The death of forums

[Raining_again]

I'm gonna bite the bullet and make a thread and get some conversation going...

 

I was pondering this for a while, since this forum and a few others have really shrunk down in activity over the past... 5/10 years?  I also used to go on a diet forum that was even busier than this place in its hayday, and its also pretty destitute now. 

I think our habits have changed and forums just aren't designed as well to work in the mobile tech space.  Things like facebook, twitter etc seem to have taken over the discussion space online...

RIP bring back the forum and msn messenger days.... lol

Thoughts? 

[Ashley]

Yeah social media has taken a large part of the audience/practice really. 

And speaking of MSN I was working on a software integration the other day and one of the user fields was MSN messenger. Throwback. 

[soag]

I miss going on MSN messenger and just talking crap all night same as forums. 

Social media has pretty much killed all need for forums sadly. 

I belong to some pretty awesome Facebook groups which have such a great tight community posting daily it's almost like being on a forum back in the old days. 

[Will]

Yeah I think most of them are going the same way. For me I visit here and rllmukforum which emerged when the EDGE magazines forums closed down - that place is pretty busy to be fair.

I think the biggest issue is it’s just much easier to find an active community via facebook or reddit and general commentary on basically anything via twitter. 5 or 10 years ago if I wanted to get into something new I’d search out a website with an active forum and take part. Now if I want to get into something new I just do a quick search on reddit and almost certainly there is a community related to the subject, no matter how niche or weird.

I’m only really active on here and doubt that will change. Other sites are either too busy or too open and I like the close-knit feeling on here.

[Happenstance]

I still prefer forums over other social media platforms but other than a few larger ones they have been on the decline. It’s such a shame as well as I think forums lend themselves much better to discussions and not just snap posts without much thought behind them.

Still though, I’ve enjoyed NE this weekend more than I have in a while so hopefully more old members will stop by, some may want to hang around and the rest of us will put a bit more effort into starting conversations as Raining has here.

[Ashley]

1 minute ago, will' said:

 I like the close-knit feeling on here.

Close N-Eet. Come on. 

[Will]

Sorry! Will do better in the future.

[killthenet]

I've only ever been active on a couple of forums but NE is where I've spent the lion's share of my time. I definitely appreciate the intimate nature of this forum but it can be hard to get a conversation going sometimes. 

Social media has obviously been the death knell for a lot of discussion forums but it is so hard to have an actual conversation on the likes of Twitter or Facebook. For me Twitter is too restrictive, it's impossible to have a civil conversation on there considering the format and the level of toxicity. Reddit is more set up to long form discussions but people still tend to prefer to keep it short and sweet (and it's probably just as toxic as Twitter on the whole).

[Happenstance]

I enjoy reading the actual threads on Reddit but I have never been able to fully get my head around the comments. I don’t get how people can have any conversations in them.

[Raining_again]

This place was a huge social hub for me for a good 5 years of my life.  @soag made me join in the days of CE (2005ish) and i actually met someone from my own town here @darksnowman who became a good friend of mine, and as a result @My Buttons are Magic! and I are best of friends to this day.  And a big shoutout to all the people i met in the Sheffield 2008 meet, and even the friends I have that I've never met. I smashed my kneecap on the escalator on the way home after that meet and only 10 years later did it really heal lol

I have been pestering lots of people to come back and join in and hopefully we can get some conversation going again 

I think a lot of us joined in our teens/twenties and have grown up and had massive changes in our lives, marriage, kids, etc and found ourselves with less time to fuck around online.  

I took a min to google and found the thread that offerman posted: 
 

Quote

About two hours ago I got laid. If you cast your mind back to the last two years you will remember what my existance here was all about, perving...perving...indecent passes at female forum members...more perving..more sexual frustrations...etc. Basically almost every post had some sexual inuendo.

However it dawned on me now, that what you saw simply was not me. I was extremely disappointed by the sex...infact I only did it because she wanted it. Now, I come home and think that those two years of posts where a waste of time...I don't feel at all perveted anymore...infact I stopped feeling like that months ago. Heck...I just feel like a normal guy.

So yea, I would like to apologise for well....the postage and all I ask is that if your eyeing up some girl...just think to yourself, 'Is this me?'...'Or am I only doing this because I don't know any better'?

 

[Fierce_LiNk]

7 minutes ago, Happenstance said:

I enjoy reading the actual threads on Reddit but I have never been able to fully get my head around the comments. I don’t get how people can have any conversations in them.

Reddit is an actual pain in the arse to read any serious discussions. I'm amazed that people spend so much time on there using that format. 

