Comment on How did we move from forums to Reddit, Facebook groups, and Discord?
Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
If there was a Reddit/Lemmy style website (where people create communities for various subjects but it’s all available from the same website using the same credentials) with forum style discussions I would be outta here in a moment.
Ongoing discussions with bumps are so much better for knowledge accumulation (that’s the reason why they’re still used by specialized communities), the major issue with firms, as pointed out, is the hassle of having to go from one website to another to talk about various subjects and needing to sign up to each one of them.
I don’t disagree.
There is one forum I still participate in:
forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum/
It’s mostly tech-focussed and Australia-centric, but it does have other topics like sport, TV etc…
I wish there were more like this.
I hate that the bulk of online discussion is now owned/monopolised by a couple of huge corporations.
There are many forums like that, especially if you’re not limited to one language. Most of the ones I frequent have been around for 10 or 20 years or more, but kind of fly under the radar. ilxor being a very good example. AFAIK, the latter also adds only one new user per day. I’d say that’s a good thing, even though I had to apply several times.
Specific forums for certain things are still the best.
I have an Aprilia motorcycle from 1999, and the Aprilia forum has 20 years of info, discussion, and advice on that specific motorcycle.
It is also a bit surreal seeing someone reply to my question and see that they joined the forum itself back when I was less that 1 years old.
There are several forum software companies working on ActivityPub support, I know both Discourse and NodeBB have been working on it for a while
Indeed, hopefully they can complete compatibility at some point
If there was a Reddit/Lemmy style website (where people create communities for various subjects but it’s all available from the same website using the same credentials) with forum style discussions
Isn’t this just Discourse?
I’ll go take a look, but isn’t it just the software behind the various forums and you need separate credentials for each one?
It has ActivityPub support so it is connected to the fediverse in some ways. Lemmy doesn’t work with it though AFAIK because Lemmy doesn’t support posts made outside communities.
Why doesn’t discourse simply make their different topics into communities is the question
the major issue with forums, as pointed out, is the hassle of having to go from one website to another to talk about various subjects and needing to sign up to each one of them.
Honestly the “having to sign up” part would be trivial to solve if topical forums just globally adopted OpenID sign-in or similar. No need to have one account per community if you already have (or “are”) an account in the World.
But even then, there’s a point to having to go through a sign-up process. At least some sort of vetting. We have seen how far have fallen all the communities that have ever relaxed sign-ups (as another comment in this thread shows, there was once a time when FB only allowed educated people in).
If there was a Reddit/Lemmy style website (where people create communities for various subjects but it’s all available from the same website using the same credentials) with forum style discussions I would be outta here in a moment.
My brother, this is that website
No, it’s not. Unless they only allow the sorting of threads based on which discussions has the newest comment (bumping) and remove comment nesting (so discussions are ongoing instead of branching off which makes it difficult to keep up with what’s new in the different threads), it’s not that website.
Isn’t that exactly what “Active” sort does?
Only works if it’s the way everyone is sorting their feed.
Can’t someone make a client or a UI which does this?
Lemmy already has both of those sorting options built in
Again, unless it works the same way for everyone then people are just replying to old discussions and no one knows about it except for the person they’re replying to.
I don’t know, if there’s any hosted instances of it, or how mature it is, but one of the Lemmy devs has experimented with using the frontend of phpBB (basically the software for old-school forums) with a Lemmy backend: !lemmybb@lemmy.ml
To my knowledge, they had some pretty quick successes with it and one might be able to just slap this onto a server right now…
Last updates where in April 2023, priority not on their priority list
Once a thread gets large enough, no one is going back to read the first page. Maybe for communities on Lemmy, “Active” is the sort method that would work the best as you’d describe, but sorting the comments/replies by votes seems the best method to make sure the most important knowledge is visible
db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
It seems to me the only thing you’re missing from the functionality you want on lemmy is a sorting system which just bumps any discussion with new comments to the top. I don’t like that approach myself, but if that’s what you want I don’t see a reason. Why don’t you suggest it to the lemmy devs? It doesn’t seem like it would be difficult to add it.
Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Only works if everyone’s experience is the same and discussions are centralized in threads. I added to my comment but on a forum that discussion would be part of a thread where all similar articles/discussions would be centralized instead of having a new thread being opened on the same subject every few weeks and people having to rewrite the same opinion every time (or just not sharing their opinion anymore because they’re tired of repeating themselves every time someone wants to talk about that subject).
There’s no knowledge accumulation with the way things work on Reddit/Lemmy, just repetition and things being forgotten.
db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
I can’t disagree enough. There was little knowledge accumulation in oldschool forums either. There were constant arguments about thread necromancy and people not searching before asking. It sounds like you’re describing a parallel idyllic universe.
This kind of knowledge repository is why were have megathreads and/or attached wikis.
Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Everything you’ll ever want to know about a specific model of motorcycle, all in a single thread:
advrider.com/…/yamaha-wr250r-threadfest.936588/
Ask a question and people will tell you what page to look at if you can’t find it, post something that has already been talked about and they’ll refer you to the page where people talked about it. On here? You could repost the exact same text tomorrow in a different community and the same discussion would happen again. Post it again in this community in a month and the same discussion will happen again without anyone noticing that you’re reposting.
Necroing in order to continue talking about something and build on the base already established is much better than the constant repost and knowledge reset we see on here where the same questions are asked again and again and again and people need to explain the same things again and again and again.