There are a huge number of communities online, and the range of conversation topics is limitless. Say you want to talk about sports—there are plenty of discussion forums out there for you. Interested in vacuum cleaners? There’s a site that has you covered. Looking to find people who love Japanese schoolgirls as much as you do? They’re just a click away. Most Internet communities are small and specialised, because there are only so many people in the world interested in a certain TV show or disgusting fetish. But the following ten are so big they’ve become Internet landmarks.
10. BuddyPic
The Stats
72,366,965 posts and about 200 users at any given time.
The Content
Half discussion forum and half picture rating site, BuddyPic is the place to be if you’re in desperate need of attention. Users are required to upload a photo of themselves before they can post, and most conversations come from people telling each other how attractive or ugly they are. There are more general topics of discussion too, but the vast majority of users spend their time ogling pictures of the opposite sex. And since this is the Internet, the board dedicated to looking at pictures of girls is way more popular than the one for checking out guys.
This whole operation could come crashing down the second one of them searches for “girls” in Google Images, but until then BuddyPic will be full of people looking for validation in the form of a high rating on the 1 to 10 scale and a few poorly worded comments from creepy people about how they would love to have intercourse with them. And really, isn’t that the foundation of all great communities?
9. Something Awful
The Stats
107,463,888 posts and about 6,900 users at any given time.
The Content
Something Awful is a massive comedy site that’s been in operation since 1999, and its forums have been famous for years. They’re unique in that they cost 10 dollars to join; some people balk at the idea of charging money for a forum, but it’s proven effective in keeping away those who just want to advertise or cause trouble. Something Awful has also been responsible for a wide variety of Internet fads, some of them hilarious and others… not so much. But on the whole, Something Awful combines great comedy content with well-maintained forums to be one of the most interesting sites the Internet has to offer.
8. Vault Network
The Stats
123,864,808 posts and about 600 users at any given time.
The Content
Vault Network was created in 1995, back when most people had no idea what the Internet was because there wasn’t any pornography on it yet. In its initial format it was dedicated to talk about Ultima Online, a video game that had just been announced and went on to become very popular. Vault Network has since grown to the point where pretty much every major online role playing game has its own discussion board. Since hardcore fans of the online RPG genre are considered huge nerds with too much time on their hands, it’s pretty obvious as to how such a large community was built up. Sure, there’s probably more to it than stereotypes, but we think they’re the most important part.
rpgvault.ign.com
7. Offtopic
The Stats
133,287,296 posts and about 1,460 users at any given time.
The Content
Offtopic, as the name implies, is a community where users discuss pretty much anything they want. Wait, wouldn’t that make every discussion on topic? Whoa, hold on a second, we need to sit down; we just blew our own minds.
OK, we’re good. This site also has a subscription system, although free users can still access most of its content. And there’s a ton of content; any website that needs seven different forums just to discuss cars is either massive or terribly organised. We’re pretty impressed by how big this place managed to become considering there’s no unifying theme to attract members like the rest of the sites on this list; we guess there’s something about having permission to ramble aimlessly that lots of people find appealing.
6. FaceTheJury
The Stats
163,584,547 posts and about 2,580 users at any given time.
The Content
FaceTheJury is ostensibly the second picture rating forum on our list, just in case you needed further proof that the Internet is populated primarily by perverts with too much time on their hands. However, this site hasn’t really been about looking at blurry photos of attention craving teenagers for quite some time. Instead, it’s fallen into a weird state of pseudo-anarchy, where a lot of very bored people flood the main forum with inane messages, terrible attempts at jokes, and a wide variety of slurs. Every time you refresh the page there are another half dozen posts along the lines of “coffee is great” and “I hate black people,” and nobody seems to care that they’ve created a wasteland. It’s like the Internet equivalent of Somalia, except with more dick jokes.
facethejury.com
5. Nexopia
The Stats
182,602,864 posts and about 7,800 users at any given time.
The Content
We’re surprised that Nexopia still exists, let alone that it’s the fifth largest online community. Its users are almost all Canadian; for Americans who are unfamiliar with the site, all you need to know is that it’s a social board that’s very popular among both teenagers and some very disturbed people.
The average Nexopia user is around 16 years old, so witnessing a conversation on the forums is sort of like being back in high school, except instead of a group of four or five girls chattering at once there are now four or five hundred. Discussion topics are pretty much what you’d expect at a site full of teens, ranging from complaints about family members to homework help requests.
4. IGN
The Stats
200,298,710 posts and about 10,600 users at any given time.
The Content
IGN is among the largest entertainment websites, so it’s no surprise that their community is well populated. Most of the discussions stem from video games, but there are also plenty of conversations about movies, TV and comic books. About half of the topics are just users whining about how a movie was disappointing or a game received unfair reviews, and while that sounds like an insult that’s actually a pretty decent ratio compared to other entertainment forums.
