Do you benefit from special interest forums?

Sadly, often not. In most of the areas that intrigue me, the general population is… unfortunate to converse with at best.

Ex: Comic books, Reptiles, Art, More Reptiles.

Yes, but than again, most hobbies and such I frequent forums for, is of the type that attract smart people that know their strenghts and weaknesses.

Yes, very much, arthritis and osteoporosis sites, gardening sites. There are so many things to learn from others experiences.

Serious Eats is a food site from which I have learned a lot.

I also regularly visit Kitchen Gardeners and a few Sudoku sites.

There is much more good info out there on the web than I have time for.

I hang out here a lot.

Not really. If I want concrete information on something, like horror movie release dates, video game reviews or where to find rare horror movies or again information or film producers and directors and so forth, but a discussion based process such as a forum can’t provide anymore than a quick search can, or even rifling through Wiki links for more specific sources.
I do enjoy forums though, for sharing opinions and dwelling on subjects, so I suppose they provide that, but it isn’t anything technical, I suppose.

Also it’s pretty hard to find serious forums where the members don’t engage in a war of who can come up with the wittiest comment or how many posts you can rack up, so while I attend a few long time forums, I’m not much motivated to look for more, despite just how many Halloween and Texas Chainsaw Massacre oriented forums there are out there.

Most certainly. Gaming, freethinking, PEARList, Science Fiction, etc. As @delirium alluded to, finding a smart forum is the hardest part.

I actually co-founded a forum that I visit fairly often and enjoy, but I don’t really get much useful information out of it. I do visit the forums at Apparelyzed regularly and get some pretty good insights and advice there. When it comes right down to it, my heart belongs to Fluther.

@delirium You just need to talk to me some more! You should call me and we can do art or something . . .

Not a forum, but I’m on mailing lists concerning Thomas Pynchon and John Milton. We synchronize book readings by chapter and some particpants are really good at digging up information, connections, contextual stuff. Others are critics or university professors. Very valuable.

Sometimes. I spent time on a music forum once, but mostly, I prefer the Q&A sites. Besides, I don’t need any more sites than this and Facebook to be addicted to…