Have social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter harmed forums in some aspects? Yes, definitely. But, I would argue that for serious and meaningful discussions, forums still have a place in the world. I visit several other forums, mostly just in passing, and they are thriving with tons of discussion and regular posters. There's something that you still get with forums that you can't get with the likes of Facebook. Facebook and Twitter are great for discussing things right there and then, at that very moment. But, over a longer period of time and for discussions involving multiple people, forums are just better and have easier layouts for that format.

E.g. the exercise thread that we've got here. In a forum, you've got a continuous thread that you can go back and revisit. You can easily compare how things have changed over a specific period of time by looking at the post dates and page numbers. You can't do that with Facebook or at least not as well. 

[Beast]

This and one more forum were the only ones I visited. I love this one more though because I actually feel like there's more personality in this one than anywhere else. It's a shame that forums are dying because of Twitter and Facebook but I am so grateful that this one is still here. 

[Jonnas]

As others have said, the sort of discussion you used to see in forums are now found on Twitter (which promotes dumb discussion, imo), Facebook (which promotes insular opinions, but still somehow produces the same amount of vitriol as Twitter), or Reddit (which is just awful as a UI).

(There's also Discord, but that place is more akin to MSN)

I'd like to think Forums still have their place as cozy, smaller, chill venues of discussion. Posts have more scrutiny, discussions are allowed to have time and space to breathe and grow, we tend to know each other better as people... No masses or tiny usernames, we remember each other, even if only by avatar. And to be honest, the way I post like I do on the Gaming Diary thread, or the 30-day challenge thread... I'd never do that on Reddit for a bunch of unknowns. I also would never be able to organize a mafia game there, either (well, maybe I could, but not a good one).

Forums are my jam, and N-E is the best one on the internet.

[soag]

So how can we make forums cool and hip again? Answers please people!! 

[Beast]

Maybe advertise it on social media? Use it as a tool by using hashtags related to gaming? 

As for stuff, we always used to just make topics whether it was dumb or about games or news-related. Maybe doing that would help rather than one mega thread about it? I don't know... 

[Will]

Yeah I think it just needs a bit of effort from all of us to make the place more lively and give people a reason to stick around. If there are lots of things being discussed and things seem active then it’s far more likely to attract people. 

I also think we should cut down on the number of mega threads we have like how was your day or what have you bought. They seem to suck up a lot of the content into throwaway posts when maybe if those threads weren’t around it could have created a discussion around those specific thing people mention.

[soag]

25 minutes ago, Beast said:

Maybe advertise it on social media? Use it as a tool by using hashtags related to gaming? 

As for stuff, we always used to just make topics whether it was dumb or about games or news-related. Maybe doing that would help rather than one mega thread about it? I don't know... 

 

8 minutes ago, will' said:

Yeah I think it just needs a bit of effort from all of us to make the place more lively and give people a reason to stick around. If there are lots of things being discussed and things seem active then it’s far more likely to attract people. 

I also think we should cut down on the number of mega threads we have like how was your day or what have you bought. They seem to suck up a lot of the content into throwaway posts when maybe if those threads weren’t around it could have created a discussion around those specific thing people mention.

Agreed. I was never a fan of mega threads, the odd one or two is grand but their just seems to be a mega thread for everything in the past few years. (before I disappeared anyway) 

Some of the best posts are random dumb topics IMO. 

 

[Happenstance]

We tried getting rid of the Mega threads a few years ago and it wasn’t a popular move. I don’t remember the conversations getting any better after it to be honest. I think there’s a happy middle ground where you can keep them but still encourage new threads to be created.

[Dufniall]

I used to be active on a couple of music forums and both have kind of died. One just pulled the plug and shifted to a Facebook group, and there's hardly any activity there compared to when it was still a forum. The other one is still up, but only a couple of users are posting there. And then there is N-Europe, a forum where I have been lurking for years and years but only really started posting when I started writing for the main site as well.

I also check out a forum every now and then from a big Dutch tech website. They have a very active community, but the downside there is that a lot of new members keep asking the same basic things (in the Nintendo thread every other day someone asks when the Switch 2 is coming or how the Online Family Plan works).

I think there are a couple of reasons why forums are going down and there are only a couple of really active ones left. Like said a lot of the discussion has shifted from web forums to social media. Add to that that I believe that the younger generation is not looking for lengthy discussions. They want their info fed bitesized by short YouTube videos, and they can either agree and feel validated or complain very hard if they disagree. If they do have an opinion they will probably start making their own content on a YouTube channel instead of joining a discussion forum.