Surprisingly, cars are also a very popular topic of discussion, but we’re not sure if IGN’s users are genuinely interested in automobiles or just putting up appearances to combat the video game and comic book nerd stereotype the site would otherwise give off. It’s a losing battle, guys.
3. d2jsp
The Stats
317,897,870 posts and about 4,500 users at any given time.
The Content
d2jsp started life as a forum to discuss Diablo II, a popular video game. Diablo II remains the focus of conversation today, which is impressive considering the game was released in 2000. But d2jsp (we have no idea what jsp is supposed to mean, incidentally) has diversified quite a bit, and it’s now home to discussions about many other games, other forms of entertainment, and general chit chat. It also has a huge international community; any forum with a special board just for Hungarians clearly has a very wide appeal.
The site even plays host to its own video game now, a free Internet based one called Ladder Slasher. Unfortunately, it’s not actually about fighting ladders, but that does give us a great idea for our own game.
2. 4chan
The Stats
569,080,806 posts and about 60,600 users at any given time.
The Content
Is there anything we can tell you about 4chan that you haven’t heard already? They’re infamous, and for good reason; we could dedicate an entire list to the pranks they’ve pulled. They do some great things, like tracking down people who post videos of animal abuse on YouTube, and some not so great things, such as bombarding people they don’t like with obscene phone calls and hate mail. They’re also responsible for a massive number of Internet fads; some hilarious, others terrible, and all carried on long after they’ve ceased to be clever.
4chan started off as a place to discuss anime, but no topic is off limits now. Although it’s mostly porn. Seriously, there’s a ton of it; we checked very carefully. But what really makes 4chan unique is the fact that people can participate anonymously, which of course leads to users acting like idiots because there are no consequences for their actions. The end result is one of the Internet’s most influential communities, and certainly its most baffling.
1. Gaia Online
Stats
1,829,859,563 posts and about 38,700 users at any given time.
The Content
This is it, the largest online community ever. There are 23 million registered accounts, and one million posts are made daily. So what sort of conversation topics could bring that many people together? Current events? Politics? Nah, they mostly talk about anime and video games. There’s also a lot of role playing, and a lot of aimless rambling.
If you haven’t already guessed, the majority of Gaia Online’s users are in their teens. In fact, as we write this, they have an entire board dedicated to members complaining about having to go back to school. The discussions there are as scintillating as you’d imagine.
You may laugh, but Gaia is a serious business: users can pay money to access all sorts of ways to customize their profiles. It’s an effective system, considering that Gaia’s target audience has a lot of disposable income. Add in a ton of free collectible items, flash games, and contests to get users addicted to the community, and you suddenly realize that the people who run Gaia Online are probably evil geniuses. Although the fact that they have to maintain a forum full of nerdy teenagers seems like adequate punishment to us.
63 Comments
I’m interested about if these networks are greater than those, for example, Twitter and Facebook. Maybe this is engaged of gatherings just, yet I think online networks which enable individuals to meet, mingle, and share in any shape can be considered in indistinguishable domain from the locales recorded here. Am I the special case who feels that this article is somewhat obsolete? (Subsequent to looking up to see that the most punctual remark was posted in 2012, yes clearly this article is dated.)
Nice list but i thought there were other bigger and more popular forums than the list here
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correct
No 10:
BuddyPic72,366,965 posts and about 200 users at any given time.
……………………………………………………………………………….
I Think you are a great fool.
There are No less than 50 Chinese internet forums,
Which get at least 100,000 users online at any given time.
—————–
100% correct
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In 2011 A LOT changed for Gaia and they lost a lot of business o.o
No 10:
BuddyPic72,366,965 posts and about 200 users at any given time.
……………………………………………………………………………….
I Think you are a great fool.
There are No less than 50 Chinese internet forums,
Which get at least 100,000 users online at any given time.
Good
been checking far east forums and there’s a lot of chatter for the asian markets making runs on italian, greek and spanish banks (they have a large window of opportunity before european markets open) as they are weakest and worst hit on friday and also rumours confirmed in american forums that they intend to withdraw funds from the ENTIRE EU (they are comparing the entire EU set up to the Enron scandal) and intend to invest it in UK and Japanese markets if not their own markets starting on monday and until the end of the month and possibly beyond.
Middle East are yet to decide but it is believed they will follow suit with the asian markets and bet against the euro (especially as it was reported the ECB print 80 million euro’s a month and they are still struggling) and no gold reserves to back any new money printed so the euro WILL crash badly all week and maybe all summer.
The GB£ looks like it might rocket up to new highs following these events starting on monday as the world demands to look at the EU audits reports for last 20 years and why they haven’t been signed off (ENRON!).
