The first that I knew was Cryptotalk, full of shit posts and they stop paying English posters.
It was very disappointing. At some point, my topics got hit from meaningless spam.

I joined this forum and this forum is better.
Yes, Bitcointalk is much more professional.
I wanted to join Altcoinstalk but I saw it not different from the altcoin boards on this forum.
You are right, Altcoinstalks is similar to Bitcointalk's Altcoin section.
But here in Bitcointalk, it is much bigger, especially a good Beginners and Help.
Wow, it's really a big topic.
Cryptotalk
Cryptotalk was a very active forum where many members made contributions but most of it has been spam, probably due to Cryptotalk incentivizing posts.
...
Plus, as far as I know, I think it is related to Yobit? Yoshit?
You are right, Cryptotalk is not an independent forum and it seems to be run by Russian scammers (or at least shady people). International contributions on Cryptotalk have stopped almost completely but Russian replies are still very active, I don't know why.
I don't want to make prejudgement against Cryptotalk and I'm sorry if my claims are wrong but it really looks like it is run by shady people.