My Twitter feed is very gaming-centric, but I have hardly seen any good discussions there. In fact it is sad to see that every single post from a bigger gaming outlet (say Nintendo) leads to the same responses. Either people asking for stuff (DIRECT PLS!!1!) or they can only respond in memes.

Personally, when I was still in university I had time aplenty and I would post complete bookworks on forums. But now time is limited due to a 40-hour job, my other hobbies and owning a house where there is always something to do. Also I don't feel the need anymore to ventilate my opinion on every subject. So I just pick a couple of topics I'm interested in.

But I enjoy what I got from N-Europe, which is a bunch of people to talk games with, get some online games going with. For me that's enough, and I think it's difficult to get it much bigger again then it is now. The only viable thing I can think of is asking old members back (which seems to work!) or grow a lot with the frontpage to attract new members. But that last part is a struggle as well, as most of the staff here also has only a little time to put into the main site due to work etc.

 

[Jimbob]

Social media seems to be the way forward, however even that isn't the best place to go.  Forums can be moderated, so any toxicity can usually (i say usually, there are forums out there which allow it more frequently and challenges to this results in a ban) be stopped in their tracks.  Facebook is a great tool for keeping in touch with people, however some group pages certainly don't seem to be moderated and can provide a toxic environment.

I'm sort of 50/50 with forums and social media.  I like forums still as they can provide a good base for conversations and can be friendly places, however social media does have the ability to provide breaking news faster.  You can find some people who'll happily have a conversation, but most of the time you'll just see spam messages akin to a streamers chat on Twitch.

[MindFreak]

15 hours ago, Happenstance said:

It’s such a shame as well as I think forums lend themselves much better to discussions and not just snap posts without much thought behind them.

This. I feel that social media are terrible for sober discussions and I much prefer forums. Just the fact that I can quote some part of what others have written is really important for a discussion to take place with fewer misunderstandings. However, SoMe are good for getting news out and spreading something, and it's also a good, central place with lots and lots of users that can draw in more users in "discussions". It's just a very sensitive place to discuss something as I feel that people take posts there much more personally. Thet don't hide behind an avatar and fake name, meaning that it becomes much less anonymous than on a forum (where the tone generally is nicer, though).

[Raining_again]

The social media cogs turn 24/7 and arguments spin out of control so easily. Admin teams have to exist across timezones and be very active to see shit going down.  I admin a group on FB and i'm not getting paid to sit there and babysit some idiots arguing about nonsense.  

I also agree with the dislike for super threads.  Definitely sucks in a lot of content that could easily have their own threads. 

[Rummy]

I guess an issue with this is the fact this medium contracted whilst others expanded. Member attrition rates habe shifted drastically. Far more instant social media took all the focus etcetc.

 

BUT. I don't think we need to give up on this yet. Big Tech and Big Social Media is becoming more and more bullshit(and more and an unregulated and unmoderated wasteland) and I think in time these places could potentially come back up again in a big way. A lot of the functions we used social media platforms for have shifted or grown tired but the basic idea and medium of conversations between humans with a forum I doubt is ever likely to truly die anytime soon.

[Josh64]

On 12/07/2020 at 6:45 PM, Happenstance said:

I enjoy reading the actual threads on Reddit but I have never been able to fully get my head around the comments. I don’t get how people can have any conversations in them.

I'm the same, I have read it (heh) pretty much daily for 6 years yet could count the amount of meaningful comments I've posted on one hand. It also just feels SO big that it's not like you're likely to form any kind of meaningful connection with anyone on there as it's just like shouting into space. A really great place to get info quick though. 

 

I have neglected this place massively the last few years but again that's partly due to social media and mobile life, I went without a PC for a few years and forums just aren't that easy to use on mobile/tablet, not for me anyway. But something does always pull me back to this place.

 

I should rephrase that, Ashley hates it when I call him "something"

 

[Beast]

8 hours ago, Josh64 said:

I'm the same, I have read it (heh) pretty much daily for 6 years yet could count the amount of meaningful comments I've posted on one hand. It also just feels SO big that it's not like you're likely to form any kind of meaningful connection with anyone on there as it's just like shouting into space. A really great place to get info quick though. 

 

I have neglected this place massively the last few years but again that's partly due to social media and mobile life, I went without a PC for a few years and forums just aren't that easy to use on mobile/tablet, not for me anyway. But something does always pull me back to this place.

 

I should rephrase that, Ashley hates it when I call him "something"

 

YAAAAY! I missed you! The forums are pretty hard to navigate on a mobile, to be honest. I can't quote people or reply on them unless I refresh it a thousand times otherwise I'd be more active. I have no room on my phone for Tapatalk anymore either.