Nice post.
Where is Reddit at?
Its an old article… like 2011 old yo. if it was recent reddit, quora, probably even brandnames like quantum xmetics and loreal get more views than these communities anyway
But great list for like back in the day.. allot has changed now like wow.
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Nice list but i thought there were other bigger and more popular forums than the list here
Old post ################################
All of them(Excluding Gaia online)
Seem like no effort had been put in design~
This are really top ten?
It is an old post. Possibly out of date by now.
Some I never heard of. And also really surprised Imdb not being there. Oskar Ponthe
The best of all Ty
the guy who wrote this article is a moron
”in 1995 most people didn’t know what the internet is because there was no pornography”
what a moron.A lot of people knew what the internet was at that time including me
Sometimes our humor misses the mark. We were kidding about pornography being the reason for the Internet and we believe most people were not familiar with Internet in 1995. If for no other reason access was so difficult and slow for many potential users – modems were only 28.8k at that time. We could be wrong, but we feel our opinion is valid and certainly debatable.
As far as phpbb – you have Gaia – http://www.gaiaonline.com which is the largest (over 1 billion posts) but hardly phpbb anymore since they have rewritten much of the code. The next largest english speaking (and larger than the next non-english phpbb board) is JLA FORUMS – http://www.jlaforums.com with over 306,000,000 posts. Next I think is Bokt.nl forum – http://www.bokt.nl but not sure how many posts they have.
This article is outdated.
where is kaskus ? (from indonesia), kaskus should be in number 3 ,they have bigger member and thread more than d2jsp
source: wikipedia
forum(.)jogos(.)uol(.)com(.)br Has 172.620.686 posts(open the page and you will see).Where is it on the list?
The biggest is actually onTRAC@HTMLfun. It has more than 79789,000,875,113,910,654 posts and more than 288,987,198,011 users.
Dude you forgot about daniweb, it has more than 1 million registered users and is one of the popular forum about programming, codes and internet.
I’m curious about if all of these communities are bigger than those such as Twitter and Facebook. Perhaps this is focused of forums only, but I think online communities which allow people to meet, socialize, and share in any form can be considered in the same realm as the sites listed here. Am I the only one who feels that this article is a little outdated? (After scrolling up to see that the earliest comment was posted in 2010, yes it’s obvious that this article is dated.)
the best community ever is steam and minecraft communties
I’ve just downloaded Minecraft PE and it’s becoming clear to me that there is an invisible yet robust community backing for it. I had no idea it existed until I had to search for random things for the game. Trying to troubleshoot a problem, such as animals constantly spawning in the ocean, lead to reading lots of forums dedicated to the game itself.
“Top 10 Biggest Internet Communities … Looking to find people who love Japanese schoolgirls as much as you do?”
What exactly are you trying to encourage here?
Nice, way to keep it classy and ethical.
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Wheres facebook?
facebook is not a forum my friend 🙂
What’s with all the “NERD!” stereotype jokes? Are YOU in high school? 😛
I’ve never heard of any of these and yet they are all so darn popular! D= … I am a self confessed internet failure </3
Dear Toptenz: Please make a list on top 10 4chan pranks 😛
so.
how come i’ve never heard of any of these except for 2?
Same here. I’m wondering how accurate this list is. I’ve only head of one before. makes me think…
http://www.Kaskus.us
The most larger community
i agree with you
hahahha.. im the kaskus-holic too… 🙂
Seriously guys. You’ve missed IMBD, Facebook, Myspace, Reddit, Digg, YouTube, OKCupid, to name but a few.
Number 10 has 200 users at a time? That’s nothing in in internet community terms.
They’re not necessarily communities. As in, you have to add someone to be their friends.
how isnt reddit on here
Wow, 4chan wasn’t number 1? wow, i guess video games > porn 😛 ahahaahahaha
Hmm, interesting list but you seem to have been a bit random with what you’ve included?
Seems like the stats are from the big boards ranking –
http://rankings.big-boards.com/?p=all
But you’ve removed Jogos from Brazil and if your excluding Vault Networks as an IGN board then shouldn’t Doctissimo but up there as well?
Site Checking
60,600 users at any given time on 4chan… I’ve only been to a few boards, but it’s known that some of them refresh at such a quick rate is almost impossible to keep up.
I thought IMDB would have been on this list to be honest
Nice suggestion. do you know how big the IMDB community is?
great list
<— member of #3 🙂
jsp means javascript parser
D2JSP is a forum that was started, not to discuss Diablo 2, but the distribute a an automated bot for Diablo 2. Diablo 2 Javascript Parser was the name of the bot. But now, the owner of the site denies existence of bots and will ban for the discussion of.
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