General Do you still think forums are dead?

[Cedric]

I had a disappointing experience with the service. Every Zetaboards forum I was on (before the sell out), was slow, buggy, had ads, and even sometimes had links that appeared to point to malware. I eventually stopped using any forum that was hosted by Zetaboards.

Granted, this is just my personal experience.

Weird, it was really none of that ever. I could see this being a fact on TapaTalk, but on ZetaBoards? Everything was fast, minimal ads and definitely no malware. Not that I ever experienced in the 10 years I was there. I think ZetaBoards was released in 2008 until 2018.

 

[Kale]

Looking back now? I honestly just am unsure how to feel about them. I think there is a place for them, but I do not expect any new forums to thrive and take off like they once did. I feel as if they're best for friends and friends of friends perhaps? You can just get a cheap hosting plan and have a better place to organize and keep your stuff and your friends stuff over Discord. I quit joining and posting as much due to lack of interest in forums lately.

 

[Jane]

If this person is from Zetaboards (a hosted forum system, I'm to understand), then why are they running a Xenforo forum? LOL

Because zetaboards is no longer? Brandon did deals with the devil and sold out to crapatalk..despite saying he wouldnt

 

[Jane]

Apart from anything else,,it was a kick in the teeth to all the coders and theme makers..not to mention the staff who were left to carry the can and try and deal with angry people. Brandon never answered anyone. Coward to the end.. Nicholas was support admin if I remember correctly. Such a shame,

 

[Jane]

 

[Ravenfreak]

Looking back now? I honestly just am unsure how to feel about them. I think there is a place for them, but I do not expect any new forums to thrive and take off like they once did. I feel as if they're best for friends and friends of friends perhaps? You can just get a cheap hosting plan and have a better place to organize and keep your stuff and your friends stuff over Discord. I quit joining and posting as much due to lack of interest in forums lately.

Guilded is better than Discord IMO, and it's completely free. I also don't think Discord is as organized as any forum, or even Guilded for that matter. Forums definitely aren't what they used to be but important communities just do better on a forum over a Discord server. Especially if the community shares guides or other helpful information, you can't easily locate that on a Discord server.

 

[Reverie]

It's amazing a discussion becoming 3 pages long discussing whether forums are dead or not. I think Admin Junkies is proof that a forum can be fostered and create connections for other communities to pop up.

Now once the communities are started, typically people don't have the marketing knowledge or know how to get out there. This alone though shows there is an interest enough in forums, however younger audiences are harder to reach as they don't typically google for information these days. They watch a Tiktok... they go to Reddit. This is when forums must take the step to use these platforms to advertise as well.

 

[kolakube]

Forum culture as a whole is dying, and at some point it will be gone, irretrievably, and that *will* be a bad thing because all that will be left are the memories of those who remember the communities of old and more importantly the spirit of small communities that come together with a purpose.

It's not implicitly a bad thing that things have changed, change is normal. But it's a bad thing if the *spirit* of the thing is lost, even if the thing itself transcend and transmutes into something else.

This has got to be the best post I've seen in the many discussions about this same subject and the immeasurable metric that can offer any answer to this question.

I see a lot of criticism about things like posting packages and exchanges but despite the transactional nature of it I really do believe there is a love of forums behind the intention, both from the posters and the service provider themselves.

That and seeing topics like this exist are all little data points to why I don't think forums are dead.

The internet I remember of 20 years ago had a lot more hobbyists doing things and a lot less corporatism, a lot less grifting to make a buck everywhere. That's not to say it was perfect - it really wasn't - but it had a genuine sense of people coming together to help each other out without it needing to be a grift or a move towards being a second income.

It was easier back then to look at this purely through a hobbyist lens because it wasn't nearly as common to work online and everyone made money through other means.

The challenge is being able to focus on doing the things you love on the Internet while having real world obligations, and a lot of people want to combine the two and get paid to do more of those things instead of a job that isn't as fulfilling.

Of course this isn't to be confused with the ones who want to make money on the Internet for the sake of it; they are more recognizable and who I have a problem with as well.

It's shaky territory to combine passion and money and one many aren't able to go down without losing the love, hence the fall into grifting and corporatism you mentioned.

I am speaking from personal experience as I had to face much of this in myself after well over a decade of making a living off my work and falling out of love without realizing it for a while. Making money is important because I want to do more of this, and when I stepped away to work elsewhere I found myself longing for the community and excitement I could bring others through this work, and that is the passion I vowed to protect in myself while on this path.

