this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2024
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The forums of old times still exist in some corners of the internet. They used to be big and there was one for pretty much every topic.

But most died over the years or got replaced by services like Facebook groups, Reddit or Discord.

Are you still using proper forums, which ones and why haven't you made the switch to other forms of communication?

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[–] dizzy@lemmy.ml 13 points 9 months ago

Yeah a lot of pro audio discussion still happens on gearspace (formerly gearslutz), KVR, dogsonacid, etc

[–] Alter_Id@kbin.social 11 points 9 months ago

The forums on the metal archives are still active and a good resource for various different things concerning extreme metal. Bits of news, discussion, and some out of left field recommendations that I don't find other places.

[–] promitheas@iusearchlinux.fyi 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Easiest one that comes to mind is the archlinux.org forums. It pops up constantly in searches, even if youre not searching for an arch specific problem, so I used it even before daily driving arch. Now I have an account on there and have made a few posts seeking help. Most of the time though someone has already asked it, and someone else has already provided a solution.

[–] MamboGator@lemmy.world 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I was active on an "Old Web Revival" forum for a while last year. I was expecting it to be populated by nostalgic gen x and millennials, but it turned out to mostly be zoomers romanticizing the '90s and thinking they could save the internet with Neocities.

After realizing I was the oldest person there I felt like a bumbling grandpa telling meandering stories of the way it used to was, so I eventually left. I haven't been able to find another retro nostalgia forum since then.

[–] Xer0@lemmy.ml 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] MamboGator@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That's the one. I felt bad leaving without a word but it was spur of the moment. I just got the sudden realization like I was a teenager still hanging out in the McDonalds Play Place and quietly noped out the door.

Not that I have anything against gen z. I just couldn't relate to most of what they were saying. So I guess a better analogy is that I was like an old man wandering around the mall surrounded by teenagers. Except malls are dead now so gen z still won't relate. Hence: bumbling grandpa.

I also joined the RetroDaze forum before that but there were only two or three other active users and I got the impression at least one of them was an "I voted for Trump" type of guy.

[–] Xer0@lemmy.ml 2 points 9 months ago

I do get that. I like the place for the discussion as answers seem to be lengthy and generally well thought out, but I do get the impression there's a lot of zoomers there. I just like the idea of a personal site and have found a lot of useful info and ideas there, but yeah totally understand where you're coming from.

[–] blackstrat@lemmy.fwgx.uk 5 points 9 months ago

Yes I use quite a few and mostly started using them again this past year. The thing that made the big difference was finding the app Hermit. It let's me have something akin to a separate browser per forum that is fixed to that URL. I then have a bunch of shortcuts on my home screen, one per forum. It made using forums so much easier and streamlined.

[–] zout@kbin.social 4 points 9 months ago

This one. I don't like the other things you mention. I did join a sub reddit on the topic years ago, but it was awful. Full of people who didn't know anything of the subject, but were very willing to downvote.

[–] Daeraxa@lemmy.ml 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I can't say I really use any of the older style BBS ones like phpBB but there are plenty of smaller software communities using Discourse based forums. For less active communities they are far superior to Discord due to the more asynchronous nature and gives you a lot more control than Reddit/Lemmy.

[–] invertedspear@lemm.ee 3 points 9 months ago

After ditching Reddit I found most of the car centric subreddit content was just coming from forums that survived because car people were inherently old school, even for EVs. So if you want to know the latest about EV trucks there’s forums for Rivian, Cybertruck, and Lightning. The trouble is that they are all very tribal, so getting unbiased info seems harder. I’m also a fan of older jeeps and they are full of problems, but almost all of them have answers on these forums from the early 2000s with links to geocities pages. Hopefully someone detailed the answer and only linked for supporting details.

[–] Ziggurat@sh.itjust.works 3 points 9 months ago

My RPG club, still use a forum. It's there to organized games and discuss about RPG 

[–] kurcatovium@lemm.ee 3 points 9 months ago

I still do use a few. First one is local one about bass guitars, mainly going there for the great community. Second is another local about PC and hardware. Now thinking about it, I rarely visit others.

[–] small44@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

Rarely, i only check rateyourmusic foeum from timw to time that's all

[–] burningmatches@feddit.uk 2 points 9 months ago

Aviation types still hang out on Pprune.org.

[–] sentient_loom@sh.itjust.works 2 points 9 months ago

No, but I would like to.

[–] Marcumas@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

Hot rod/muscle car guys still use forums. There's some good ones that I use for old Mopar stuff.

[–] Flaky@iusearchlinux.fyi 2 points 9 months ago

Rate Your Music and MusicBrainz both use traditional forums, though I haven’t really posted in them lately. I also joined EndeavourOS’ forums at the time I joined Lemmy.

[–] grant@toast.ooo 2 points 9 months ago

For a bit now I’ve been thinking of starting a small classic style of forum, using the top forum software (to my knowledge at least — xenForo) and writing a custom extension for it to add ActivityPub to it

Idk, I’ve realized that I don’t have a whole lot of time to keep up with live chat communities (like Discord, etc) so I started throwing the forum idea around

[–] ellabella@beehaw.org 1 points 9 months ago

The scifi fantasy community still had a ton of these active till now.

[–] GammaGames@beehaw.org 1 points 9 months ago

There’s one niche dev forum I go on, but only when I have a problem or when it shows up in search results. I used to visit it occasionally but it doesn’t get much traffic

[–] Dethedrus@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

Unofficial DOS Master of Magic forums. It includes subforums for modded versions, including the most excellent Caster of Magic.

[–] catacomb@beehaw.org 1 points 9 months ago

https://www.cloudynights.com/ is probably the best astronomy community about, the subreddit never compared.

[–] montar@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 months ago

I use xss(.)is for unique tech stuff.

[–] SurpriZe@lemm.ee 1 points 9 months ago

The cs.rin.ru forum needs more love. The people there are awesome at helping out the worldwide community get easy access to things. Great place overall.

[–] z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 months ago

The Artix Linux Forums is the only one I frequent these days.

Any good Linux distro worth their salt has their own version of this. Other platforms just don't cut it when you need support or have a question specific to your distro specific needs.

Otherwise I very very rarely pop in on Linux Questions or Neovim Discourse to just peruse.

Interesting forums like The Indie Stone have caught my eye as being active for the very niche topic of talking specifically about the Project Zomboid video game, so there is that.

Forums aren't completely dead, but, sadly, they are starting to go the way of the email mailing lists and irc channels. Still alive...but barely so.