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Mod edit - removed, kindly go fling gak somewhere else

 Enoxacinerst wrote:
Reddit was okay for a while, but it's overrun with repetitive comments and jokes for the sake of getting upvotes.

You can bet it will get worse with the IPO this month taking the company public.

Any subreddit larger than a few thousand with a very narrow focus tends to just become a meme/gak post zone, which certain has its uses but it's nothing like what a lot of people get into specific subs for.

Reddit was doa before due to the like-echochambering effect. It's just many will not See that initially

 Enoxacinerst wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:


Is there any hope for forums like this to have a resurgence? As the megacorps make their platforms worse and worse to try and squeeze more money out of what they see as captured userbases, I hope people start to make a move back to forums and other older ways to chatting online.

I can hardly go on anything other than discord. I'm so tired of the endless ads. Reddit was okay for a while, but it's overrun with repetitive comments and jokes for the sake of getting upvotes.

I may an outlier since I'm 29 and grew up with forums in late middle school - early high school (not exactly young / not old), but I'm hopeful about a possible message board resurgence. We've seen vinyl rise and fall and rise again in popularity; nostalgia is a huge motivating factor for people, and you'll often read in comment sections of old songs, movies, shows, and other media that kids who weren't around for it feel a certain nostalgia regardless, so maybe that could happen with message boards.

All it would take to get people interested in dedicated forum sites again is one or two really well-made nostalgia heavy video essays on YouTube.

Probably not an unrealistic scenario considering how social media swing people from a trend to another. Not necessarily YouTube videos, but some dude on Instagram or tiktok blowing the forums' trumpet could make them surge back to life. I'm quite certain that would be short lived though. It doesn't take too long until the next trend hits and most will ride with it.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Reddit was doa before due to the like-echochambering effect. It's just many will not See that initially

I have to agree here. I'm and old timer at forums at that might color my view of the other plataforms, but when I go to Reddit or similar places, and find out that my ability to follow a conversation is curtailed due to the upvote/downvote system that hides half the posts I lose interest. I want to read what was was says in a chronological way, not what happened to be the most popular answer at a given time.

M.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Reddit was doa before due to the like-echochambering effect. It's just many will not See that initially

Reddit is hot garbage if your thread hits R/ALL levels. Smaller communities are somewhat okay. The only value I've gotten out of it is easy access to minority communities that would be harder to find if not centralized there.

I’m relatively inexperienced when it comes to the modern iterations of ‘forums’ like Reddit etc. In fact, I’ve hardly visited the place as I find it cumbersome and uninteresting to dig into. A lot of that does indeed have to do with the format.

I like this place because it reminds me of my experience of the internet many years ago on the forums I used to interact with. It’s easy to manage and orientate between different threads and there is definitely a sense of community here.

Regarding other social media like Facebook, Twiiter and Instagram… I don’t bother at all.

I did once used to post on a Facebook account but quickly put a stop to it. I found the experience unhealthy and overall potentially harmful given the prevalence of narcissism.

Anyhoo, I don’t think I would have gotten as involved in a community based around my new hobby had it not been for this old school format.

I have heard good things about Discord though…

Discord is a great tool for managing your gaming group, setting up games etc. As a place for discussion it's abysmal.

I honestly don't get the fall of forums in favour of these newer forms. It must be fashion, because I find the lack of forum functionalities a game breaker.

I am baffled that at work where forum discussion on topics would actually be useful (as issues rarely go away), vaguely confused seniors are pushing social media/facebook style discussion areas.

Cyel wrote:
Discord is a great tool for managing your gaming group, setting up games etc. As a place for discussion it's abysmal.

I honestly don't get the fall of forums in favour of these newer forms. It must be fashion, because I find the lack of forum functionalities a game breaker.

With a forum, eventually you're kinda done for the day. There's no new posts you want to reply to. Those bigger platforms are designed to keep you scrolling forever, because they aggregate so much stuff.