The Internet we grew up in is never coming back, but I'd rather be driven by those old times to create something excellent and maybe even compareable in the present. I feel like it is a burden of knowledge that any of us who care about this space has to indulge, otherwise it will all go to sh*t without even a fight.

 

[Arantor]

Case in point: one of the last big roleplay directories - it's been around for 15 years, a mainstay of the ecosystem, announced yesterday it was closing its doors.

The reasons cited: decline in activity and too hard to manage (even with a team of a bunch of people)

And almost no-one is talking about filling the vacuum with another forum. All the places I've seen talking about it are lamenting the things that will be gone when it goes, and trying to fill the void across a few Discord servers that sort of complement its existence (without realising that they are complicit in the downfall of its existence).

The Internet we grew up in is never coming back, but I'd rather be driven by those old times to create something excellent and maybe even compareable in the present. I feel like it is a burden of knowledge that any of us who care about this space has to indulge, otherwise it will all go to sh*t without even a fight.

I know it's not coming back, I suspected that a decade ago.

The money thing is hard because we all need money to survive - but I was perfectly capable of making my money in one place and spending my time and money on my hobby just fine, but I was emphatically told I shouldn't bother.

I would even argue it's already mostly gone without a fight, and everything we're doing here is raging against the dying of the light.

 

[kolakube]

Case in point: one of the last big roleplay directories - it's been around for 15 years, a mainstay of the ecosystem, announced yesterday it was closing its doors.

The reasons cited: decline in activity and too hard to manage (even with a team of a bunch of people)

That's too bad, and I'd guess the activity was still pretty sizeable (by many standards around here) but when you are the one footing the bill without any revenue and have watched it become less active over time I can see why you'd give up.

A forum I was semi active in just closed, despite growing and having 100+ members on at any given time. The reason? The owner found religion and decided it was against his faith to continue running the forum. Not sure where to place that one on the timeline of the demise of forums, but I guess something to think of before dedicating yourself to a forum!

The money thing is hard because we all need money to survive - but I was perfectly capable of making my money in one place and spending my time and money on my hobby just fine, but I was emphatically told I shouldn't bother.

I can trace my life's biggest regrets from listening to others on how I should spend my time, not sure why it's relevant if you found that balance.

 

[~ True Legend ~]

It's amazing a discussion becoming 3 pages long discussing whether forums are dead or not. I think Admin Junkies is proof that a forum can be fostered and create connections for other communities to pop up.

Now once the communities are started, typically people don't have the marketing knowledge or know how to get out there. This alone though shows there is an interest enough in forums, however younger audiences are harder to reach as they don't typically google for information these days. They watch a Tiktok... they go to Reddit. This is when forums must take the step to use these platforms to advertise as well.

Now I have an idea… perhaps I should attempt to advertise my community on reddit? Has anyone tried this and had much success?

 

[Arantor]

That's too bad, and I'd guess the activity was still pretty sizeable (by many standards around here) but when you are the one footing the bill without any revenue and have watched it become less active over time I can see why you'd give up.

A forum I was semi active in just closed, despite growing and having 100+ members on at any given time. The reason? The owner found religion and decided it was against his faith to continue running the forum. Not sure where to place that one on the timeline of the demise of forums, but I guess something to think of before dedicating yourself to a forum!


I can trace my life's biggest regrets from listening to others on how I should spend my time, not sure why it's relevant if you found that balance.

It was hosted on Jcink though, so the hosting bill was $10/month.

But there wasn’t a revenue stream, and it wasn’t ever about making a profit.

 

[Arantor]

Now I have an idea… perhaps I should attempt to advertise my community on reddit? Has anyone tried this and had much success?

If you can find appropriate subreddits, this *can* work but frequently you get beaten over the head by the moderation first.

 

[~ True Legend ~]

If you can find appropriate subreddits, this *can* work but frequently you get beaten over the head by the moderation first.

True I somehow didn’t consider this.
Of course the staff wouldn’t like it
Make friends and private message and hope you don’t fall out for them to then report you

 

[Arantor]

I wasn’t even thinking that. Plenty of subreddits have automated moderation that’ll get you before a human even looks at it.

 

[Cedric]

True I somehow didn’t consider this.
Of course the staff wouldn’t like it
Make friends and private message and hope you don’t fall out for them to then report you

Private message is bad. When will you learn?

 

[Tracy]

Now I have an idea… perhaps I should attempt to advertise my community on reddit? Has anyone tried this and had much success?

There are ways to do it... even if a sub-reddit has "advertising other sites" in their "don't do" policy.
My niche is an example. Several of the sub-reddits I particiapte in have no issues linking to other sites for images, nor even articles of support. So, instead of using imgur or similar for my images, I link directly to my site. Same way with articles that I have written on my site that may be of interest in a discussion thread. I'll link to it in the reddit post. This won't work for all niches though.

