.gitignore not ignoring folder

In .gitignore add

public/forum

Run

git rm --cached -r public/forum

The problem is that this folder is already in your index (you committed it at an earlier moment). Changes to files in the index will always be in "git status". Only new files in that folder will be ignored.

To fix it. See my answer on https://stackoverflow.com/a/38304114/2274140