As more webmasters are becoming aware of how increasingly important E.A.T. is to Google many are looking for more ways to 'prove' it.
That used to mean getting backlinks but E.A.T. is a different beast and reputation helps too. Moving forward, if you have a good forum on a specific topic, you can expect to find E.A.T. seekers creating accounts and that's not a bad thing, they'll want to write good posts, too.
You'll need the right settings to attract them, though.
#1 - They'll want an indexable profile page, which most forums already have. (some noindex them)
#2 - They'll want their user name to be linked to their profile from their posts. (Some forums unlink unless logged in)
#3 - They'll want to link to their site from their profile page(some forums don't allow links in profiles)
To the E.A.T. and reputation seeking crowd, nofollow tags are irrelevant so keep those.
The E.A.T. seekers are more likely to link to their forum profile page from somewhere important on their site, too, like the about page. They want to boost their profile visibilty in search. They are more likely to write better content to demonstrate their knowledge, and they are less likely to spam links in posts.
While proving E.A.T and reputation off-site is a PIA, forums may be the beneficiaries IF they have the right settings to attract the growing E.A.T. and reputation seeking crowd. Maybe that's why Google stated they'd give forums a bone...
To anyone who is already joining new forums with E.A.T. and reputation in mind, use your author name as your forum name, not your domain url. You're not promoting your site, you're promoting you(the author of your main content).
