i have an opposing opinion- some forum dwellers there are immature & rude. nevermind if it´s a cool place...
IMO a very respectable forum is the Seymour Duncan community...
in fact, the people at Duncan often drop by/ monitor the threads there, they value the players´ feedback.
FYI- the Duncan Custom 5 humbucker, is a result of the forum dwellers´ suggestion & experimentation of removing the weaker Custom Custom model´s magnet & replacing it with a slightly stronger unit. Duncan took heed & it became an off the shelf production model
i do agree that there´re some bad forumites there but i enjoy reading the stuff they write. i guess i enjoy the socio-psycho relevance as well as the occasional bit of humour there and value it as much as serious guitar-oriented information. its like recreational reading, plus quite a bit of US-current-affairs updating for me.
the nice thing is that the community at HC is SO huge that you find all kinds of people and you´d probably be able to get a serious answer to both technical kinds of questions, and plain frivolous ones.
forums like SD´s would be better for people talking about serious stuff though i suppose.