Probably one of the most important questions you've got to ask yourself.

What are your thoughts?

I think that a good forum should:

1. Have a nice theme. Of course, everyone has first impressions so it's really important that those first few seconds are eye-grabbing.

2. Have a friendly approach. Don't be too strict or harsh and certainly don't be mean to your members! There's nothing worse than a power crazy admin.

Hmm, very interesting question.

In my opinion, I think that good forums are made up of a close community of members who enjoy having fun and are also very good friends with each other. There's no criteria for a 'good' forum because every forum is different!

Alot of active members, the right amount of staff. And no spam.

Good Forum

• original design and theme
  
• good staff
  
• aleast 10 active members
  
• have things other forums do not have
  
• forum activities

A good forum should have:
- An interesting subject of discussion;
- A nice theme, and in the same time, a theme that fits with what are talking about in the forum.
- Friends always helps you with forum, you can ask them to join on forum and post interestin subjects etc;
- Most of us, sticks to a forum that have a customized domain name, like ".com", ".net", and not to free sub-domains;
- Organized categories and forums;
- Good staff members, that know how to work.

For me, a good forum should have and possess:
-Good Activity & Content (The most important for me, without great starting and ongoing activity, a forum won't last long enough :/)
-Nice forum theme,appearance & organization (A forum needs to be eye catching and the designs/colors must suitable for its forum content, light colors are great for General discussions forum and as such, dark colors are good for gaming related forum)
-Professionalism (Everything including the design, content and its staff members)
-Active Staff members
-Unique features and Contests

A good forum needs creativity, originality, quality, establishment and a good team.