It feels to me like there are two perspectives because there are two roles: one person is concentrating on the human interactions on the forum as a community, and another person is concentrating on the computer system and software which implements the forum.
Both are valid and both are important.
In the case of a sole operator self-hosting their own forum, both roles may be in the same person - that’s true for me.
But please, as a designer, do not forget the Morlocks who keep the system running, and who do care about the software version.