Renaissance of forums?

[elmo]

Now that reddit has announced a, inn all but word, lockout of third party apps, and supposedly crap app made by themselves, do you think stand-alone forums will come back again?

Discuss.

 

[Floris]

Now that reddit has announced a, inn all but word, lockout of third party apps, and supposedly crap app made by themselves, do you think stand-alone forums will come back again?

Discuss.

Well, owner of this forum here, cough cough .. biased answer: Yes, I sure hope so! However, the reality probably is the opposite. I am sure self-hosted solutions are a thing of the past. People don't even know anymore what a -post reply- button is, or what a thread entails. Unless it's a trending topic. The amount of info on a screen to have a conversation is not 'just that' surrounded by ads, to guide them to the content. And reading it all requires too much attention. We'd have to revamp the whole structure of the forum, remove 50% of the features off of the page, and put useless attention on the clickbait titles, and then offer some pay features for being special, so people can be upset over it and that will keep a conversation going. In order for today's society to understand and want to use a forum. Not my cup of tea.

I do think that there's room and value in forums, but I know I am in the minority for thinking that. I wish more people would realise the real content and connections they can get through forums. Rather than rely on temporary content that's a single written sentence with the real intention hiding behind some emotes.

 

[elmo]

Well, owner of this forum here, cough cough .. biased answer: Yes, I sure hope so! However, the reality probably is the opposite. I am sure self-hosted solutions are a thing of the past. People don't even know anymore what a -post reply- button is, or what a thread entails. Unless it's a trending topic. The amount of info on a screen to have a conversation is not 'just that' surrounded by ads, to guide them to the content. And reading it all requires too much attention. We'd have to revamp the whole structure of the forum, remove 50% of the features off of the page, and put useless attention on the clickbait titles, and then offer some pay features for being special, so people can be upset over it and that will keep a conversation going. In order for today's society to understand and want to use a forum. Not my cup of tea.

I do think that there's room and value in forums, but I know I am in the minority for thinking that. I wish more people would realise the real content and connections they can get through forums. Rather than rely on temporary content that's a single written sentence with the real intention hiding behind some emotes.

I havent used any of the major social media sites activly in years, just doom scrolling, but I think sites like reddit did indeed have the ability to build communities within subreddits, and maybe they will continue to do so later on too. Each subreddit could be seen as its own, forum as well.

The problem is that all forums are centralized at one provider, and live at the will of said provider. I think this was its strength aswell once it reached a certain user mass, where you could view funny cat gifs and at the same time discuss narrow topics.The same can be said about Facebook and its groups to some extent.

A move away from that will make the regular users experience worse, but at the same time gain stability with a distributed discussion platform thats not dependent on whatever a single provider decides is accepted speech.

 

[Floris]

I use the social networks and sites how I please, I get out of them what I want, and I have on issue using uBlock Origin to prevent getting annoyed by content that would bother me. And if the site or app is too annoying, I basically stop using it.

Honest efforts are being made to try and manage my content, as well as yearly review of my account settings, privacy and security info, and I block whomever annoys me, and I make an even harder effort to avoid toxicity, drama, and such.

And if I leave a comment that I know triggers others, because despite how I mean something, they don't know my intent, and if they jump on me or spend hours complaining they don't realise I 99/100x don't even come back to follow up on notifications. I am not that bothered. IRC has taught me welllllll

On the forums here, I try to read at least every comment posted and I try to reply because I feel there's value in doing so - the community is more valuable than randos online with strong opinions that share it for clout, for ads, for growth, for whatever agenda.

 

[elmo]

The article i linked to in another post described the curating of any site, where the site attempts to suggest content (paid content) in favor of searched content, and the fine line between over eagernes/greed and what userspprobably would want to see.

Guess it just depends on how much time one is willing to spend on aggregation sites, to filter out what you dont want to see versus the value to oneself of the remaining content. More narrow-focused forums make that job alot easier.

 

[Joan]

You know what I love about forums, no pending posts while admin decide if what you're posting is good enough.

 

[Floris]

You know what I love about forums, no pending posts while admin decide if what you're posting is good enough.

Yeah, indeed. We try to keep it family friendly here, we don't allow hate speech, and that's about it. If people can be adults and have a chat, it's basically welcome. If the conversation is rediculous and not one people would have with strangers in the street, it sounds like it's also not suitable for a community. The focus is on friendships and feeling welcome, not on drama and toxicity. We will moderate content, but I think we hardly ever have to. People can moderate themselves, if they fail and still post something that's clearly out of line we can step in.

I personally don't like that if I say "that's just f up how that person is acting like an idiot" on a social network and then you get shadow muted, or they ask you to revise your post before posting, etc. Leave me alone.. it's what I would say out loud, and I am not breaking any laws, time to move on twitter bot :P

 

[Joan]

I don't think forums are going to die out anytime soon, just look at how popular places like mumsnet and money saving expert are. I'm sure there's other non uk ones just as popular as well.

 

[Floris]

I don't think forums are going to die out anytime soon, just look at how popular places like mumsnet and money saving expert are. I'm sure there's other non uk ones just as popular as well.

Forums used to get threads with millions of views, for interesting discussions. They would go viral. Now that's thousands - even on pupolar communities. Whereas social media tweets, posts, reddit things.. they can get millions per day on alike topics. It's a whole different board game, and that's why people say forums are dead.

But I agree, there are communities around where their value Is the community aspect and the niche topic. And those will strive, but they won't make the same numbers as a subreddit or hastag on Instagram / twitter.

Back in the day people knew exactly what post reply button meant, or the quick reply box. Now I get people at age 25 going 'the what now?'

 

[elmo]

Forums used to get threads with millions of views, for interesting discussions. They would go viral. Now that's thousands - even on pupolar communities. Whereas social media tweets, posts, reddit things.. they can get millions per day on alike topics. It's a whole different board game, and that's why people say forums are dead.

But I agree, there are communities around where their value Is the community aspect and the niche topic. And those will strive, but they won't make the same numbers as a subreddit or hastag on Instagram / twitter.

Back in the day people knew exactly what post reply button meant, or the quick reply box. Now I get people at age 25 going 'the what now?'

Not that we're old or anything