by Leva » Sat Jan 06, 2024 3:09 am
Yukinu wrote: ↑Sat Jan 06, 2024 1:34 am
I've noticed that too, Discourse seems to have become less a tool for community building and into more of a organizational management tool for interface with the public through a limited channel. Much like a ticketing system, many Discourse forums mark threads as stale if they have been inactive for too long, effectively scrambling communication and disorganizing the community.
On that note, I always found rules against "necroposting" super silly. Why spread out the conversation about the same exact topic out over multiple threads whenever some time passes instead of using the perfectly fine thread that already exists about the same topic?
I can understand it in forums about topics that change rapidly and where pushing up misleading outdated information could be a side-effect of posting in older threads, like forums about a specific software, but in most forums, "necroposting" is such a weird rule.
The entire point of a thread system is to keep related posts together, and I'd rather have a 2014 thread pushed to the top in 2024 than be left with seven different threads over the years about the same topic.
Yukinu wrote: ↑Sat Jan 06, 2024 1:34 am
I have also been quite disappointed with Discourse recently. For several years, I had hoped that it's popularity might create a small revival in forums, but it turns out that did not happen. Instead, this year Discourse made changes that effectively blocks alternative browsers such as Palemoon; I've had to write GreaseMonkey scripts to work around their block, and even then the software has started blocking read access when JavaScript is disabled (newer versions have a loading screen that won't resolve without an asynchronous request).
Oh that's messed up. I had no idea. The last user-unfriendly forum trend I remember is Tapatalk. I guess that dates me.
Yukinu wrote: ↑Sat Jan 06, 2024 1:34 am
The community building and community projects aspects of forums are very important. Working towards a shared goal and collaborating helps build a sense of group identity and pride, and results in stronger bonds forming among the members.
Absolutely, yeah, and even having a common hobby makes communities much more cohesive. It automatically gives people stuff to talk about, which does wonders for activity, and it also discourages conversation devolving into the aforementioned forum games/"what did you eat today" boredom.
Some of my fondest memories just in general are spending time on the German Minecraft forums as a kid (minecraft.de, now defunct, still in the Web Archive though).
And thinking back, the appeal to that board was looking at all the cool mods and maps people posted, reading and participating in game related discussions and questions, posting my own creations, checking in with the (Minecraft-related and otherwise) usergroups on there, talking in the chatbox, participating in various more intricate forum games, joining the forum's Minecraft server, and so on. It was like a whole family. I knew most users by name. I dated people on there.
I feel like that sense of a huge family that you check in with multiple times a day, with in-jokes and social groups, it's totally lost now.
But maybe it's just the loss of my optimism and naiveté as a teenager online. Nowadays I am much more bitter about stuff, more cynical, perhaps just more cautious. Other users on a forum are potential threats, potential sources of discomfort, maybe politically problematic, all that. I automatically start judging them and putting them into categories, if I want to or not; something that I didn't do back when I was a kid. When there is a new user, the first reaction is no longer "oh cool welcome to the forums!" but rather maybe "another anime profile picture?"
Dumb example: if I met someone called "mjölnir" on the forums back then, I'd envision a nice early-20s bearded friendly fantasy nerd metalhead playing Minecraft with us. Nowadays, I'd probably be cautious whether it's some kind of nordaboo alt-right troll or a bitter middle aged IT guy who's only on forums because he doesn't want to be with the "wokes" on Twitter. I automatically go into defense mode. Often times, teenage me was closer to the truth. But I can't get away from my own cynicism.
I can't imagine forums like back then in a social climate as today's, especially with stuff like the Middle East conflict or trans rights. It's easy to click "block user" online, or leave a community after two weeks over a mod saying something offensive, for better or for worse. Not to say that politics doesn't matter and that we should just "take it", but that kind of cynicism and bitterness certainly makes building these family-like online forum communities way impossible.
Back then, political differences on the forums were mostly abstract, hidden and not really crazy in any way, I feel, and at least in the German online spaces there was a tolerable "centrist" kind of consensus (as opposed to English speaking niche forums where random edgy hate was still more acceptable due to "male nerd culture"). People on our forums would just not bring up stuff like their stance on random wars or elections because it wasn't relevant to the forums. Today, it's a badge of honor and a virtue to talk about, say, Palestinian rights or LGBTQ rights in every community you are in, to show support, to take a stance. Not that that's bad, but it certainly exposes a lot more ugly people in your peer group in the ensuing discussions. Nowadays, it would all get too real if I had to share a small tight-knit community with someone who advocates for my friends getting put into prison. Forums like back then wouldn't work.
I feel like Melonland was a pretty cool board that avoided that particular pitfall, but in turn due to a lack of focus and intransparent moderation it also somewhat got stressful after a while.
