-
Back in the day, before Google was popular and AI was only found in Sci-Fi movies, we all had our favorite forums, where we had to ask a question and wait to see if someone knew the answer.
-
Grandpa, what is a forum?
That was more or less the first thing that came to my mind when I found out I need to write an article on forums. After a while it came back to me, that we are not moving back to the internet stone age. Amazingly whenever we "google stuff" lots of the answers still come from web forums.
Whether it is a topic on tools, software quality or something else related to software.
One of the biggest reasons that forums are a great resource is the fact that you always get a discussion and different points of view coming from different experiences. The fun thing about IT is that you can reach certain outcomes in more than one "proper" way.
Of course there are the trolls and the "laugh-at-alls", but still it is more common to find a decent engineer or an expert rather than a moron. Here is our list of the most useful testing forums for testers and quality assurance engineers.
Software Testing Forums
Stack Overflow
Do you imagine a different #1 here? The creators of this web space should receive a Nobel Prize, or even a few. I believe this is a foundation of the whole IT industry. I still remember my teacher from the software development class saying "You can be 99.99% sure that if you are stuck with a problem, somebody else in the world was there before you and put the answer on Stack Overflow".
After a few years of working in IT, I had 1 case where I didn't find an answer. You can place your issue online and someone from the software testing community will let you know how to proceed (or at least will point to an answer in a different topic).
It is a very active space, but mostly focused on technical aspects rather than for example test process management.
The Club
This is a forum hosted and supported by the Ministry of Testing with the aim of co-creating better testing. It is a safe platform for all software testers. You can not only submit and answer questions but also network with software quality assurance engineers from all over the world.
The Ministry of Testing is a quality brand on its own and a very professional community. So feel free to look at what is happening "in da Club" (just couldn't resist) and learn how it can contribute to your automation project.
The Huddle
This is (unfortunately) not a q&a space for football fans. This is a software testing club hosted by EuroStar. It is more than a space for attendees of their QA conferences.
There are lots of questions related to software testing from many perspectives and approaches. The range is much more than test automation or best practices - is it worth learning German for testing - one person asked. It is an open forum and it has lured a faithful and proactive online community.
SQA Forums
SQA Forums is one of the most traditional software testing forums provided on this list. The range of topics is comprehensive and the number of members - more than 210K - speaks for itself.
It is a great space for people who are new to software testing and also for experienced developers and QA engineers. You will need to register to be active there but there is plenty to take from that forum.
Additional Resources for QAs
As we mentioned before in our article, most highly recognized software quality control experts are active on their social media. Those industry experts not only post on their blogs but also contribute to LinkedIn groups. Following them is highly informative and might come in handy one day or another.
QA Conferences
Another practical thing to do is the QA Conferences and seminars where you can really network with other visitors and speakers.
There are also other entities where you can discuss with other automation engineers.
Subreddits for QA
First, there is Reddit. Of course, it is filled with content on every topic in the world, but if you click here or here you will find content relevant to software testing and quality assurance respectively.
Other Software Testing Communities
There are also many Slack and Discord channels dedicated to testing - one of them is mentioned above the Club or his one.
Forums are a great way to archive knowledge, way better than events or even articles, which often get outdated. Last but not least, if you are at the beginning of your test automation adventure you will just take knowledge from such places.
But as your experience gets bigger and bigger, please start contributing. Always remember where you came from.
Happy (automated) testing!
