What makes you hit the back button on a forum?

Well, we've all been there: checking out a forum you're not a member of and after looking a bit, you decide to bail. The question is why and how can aspiring forum owners avoid such?

Personally:

• It is dead. If there hasn't been at least a few posts in the last 24-hours, I'm figuring it is de facto dead. It is a harsh truth, but empty restaurant syndrome is a very real issue with forums.

• It is overrun with spam. See the first point — likely a dead forum.

• Something significant is broken. Sign up, a key feature, whatever, not working — forget it, no one is wasting their time.

• Garbage board software. We all have our loved and loathed board software. There are a handful, however, are just so lacking, no thanks.

• Obviously toxic. Overt hostility, endless arguments, racial slurs, crackpot conspiracies, political extremism, nasty visual content, et al., is another reason to avoid. (There are some folks into that kind of content. They're often called trolls.)

• Information light content. This one is more personal, granted, but if most of the discourse is just fluff, there's no reason to stick around. (Though there are those into just chit-chat, so that can work for some.)

How about you?