Technology

Every now and then I get a forum as a search result and they're just so clunky. Replies are spaced out too much, no chains, everyone has a long winded signature phrase. I'm glad it went to this kind of format.

You have to go to some pretty toxic plaices if you really want to experience old internet.

Welcome to the new era of enshittification where you'll eventually have to subscribe to access or make posts, and none of it will be searchable on any search engines.

if anyone here used to go on kongregate a lot, go check it out now. it is depressing. they dont even have chat rooms anymore

Fora used to be great support groups for medical conditions. I helped run one with an RN. It was tough work keeping the trolls out, but we were also a great resource. Eventually, social media moved on. Que será.

1. Make it too big to fail
2. Wait for the fall while enshittifying
3. Cash in on the bail out
4. Go to 2

Fuck, I hate to say this, but for sailing & cruising and all the associated stuff, Facebook groups is the fastest path to the knowledge you seek.

Discord is not a forum lol

I've said this before, the thing I hate about reddit and discord is that you only get exposed to "current" threads or "top" threads. On old forums everything was just there and if someone commented on it, it came back to the top and re-ignited conversations.

I was a big user of the command and conquer forums and I definitely miss the community of it. But that may just be the scale of Internet then compared to now. Back then you saw the same users every day and we ended up chatting on msn and working on projects together. I couldn't tell you any users on my instance or elsewhere other than the admins of my instance.

Forums are alive and well when looking for car info. Whenever I get a different car I look for communities with the most activity and that is usually a forum.

The one exception I can think of (proving the post to be true) is the first generation Tundra (2000-2007). The FB group had more current news than the forums and I managed to get banned (first time ever).

It‘s really annoying how searching anything online becomes harder by the day because of it and AI is not helping with it either.

Forums are alive and well for BBQ. See Amazing Ribs forums and BBQ Brethren.

Lemmy!

I dunno, when you're talking about really specialized niches, there are still plenty of forums. Like, 600rr.net; it's dedicated to nothing but Honda CBR600RR motorcycles. If you have a problem with a 600RR, the answer is probably there, and the forum is still ticking along because it's just too hard to find those super-niche answers on Reddit. Want gun content with a healthy dose of homo/transphobia and christian nationalism? AR15.com has you covered. Want to talk about the minutiae of reloading and be autistically-focused on long-range accuracy? SnipersHide.com is your place. (They're a bit fuddy though.)

why not implement forums with reddit-like threads?

i miss the specialized topic forums, the only downside was I needed to create a separate account for each website