 Da Boss wrote:

Cyel wrote:
Discord is a great tool for managing your gaming group, setting up games etc. As a place for discussion it's abysmal.

I honestly don't get the fall of forums in favour of these newer forms. It must be fashion, because I find the lack of forum functionalities a game breaker.

With a forum, eventually you're kinda done for the day. There's no new posts you want to reply to. Those bigger platforms are designed to keep you scrolling forever, because they aggregate so much stuff.

For me, this is the biggest plus of oldschool style forums. The amount of stuff to engage with eventually reaches its end, and I can get back to doing other things with my time. Immensely healthy for me old head!

 Da Boss wrote:

Those bigger platforms are designed to keep you scrolling forever, because they aggregate so much stuff.

Yep, got to love the tacit exploitation of our biochemistry at every conceivable level of interaction.

Anything to keep you staring into the black mirrors.

 tauist wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:

Cyel wrote:
Discord is a great tool for managing your gaming group, setting up games etc. As a place for discussion it's abysmal.

I honestly don't get the fall of forums in favour of these newer forms. It must be fashion, because I find the lack of forum functionalities a game breaker.

With a forum, eventually you're kinda done for the day. There's no new posts you want to reply to. Those bigger platforms are designed to keep you scrolling forever, because they aggregate so much stuff.

For me, this is the biggest plus of oldschool style forums. The amount of stuff to engage with eventually reaches its end, and I can get back to doing other things with my time. Immensely healthy for me old head!

It's also sooooo much easier to find a discussion on a forum. Social Media is too much of a churn to keep the newest stuff in your face. With forums, it's like, "Hey, I remember we were talking about something relevant to something I just saw awhile back, let me scroll a page or two and find the discussion."

I hate that the LARP (Live action Roleplaying game) I play has gone over to Discord. It's just a mess of shouted information. Back in the day, we had a great forum, with a whole subsection dedicated to ongoing rules discussion, and it was easy to reference something even a year later, because it was right there as a thread titled about the rule being discussed.

“Da old ways is best.”
Abe Lincorlk, Snakebite Runtherd, 1822 (in regards to forums vs. social media platforms)

The problem with social media is it's an ephemeral platform. Conversations can't be tracked over time, there's no good way to explore an idea in depth. Much of the discussion is influenced by attempts to get attention and the signal to noise ratio is way, way off.

The problem with 40k is the rules are ephemeral. It used to be army-wide changes were limited to new editions, now it's every 6 months. Many insightful discussions about rules become obsolete as mechanics are introduced into the game.

While I prefer forums, I'm not sure they're much better than social media given the constant evolutions within the game itself. What's true today is not necessarily true tomorrow, it's more a matter of how you want to focus your attention.

 techsoldaten wrote:
The problem with social media is it's an ephemeral platform. Conversations can't be tracked over time, there's no good way to explore an idea in depth. Much of the discussion is influenced by attempts to get attention and the signal to noise ratio is way, way off.

The problem with 40k is the rules are ephemeral. It used to be army-wide changes were limited to new editions, now it's every 6 months. Many insightful discussions about rules become obsolete as mechanics are introduced into the game.

While I prefer forums, I'm not sure they're much better than social media given the constant evolutions within the game itself. What's true today is not necessarily true tomorrow, it's more a matter of how you want to focus your attention.

Only the currently running edition of a ruleset is "ephemeral". The past editions are forever. Look up any forum discussion regarding past editions, and it is still as relevant as ever

I find Forums provide a better, erm, forum, for considered discussion.

For instance, I know I can post something in 40K Background, and in a couple of days it’ll have some interesting responses. And only very rarely are any responses dismissive or hot takes.

It just feels a bit more civilised. But that could be my age and vintage showing. I’ve been farting around various GW centric Forums since….1997, I guess. And I’m just a bit too old to be part of the tumblr type stuff.

