Are forums a dying platform?

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    Interesting article.


    I go waaaay back. To the days of JANET and USENET - in fact I still subscribe to several usenet newsgroups which will become much more fit for purpose once Google drops it's support for them in February 2024. Google have absolutely ruined the experience for the past several years and if you are a user you won't need any explanation of why. But there are still usenet news servers peering with each other and at least one BBS style web interface.


    But forums: pretty well all "serious" subjects are supported by forums, in my opinion. Look at the open source community: github, linux etc - how many of those are on social media?


    Forums are, in my opinion, far superior to social media in so many ways.

    Quote from bebopalula

    But forums: pretty well all "serious" subjects are supported by forums, in my opinion. Look at the open source community: github, linux etc - how many of those are on social media?


    Forums are, in my opinion, far superior to social media in so many ways.

    Indeed, forums are like specialty magazines whereas social media are brainless entertainment for the most part.

    They are useful to keep to date with other people's business, if you are in that sort of things, but they have become a source of (uncontrolled) information and entertainment.

    I don't know. AFAIK, there aren't as many as there used to be. I've been on many sites, most have disappeared. The only ones that seem to survive are pc or mac related ones.


    They've been a lot that haven't, including ones for coding aka software development, web design and the odd social types. I think forums of this type we're on, were at their peak 10 years ago


    I think the ones that will survive for a further 10 years or more, are ones that have a niche market based towards what people want

    "The eventual dominance of mobile phones makes writing and reading long-form content difficult''


    That's a good point. I very rarely use my mobile to browse forums as I find it a pain in the arse to use. If it wasn't for a Yahoo travel forum back in the late 90's I wouldn't be living in Argentina. Do you think I should I sue them? ^^

    Quote from UK Man

    "The eventual dominance of mobile phones makes writing and reading long-form content difficult''


    That's a good point. I very rarely use my mobile to browse forums as I find it a pain in the arse to use. If it wasn't for a Yahoo travel forum back in the late 90's I wouldn't be living in Argentina. Do you think I should I sue them? ^^

    Yeah, a lot of info on the internet is rubbish

    I agree, the Discord and similar real time chat communities are something that works well to replace some forums. I still like forums. Would be nice if they worked well together within the same community. I’ll never visit a FB group, but I do stop in to see what Discord conversations are happening. Smaller groups I like with Slack and Mattermost


    This weeks rolllingstone has relevant commentary

    The Internet Is About to Get Weird Again
    The internet seems ripe for change, and millions of people seem poised to connect in new ways, as they reconsider their relationship to technology.
    web.archive.org

    Personally I much prefer the forum format such as this. I find Discord groups chaotic and difficult to navigate. But that's just me, a wayward lad from Toxteth!

    • Helpful

    Hello everybody,


    I am on several VW forums and what keeps them alive in face of the competition from FB Insta and the rest is the archived information, typically stored on Wikipedia.


    Plenty of idle chat and newbies, but I am regularly dealing with 3 newenquiries and topics weekly.


    A niche market I know, but still there.. my YT channel has a 1/2 million views on VW aircooled engines that stopped production 40 years ago..


    Cordialement,