[quote=Yukinu post_id=610 time=1704504852 user_id=2]
I've noticed that too, Discourse seems to have become less a tool for community building and into more of a organizational management tool for interface with the public through a limited channel. Much like a ticketing system, many Discourse forums mark threads as stale if they have been inactive for too long, effectively scrambling communication and disorganizing the community.
[/quote]
On that note, I always found rules against "necroposting" super silly. Why spread out the conversation about the same exact topic out over multiple threads whenever some time passes instead of using the perfectly fine thread that already exists about the same topic?
I can understand it in forums about topics that change rapidly and where pushing up misleading outdated information could be a side-effect of posting in older threads, like forums about a specific software, but in most forums, "necroposting" is such a weird rule.
The entire point of a thread system is to keep related posts together, and I'd rather have a 2014 thread pushed to the top in 2024 than be left with seven different threads over the years about the same topic.
[quote=Yukinu post_id=610 time=1704504852 user_id=2]
I have also been quite disappointed with Discourse recently. For several years, I had hoped that it's popularity might create a small revival in forums, but it turns out that did not happen. Instead, this year Discourse made changes that effectively blocks alternative browsers such as Palemoon; I've had to write GreaseMonkey scripts to work around their block, and even then the software has started blocking read access when JavaScript is disabled (newer versions have a loading screen that won't resolve without an asynchronous request).[/quote]
Oh that's messed up. I had no idea. The last user-unfriendly forum trend I remember is Tapatalk. I guess that dates me.
[quote=Yukinu post_id=610 time=1704504852 user_id=2]
The community building and community projects aspects of forums are very important. Working towards a shared goal and collaborating helps build a sense of group identity and pride, and results in stronger bonds forming among the members.
[/quote]
Absolutely, yeah, and even having a common hobby makes communities much more cohesive. It automatically gives people stuff to talk about, which does wonders for activity, and it also discourages conversation devolving into the aforementioned forum games/"what did you eat today" boredom.
Some of my fondest memories just in general are spending time on the German Minecraft forums as a kid (minecraft.de, now defunct, still in the Web Archive though).
And thinking back, the appeal to that board was looking at all the cool mods and maps people posted, reading and participating in game related discussions and questions, posting my own creations, checking in with the (Minecraft-related and otherwise) usergroups on there, talking in the chatbox, participating in various more intricate forum games, joining the forum's Minecraft server, and so on. It was like a whole family. I knew most users by name. I dated people on there.
I feel like that sense of a huge family that you check in with multiple times a day, with in-jokes and social groups, it's totally lost now.
But maybe it's just the loss of my optimism and naiveté as a teenager online. Nowadays I am much more bitter about stuff, more cynical, perhaps just more cautious. Other users on a forum are potential threats, potential sources of discomfort, maybe politically problematic, all that. I automatically start judging them and putting them into categories, if I want to or not; something that I didn't do back when I was a kid. When there is a new user, the first reaction is no longer "oh cool welcome to the forums!" but rather maybe "another anime profile picture?"
Dumb example: if I met someone called "mjölnir" on the forums back then, I'd envision a nice early-20s bearded friendly fantasy nerd metalhead playing Minecraft with us. Nowadays, I'd probably be cautious whether it's some kind of nordaboo alt-right troll or a bitter middle aged IT guy who's only on forums because he doesn't want to be with the "wokes" on Twitter. I automatically go into defense mode. Often times, teenage me was closer to the truth. But I can't get away from my own cynicism.
I can't imagine forums like back then in a social climate as today's, especially with stuff like the Middle East conflict or trans rights. It's easy to click "block user" online, or leave a community after two weeks over a mod saying something offensive, for better or for worse. Not to say that politics doesn't matter and that we should just "take it", but that kind of cynicism and bitterness certainly makes building these family-like online forum communities way impossible.
Back then, political differences on the forums were mostly abstract, hidden and not really crazy in any way, I feel, and at least in the German online spaces there was a tolerable "centrist" kind of consensus (as opposed to English speaking niche forums where random edgy hate was still more acceptable due to "male nerd culture"). People on our forums would just not bring up stuff like their stance on random wars or elections because it wasn't relevant to the forums. Today, it's a badge of honor and a virtue to talk about, say, Palestinian rights or LGBTQ rights in every community you are in, to show support, to take a stance. Not that that's bad, but it certainly exposes a lot more ugly people in your peer group in the ensuing discussions. Nowadays, it would all get too real if I had to share a small tight-knit community with someone who advocates for my friends getting put into prison. Forums like back then wouldn't work.
I feel like Melonland was a pretty cool board that avoided that particular pitfall, but in turn due to a lack of focus and intransparent moderation it also somewhat got stressful after a while.