Forum design - the two main types

[Tas_mania]

I use a few different forums and notice they are set-up into 2 main types. On a forum like Gimp Chat any post or comment on a post goes to the top of the landing page. On Gimp-Forum the landing page shows a list of sections and sub-forums and the most recent sub-forum activity goes to the top of that sub-form. 

I think forum design affects users and their behavior. On 'the most recent first' forums people are encouraged to form alliances in order to promote content. At times it looks like promoting content is more important that the content itself. Recently the landing page was mostly posts by one author.
On the 'list of sections' forums people can ignore sub-forums they are not interested in. Having one author appear in every sub-forum would appear ridiculous.
So I think Gimp-Forum is the better design even if it does not appear so frantic most of the time

[Ofnuts]

So don't try this (this is the Portal link in this page's header)...

[Tas_mania]

Thanks ofnuts, that's an interesting way to read gimp-forum. It's the 'magazine version'
You have probably seen the slashdot comment moderation sliders? I usually turn them all the way up