I agree. I learned to work with the forums and once favorites are chosen it's pretty user friendly but before...
It could be a start to have a standard text on the favorites page when the user hasn't selected any favorites yet, stating something like: "When you mark a forum as a favorite; a summary of that forum will be listed here. Follow the link to all the forums beneath, and pick your favorites."
Climbing the BB-mountain. Destination: the top.