Does there really need to be another Monero forum, and if so, why?
The decision to make Monero User Forum was one I made with a bit of hesitation. First of all, do I really want to be dealing with content moderation in Monero? Given the anonymous nature of people, this is generally a difficult thing to do, due to spam. Second, about 5 months ago the site Monero Forum was created. It's has been gaining some momentum and creating another forum would be seen as competing with it, for an already small user base. Third was of course the technical side, but thanks to AI tooling, this became a non-issue.
In terms of moderation, that is what I am already interrupted to do throughout the day with Monerica submissions, emails and X.com. For the competition side of it, I have witnessed several people copy Monerica and I feel it's open season on creating sites. While Monerica was the 1st sponsor of Monero Forum, surprisingly in the last month, they turned around to sponsor Monerica. This was a bit unexpected given the pricing.
I was waiting to see if Monero Forum was interested in continuing to be a sponsor but I was very confused about their ambition. When someone wants to be a Main Sponsor on Monerica, they are approached to be interviewed to get more awareness of what they are trying to do. That attempt at an interview didn't even get a response.
Once the sponsorship reminder email went out and there was no response or intent on renewing, it seemed time to consider making Monero User Forum. After all, I like building sites and there are several other sites made for Monerica already this year, see: https://monerouserforum.com/network
Now, I totally understand that trying to take away a share of a small user base might not go over well. I also understand the perspective that in less than a day of the expiration of the Monero Forum sponsorship that making a new forum would likely burn the bridge on future renewals. But, Monerica was one of, if not the top contributing member to that forum. So, if people are going to go there just to read what I am saying, why would I not put that publishing under a site I run?
It's good there are different forums. Previously there was a forum called Monero Town. Monerica wanted to buy sponsorship there to support that site but they didn't offer it. So instead Monerica donated to them to have a link. It was frustrating to see the site go down over and over. After contacting their admin, it seemed unimportant to them to keep it running. It may have been hit with DDoS a few times, so I am not saying it was easy to keep up. But I really don't like to see these forums go under and having no control.
But don't take only my opinion, you can see what other people have said about this on Monero Forum: https://monero.forum/thread/moneroforum-sponsorship-monerica-expires-2026-08-06 - and again, it's good to have different forums, the main problem is just the lack of Monero users in general.
Therefore, I do think there needs to be another Monero forum because: 1) they can go offline at any time, 2) Monerica has enough websites and publishes enough content to justify it, 3) viva la competition.