I do of course use social media for hobby stuff, not least the Loot Group which wouldn’t really work anywhere else. But it’s not one I can really use for effective and interesting background discussion.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
On that though? I’d be interested to know if Forums like Dakka have metrics which show the average age etc.

Because without being rude or dismissive? It feels like Forums attract an older age bracket. And with that usually comes a greater level of maturity.

I mean, we’ve plenty silliness to go round, but it’s not very often we get chilldish bickering these days. Robust discussion and disagreements, yes. But nobody being antagonistic for clout. At least not in the thread I tend to bother.

 tauist wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
The problem with social media is it's an ephemeral platform. Conversations can't be tracked over time, there's no good way to explore an idea in depth. Much of the discussion is influenced by attempts to get attention and the signal to noise ratio is way, way off.

The problem with 40k is the rules are ephemeral. It used to be army-wide changes were limited to new editions, now it's every 6 months. Many insightful discussions about rules become obsolete as mechanics are introduced into the game.

While I prefer forums, I'm not sure they're much better than social media given the constant evolutions within the game itself. What's true today is not necessarily true tomorrow, it's more a matter of how you want to focus your attention.

Only the currently running edition of a ruleset is "ephemeral". The past editions are forever. Look up any forum discussion regarding past editions, and it is still as relevant as ever

Depending on when the discussion was posted, sure.

But often discussions become obsolete due to rules changes mid-edition. At best, a discussion has a good shot at being relevant.

Would help if posts on forums showed the edition / update that was active when the post was made.

 techsoldaten wrote:
The problem with social media is it's an ephemeral platform. Conversations can't be tracked over time, there's no good way to explore an idea in depth. Much of the discussion is influenced by attempts to get attention and the signal to noise ratio is way, way off.

The problem with 40k is the rules are ephemeral. It used to be army-wide changes were limited to new editions, now it's every 6 months. Many insightful discussions about rules become obsolete as mechanics are introduced into the game.

While I prefer forums, I'm not sure they're much better than social media given the constant evolutions within the game itself. What's true today is not necessarily true tomorrow, it's more a matter of how you want to focus your attention.

Honestly most social media social tools for chatting are grossly basic with their most advanced features being "fast response times" and "easy image embedding" by just dragging images over.
Otherwise their main draw is userbase size; they are VAST and that generates a lot of very rapid responses. It also makes them catch-all and effortless to join because most people will use them with only the minority not.


Forums require an extra few steps and most people are lazy. Then when forums are slower ; have fewer users and don't generate likes/clicks/attention anywhere near as fast as social media does - they generally don't get the same upkeep.

That said I'd say there's another layer too - marketing. Most forums were small time things run by individuals with basically no budget. Many ran at cost to the owner; or on free (with ads) services; or had small crowd funding from the userbase. Basically they don't have a marketing budget. Facebook, Reddit, etc... most big social media not only has insane "word of mouth" but profits and a marketing budget. They CAN spend money bringing people in; although some right now are so big they don't need to do that any more.
I'd say this is a big thing; forums never really reached out and pulled people to them in the same way. It just wasn't needed at first and when it was there was no money to really do it.






As for conversations - forums allow multiple topics and discussions to get more equal attention and longer response potential time. On social media if you don't get attention in the instant you won't likely get much a week later. It's dead and gone. Equally if your post doesn't appear at the right time for the person who knows the answer to answer; yep you're not getting it. Forums give you MUCH more time for those connections to happen

Also Id' say a boon for smaller populations of forums and the longlevity of chats means that you can actually KNOW people on them more easily. I find with social media based groups like reddit or facebook you can't really know people easily. There are SO many at once and you mostly just have a name/avatar and that's it to go by (no signature); its super easy to chat with LOADS of people and yet not make proper social connections.

