Which would you rather use? Name-Forum.com OR NameForum.net The "name" can be changed to anything else. Just using it as an example.
I will prefer you go with ".com" I don't think "-" is much problem. I can suggest one more thing you add prefix. Eg. you want to start forum for legal subject. then it might work as thelogalforum.com or mylegalforum.com that will help you to have more unique name with .com Just check and let me update your views too.
- It's easy to forget the hyphens when typing a name. Many users are used to typing things like freecpluspluscompilers.com but not free-c-plus-plus-compilers.com. They'll probably leave out the hyphens and wind up at your competitor's site. - When people recommend your site to their friends verbally, having hyphens in your domain name leads to more potential errors than when the name does not contain hyphens. For example, how do you think your visitors will refer to your site if it is named "acme-books-and-videos.com"? They might say, "I visited Acme Book and Videos dot com yesterday. It was fabulous." Their friends, remembering that comment later, might type into their browsers "acmebooksandvideos.com". Oops. - It's a pain in the neck to type. Enough said. - I prefer to avoid hyphenated names if I can, but I guess it really depends on your domain name and your situation.
.com is so much better than .net (especially if you don't control the .com version of the .net) that it makes sense to take a .com with the dash "-" over .net. Besides, there is nothing wrong with a dash in a domain name (chuckles)!
I'd go straight to the .net gTLD, it is the best for forums You may do as chandan123 said too Good luck
As long as the forum is new, its really hard for you to make a domain name with "-" in it. The day is becomes popular, it doesn't matter what the domain name is as people will remember it anyhow. But I'll prefer the .net one.
You would have to have a pretty boring website name to include the word "forum" in it. I would go for the .net as I mainly dislike hyphens.