The way I judge forums is when I search for an answer to an obscure JS or PHP problem and find the exact question in a forum but with no answers to help me. At DP you usually find the question has been answered.
The funny thing about these Sitepoint vs. Digitalpoint threads is that both companies could close down their forums and continue to profit quite well on their respective main businesses which function in quite different marketplaces. And, the biggest irony is to see cpvr banned here, just gotta love that one.
DP's main business is OptiGold and thus its main competition is portal.com. This forum was originally created just to support OptiGold . All this other stuff is just gravy. I no longer go to any other forum because it just doesn't do it for me. I wish most other users would leave DP's forum. It was cool when it was super small. Now I find that half of my posts are nonsense and self-promoting. DAMN ME I'M SUCH A BASTARD! Damnit it, I even blog about DP's blog... http://www.jaygeiger.com/2006/03/google-error-with-robotstxt-might.html I think that the DigitalPoint logo secretly has a subconscious marketing device embedded in it.