Hi

Are there lists of the top discussion boards/forums on the Internet?

In particular, I am looking for intellectual/academic fora
(psychology, science, and philsophy in particular). 

I am sure lists of the best discussion boards will include these.

Thanks

Max

The Straight Dope Message Board is a large, active forum that you
might find interesting. Although there's a lot of fluff here, you'll
also find some very bright, well-educated people having some
interesting discussions:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/index.php?

Search dmoz.org for your interests.
Most of the categories have "chats and forums" subcategories.



able2know.com is pretty massive.
somethingawful.com is a pay per service that has a lot of activity.
eliteskills.com is a good general writers forum

Thank you both very much, great boards. 

It's hard to believe that there isn't a compilation of the Internet's
top discussion boards. There is a best of blogs, best of websites,
best of everything, but not a "best of forums"

Here's a multi-page list of forums that may interest you:

http://www.bordeglobal.com/forum/rate/index.html

One reason why it's difficult to compile a "best of forums" list is
that most forums have a slant toward a special interest, and only
those who find that special interest to be fascinating will enjoy the
forum. The Straight Dope Message Board (mentioned above) is more
broad-based, which is why I find it so enjoyable.

I wouldn't suggest the above link.

Not many respectable forums add themselves to "top site" pages. In
being added there one must add a banner to vote for the top site which
improves the websites listing among that group.


Stay away from "top site" lists.

OK. Sorry. I didn't check it out thoroughly. I just wanted to point
out that lists of top forums do exist.

Hi PinkFreud and everyone

It was not a criticism at all - I am very grateful to all of you.
Great pointers and much appreciated.

Max

Google Answers comes to my mind as a top discussion forum...heheheh

Steph53

Steph53 is right - and in general, USENET has been around a long time
as one of the best "discussion boards" (and google answers is mstly an
archive of these worldwide newsgroups).  Consider getting a good
USENET newsreader - most ISPs have  these newsfeeds, or there are
specilized sites with a few tens of thousands of newsgroups and decent
retention policies.

You can get the list of Top Discusion boards/Forums at 
http://www.big-boards.com/

Among them the largets one found is
http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/index.php