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Internet forums are disappearing because now everything is Reddit and Discord. And that's worrying. (www-xataka-com.translate.goog)

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by tfm@europe.pub to c/fediverse@lemmy.world

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What are we going to do about it?

Sorry for the Google Translate Link. An easy alternative is much appreciated.

Edit: thanks to @Xamrica@lemmy.dbzer0.com for this translation alternative: https://translate.kagi.com/translate/https://www.xataka.com/servicios/foros-internet-estan-desapareciendo-porque-ahora-todo-reddit-discord-eso-preocupante

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[-] espressdelivery@lemm.ee 5 points 7 hours ago

I’m looking for a study group for a specific maths textbook I’m reading

Discord math forum is too big and my queries get swamped so I don’t use it

I’d appreciate some advice on this and also how to develop my federated use of the internet

[-] tfm@europe.pub 4 points 6 hours ago

Maybe !math@lemmy.world ?

[-] Itzdan@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago

Let us know if you find something!

[-] mint_tamas@lemmy.world 11 points 12 hours ago

“Now”? Try 10 years ago, at the very least.

[-] FreakinSteve@lemmy.world 14 points 15 hours ago

Funny thing...an internet forum group from 23 years ago is slowly reforming because everyone is sick of the same thing re:socmed

[-] Based_and_Cool@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 6 hours ago

which one?

[-] FreakinSteve@lemmy.world 1 points 48 minutes ago* (last edited 47 minutes ago)

Its a private one that spun off from the Cakewalk user forums around 2002

[-] early_riser@lemmy.radio 25 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

I'm getting two points from the article. One is addressed handily by the Fediverse, the other is not.

First the centralized (I prefer to say "urbanized") nature of social media means a handful of companies control all the conversations. The Fediverse is a decent (though not perfect) solution to that problem, and I think everyone on here knows that.

However, the article also talks about the problems with the format of social media, not just who's hosting the platform. On traditional forums, conversations can last for years, but on Reddit, Discord, etc. new topics quickly bury old ones, no matter how lively those old topics are. Sure, you can choose to sort by "last comment" which replicates the traditional forum presentation with topic bumping, but it's not the default, even on Lemmy, so 90% of people won't bother.

I get to know people on traditional forums, even miss them if they leave, but on Reddit, comments are just disembodied thoughts manifesting in the ether. That may be due to the size of the community rather than the format, though.

[-] Irelephant@lemm.ee 1 points 5 hours ago

Check lemmybb.

[-] Obelix@feddit.org 5 points 14 hours ago

Yeah, those old forum threads really were great. Many forums had threads that were discussing topics for years, all in one place. There were people posting how they were building something and they would just reply to their thread with an update. It's a great way to collect information and better than we are doing it here

[-] Saleh@feddit.org 1 points 5 hours ago

On the flip side, you can also have threads where people hold different conversations, but it becomes impossible to read, because you don't get the reply-tree structure like we have here.

Then again with reply trees you cannot easily see, which tree has the latest answer and if things are generally active or not.

Different formats for different focuses.

[-] early_riser@lemmy.radio 2 points 8 hours ago

I'd like to see a federated, self hostable forum platform. I believe NodeBB is implementing or has implemented activitypub, but while it's open source it seems even less of a turnkey solution than Lemmy or Mastodon.

[-] jadedwench@lemmy.dbzer0.com 70 points 1 day ago

The worst is Discord. It doesn't show up in search engines and somehow you have to know that is where you are "supposed" to go for help. Privacy issues aside, I am fine with discord for playing games with friends or big conventions/LAN parties, but I don't understand why anyone would use it as a forum.

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[-] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 10 points 22 hours ago

No, enshittified search engines are only catalogging those because they're in the AI bed with them.

Your Favorite Forum still rules.

[-] NutWrench@lemmy.ml 30 points 1 day ago

You should be using Lemmy instead of Reddit. It's defederated, and it's spread out over 600 Instances in many different countries. This way, one rich egomaniac can't ruin it for everyone else.

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[-] buliarous@lemm.ee 10 points 22 hours ago

plenty of pointed discourse forums out there. I agree that the search engines may be the problem. You have to know where to look.

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