that shows exactly how little we matter to Tapas: the spamming of our notifications with those so-called “premium” things. Every day I clear at least a half dozen out without even looking at them. And who can blame me? It’s always “I was the female lead’s arch duke’s second cousin’s villain baby” or such. Tapas, if you’re going to spam me, at least spam me with things that are aligned with what is in my current library! If literally every other social media platform on Earth can show me adverts for truck tires after I did a search for truck tires, surely Tapas can figure out that a person with a library full of comedy, action, and LGBTQ stories is not interested in “I seduced the female lead’s baby”.
Better yet, throw some community series in there as well! And I mean some new stuff! We’ve all seen Heartstopper! Yes, it’s a very nice comic! But give others a chance to be seen!
And yes, I realize that my rant is more toward Tapas as a whole than it is to this forum, but it is Tapas’ utter indifference to community series that don’t get 250k views per day that drives people to spam the promotions section here. And it is that indifference that will guarantee that no matter how good a story may be, it will never get those 250k daily views.
lol I didn't even remember that, but you're right. That's how I found the forums, too. We're just following orders!
Eh, for what it's worth, I just saw this in my inbox on the main site and there's a novel in there with only 30 subs! So staff are looking through smaller series to spotlight. They just have to curate a list that balances ones that draw big crowds while also introducing new promising series to readers. https://tapas.io/collection/community-staff-picks9
I've noticed that they have been putting staff picks in the inbox on the main site. Also, if that's the novel I'm thinking of, it's one that I'm currently reading, and I highly recommend it! Didn't discover it through staff picks, but I'm glad some people might be able to. Go Mall Ghosts! 
However, the last time they advertised staff picks in the inbox, I did find something that I'm interested in checking out.
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As far as the forums go, I don't really have anything insightful to say. Most forums that I've seen on sites like this steer heavily towards creators, though I think Tapas might have the most unbalanced ratio I've encountered so far. I'd recommend a recommendations section, but the Discord already has that covered (and tbh, I feel like that and some of the contests are the only reason readers are there either).
So would you say that there are more readers that have joined the discord or no? In other words are there more actual readers who are looking for new stories on the discord of tapas versus this forum? @NickRowler just asking. 
I know you didn't ask me specifically, but to answer your question, yes. I don't think I've seen readers here at all, but I've seen them on the Discord. They mostly hang out in the recommendations section either to recommend things they like or to look for new stories.
In order to keep that channel from being overrun with self promo, creators are only allowed to recommend their own work if it fits what someone else is asking for. There is a self promo channel, but that's basically like your average promo thread here where people just drop links and leave.
i think the thing with main site promo issues is that tapas has to as mentioned by other prioritize what pays the bills but they do also look at community content but i imagine there's also probably the dilemma of sheer volume of works on the site overall versus whatever the number of staff members who are dedicated to looking through and finding community works to promote so it's likely a much higher barrier of labor than "just promoting more community works".
granted i'd love to see stuff from the community published we're part of what's helped to build up the site but i think it'd probably take a dedicated amount of laborers to perform the task especially to the amount it's demanded (at least by creators) which may not be guaranteed since youve got to take into account payroll (if it's even paid at all) and then screening those works to make sure it suits whatever tapas standards are for promoted works as i'm sure they've still got a metric that they go by
like it's definitely it's own beast that is connected to the forums thing but there's nuance and the issue seems to be finding a balance that sates tapas as a company and tapas' community (plus the whole reader demand and what they may be vocalizing so 
)
Now that you say that, it actually may be time to put the forums to rest--or at least, not say the forums advertise or help with promotion. It really is just a chat space at best. And that's cool! But yeah... perhaps reformation of this type of thing isn't what is needed. Rather, we just need to know there are other better means for getting what we want out of the tapas forums.
Change is good though, especially in this case. And I think creators need to understand that there is no singular place to properly advertise your projects and gain an audience through. Variety and proactiveness is key. And the tapas forums are not that. (not sure if they ever were?? i'm not a veteran here.)
I think there may have been a time where people were finding new comics to read from here on the forums but I feel like it was always definitely more a discussions and work-shopping (shop talking?) place from the jump than one for promo but somehow that got lost or confused as time passed
like i joined the site itself in late 2014 so any new comics i was finding was through the popular/whats new sections of the main site (before all the shuffling and renaming), spotlights that caught my eye or just checking out the works of people who i interacted with often or who's work was recommended to me.
once i hit up the forums in 2016 i was still mostly just popping into conversation threads so stuff i did read was either me peeping if anyone had their own work in their bio and we talked a lot/they seemed cool or if it was in a promo thread it was one that was like really specific (like fantasy stories with afro diaspora characters or like horror anthologies or something). Then there were threads where folks would share their favorite comics that they were reading and if a persons gushing about another story seemed interesting I'd check it out but I dont think people ever tried to suggest this place as being the "go to for promo"
like it's been a while but i feel like i'd seen more old threads talk about ways to make use of social media or tags on different platforms and if you had the coin to spare how to use stuff like topwebcomics or placed ads. it also kind of felt more collaborative with the advertising coz again there had been a dedicated cross-promo thread and then folks who had their own sites would sometimes offer advertising space on their sites to promo other creators (whether in a kind of cataloging format or just general cross promo). so i mean there was promo stuff but not like the dump and dash we see today and not nearly as bad when it did crop up
Just speaking from my experience with other writing sites with forums, it's pretty much the norm to have forum users be mostly creators. It makes sense when you consider that creators would be the people who have a greater interest in the site and who have more to gain from interacting with other users. It was pretty much the same in the Wattpad forums back when they existed, with the promotion threads becoming spam just like they are here. Most of the people using the forums were creators exchanging tips, talking about writing, or just socializing.
Not sure what caused the decline in users here, since I've not been here too long, but other than it being quiet at times, the forums work pretty much as any other I've been in. Once you mute the promotions threads it's a lot easier to find interesting topics. I don't think giving an incentive to users would help since that would still likely result in spam, even with limits on posting being placed.
Tbh, there's not any real solution other than for the creators who use the forums to get the word out. Readers are largely more interested in just that, reading, so it's not a surprise they don't come over. Does it suck? Yeah, a little. Would be nice to have things be more lively, but I think there's still some value to the forums as they are now so long as you temper your expectations.
Still like this better than discord, though. Things get a little too chaotic there and I don't like the quick pace of conversations.
I am not the best person to ask about this. Despite being part of the Tapas Discord, I am not active on it.
I have a tendency to get overstimulated by social media in general, which causes me to be a very passive user. The idea of checking 20+ tabs a day and scrolling through hundreds of message backlogs is not something I find enjoyable.
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