 

[joelr]

So I saw a debate on Twitter today. It began "where have all the websites gone" - and was lamenting the loss of the sorts of sites that were much more common 20 years ago.

Obviously, social media swallowed a lot of them up, lots of comments about shopping... and as I read it I realised that it's the same debate about forums. The entire culture of the internet 20 years ago is disappearing, swallowed up by social media and encroached upon by those wanting to monetise rather than doing it for the fun of doing it.

On this weekend of making sacrifices to the capitalistic gods, I give you that we sacrificed our culture, our heritage to the capitalistic gods in exchange for ever dwindling tokens of money, and at some point we will discover we cannot sustain ourselves on money alone. Physically, perhaps, but not spiritually.

1. Just because communities have moved to Amino Apps, Discord, MeWe, Telegram, Circle, Reddit , Facebook Groups doesn't mean that those specific communities of people have lost their spiritual sense of connection and generosity of sharing because somehow they're presented with ads. I've joined plenty of Reddit threads where people freely give incredibly detailed information on certain micro topics, and they do so freely and with generosity of spirit. Can we stop aggrandizing how forums alone define online friendships and communities? The sooner we do that, the sooner we can move forward. It's never been about the platform or the technology, its always been about the people.

2. Eulogizing about the past is nice, but it doesn't change anything. For the people focused on the present, the requirements for independent self hosted communities are higher. That's not a bad thing, or a good thing. It's just a fact of the changing web.

 

[Arantor]

Can we stop aggrandizing how forums alone define online friendships and communities? The sooner we do that, the sooner we can move forward. It's never been about the platform or the technology, its always been about the people.

Reddit, the place where it had a marked decrease in users once third party apps (that, amongst other things, hid the ads) were blocked? The place where half the users keep using the old UI because it gave them a sense of customisation that, again, hid the ads, but also felt to them like it was a place they had some ownership thereof?

In any case, I've never suggested these places aren't forums. I will suggest though, that you will *never* build the same kind of connections on any Facebook Group as you would on a classic forum, for multiple reasons (and only one of those is monetisation related)

As for the likes of Discord, you absolutely can build a community of people on there. What you can't do is find information that was posted 5 years ago. Or even, in my experience, anything older than a year in even a modestly quiet community. The forum I mentioned that closed over the weekend wasn't just a directory, it was a storage repository of styling bits and pieces, snippets, bits of functionality. All of which will now be siloed off in the best possible case or lost and need to be recreated in the worst - and in a community that brings in new people by way of them looking at existing resources and learning to participate by engaging and tweaking those resources, that's a fairly catastrophic loss. But they're not paying customers of anyone's so no harm done, just a bunch of silly people trying to have a good time with what's left of their miserable existences.

But you're choosing (again) to ignore the real point I'm making, and that's fine, because your stance and mine have never really aligned, let alone been compatible anyway.

 

[~ True Legend ~]

Reddit, the place where it had a marked decrease in users once third party apps (that, amongst other things, hid the ads) were blocked? The place where half the users keep using the old UI because it gave them a sense of customisation that, again, hid the ads, but also felt to them like it was a place they had some ownership thereof?

In any case, I've never suggested these places aren't forums. I will suggest though, that you will *never* build the same kind of connections on any Facebook Group as you would on a classic forum, for multiple reasons (and only one of those is monetisation related)

As for the likes of Discord, you absolutely can build a community of people on there. What you can't do is find information that was posted 5 years ago. Or even, in my experience, anything older than a year in even a modestly quiet community. The forum I mentioned that closed over the weekend wasn't just a directory, it was a storage repository of styling bits and pieces, snippets, bits of functionality. All of which will now be siloed off in the best possible case or lost and need to be recreated in the worst - and in a community that brings in new people by way of them looking at existing resources and learning to participate by engaging and tweaking those resources, that's a fairly catastrophic loss. But they're not paying customers of anyone's so no harm done, just a bunch of silly people trying to have a good time with what's left of their miserable existences.

But you're choosing (again) to ignore the real point I'm making, and that's fine, because your stance and mine have never really aligned, let alone been compatible anyway.

Agreed, I use forums due to my preference for the way info is presented - with structure as opposed to an infinite scroll. Everyone is different and has individual preferences. Can’t say one is better or worse.

Private message is bad. When will you learn?

This is about reddit, not forums. I’m happy to follow rules on reddit just as I’ve decided to follow the rules on forums provided they aren’t close enough friends.