By all means social media isn't bad, but its not the same and some things forums just do better. Heck when you see a site trying to improve its social connections they often start to copy forum features - Discord is honestly becoming more and more forum like and its main difference is you just hit enter to post instead of clicking "submit" or "Make post". Forums got it right on a LOT of fronts; they are just not marketed to get the attention they once enjoyed in a world dominated by major social media platforms who saturate the market with marketing of their own and word of mouth.

I find myself coming back to forums lately. I don't post much and when I do it's not very structured to hold a conversation. I just like lurking and reading more..

I'm tired of social media, it's too chaotic. There isn't a place where you can discuss particular topics without someone joining in and derailing the subject.

I'm not really a fan of Reddit. There is some interesting discussions which is few and far between. But I find that a lot of users on Reddit fall under two categories: Yes men and people looking for upvotes.

Personally, I find forums to be more sophisticated and a bit more in control when it comes to discussions on various subjects. Yes, we do have people that will derail the topic. But, forums have a better control other than social media like Facebook.

 Overread wrote:
although some right now are so big they don't need to do that any more.

.

I agree with much of your post.

However, all the big social media companies need to expand because they all have investor vultures breathing down their necks for ever greater profit extraction. Companies are not allowed to sit at "things are going fine" very often these days. The big players in the social media space all have pretty static or shrinking user bases, so being unable to pull in new blood is what is leading to the engakkification of social media as they try to extract more profit from a static or shrinking population. Sure, most everyone has heard of FB in the global North these days, so if you are not already using it regularly then it isn't a problem of word of mouth. Good marketing could theoretically bring more people in than word of mouth alone, although I suspect it won't as the platforms get progressively worse as a user experience.

True and the big firms likely do a lot of marketing that isn't overt marketing or which is so commonplace in life that we don't "see" it as marketing in itself.

So yeah there's probably a lot more going on than we realise.


But yeah I stand by the claim if Dakka got some BIG investors and suddenly had a marketing budget I'm willing to bet its active userbase could grow significantly and probably quite quickly. The problem would then be turning that into profits to pay for marketing to sustain itself.


Part of me wonders if one thing that holds forums and some areas of the internet back is the concept of free use. That we use forums, facebook and many other services without a charge. We pay a TV Licence in the UK which pays for the BBC and yet we can all use youtube without a single penny being spent outside of our internet bill (which doesn't go to youtube).

Of course over the years ads have risen to insane dominance, but part of me wonders if the internet will go through another shift in the future toward increased paid-for-use services. This might even require a steady shift and a generation attitude change. Both in terms of moving away from the perception of services being free; but also likely one that becomes more hostile to the use of advertising and more willing to put their money directly forward.


Now I'm not saying such doesn't happen now, but its the exception rather than the normal. Could we enter a time where the internet becomes more of a paid-for service at large? Perhaps; especially so if its continued growth and investment becomes more and more a part of life.












That part aside the main through I had after my post and I went to bed, was another shift in engagement of the internet itself. Forums were born in the day where you sat down at a PC or Laptop and used a full screen and keyboard and mouse to interact with websites. You had a huge screen with lots of space to work with; a keyboard to type on and a mouse to navigate.
However you look at social media sites and they are primitive, but part of that is because they are not built for the desktop user, they are built for the mobile phone and the tablet. For screens that are tiny and don't have the space for lots of menus and parts; for keyboards that are touch screen and also tiny. Short messages, short replies, snappy, quick simple fluid interfaces that run on a single small screen.

Many people today, despite having increased reliance on computers, don't use a home PC. They might have a console and a high end phone and most of their banking, business, social engagement happens through that phone. Even if they have a PC they might not use it outside of work.

So I'd argue that another nail against the forum is the change in how we interact with the internet. Perhaps the rise of things like VR and Augmented Reality might one day make forums more popular again as an interface as we change how we interact again - however I think Augmented Reality glasses and so forth are still many many years from being even semi-mainstream. We are still very much in the region where that tech is growing. It's back where mobile phones were in the 90s with being a literal brick of a battery and then a massive hand set that were impractical for most and expensive and insanely niche.