Submitted 1 year ago by tfm@europe.pub to fediverse@lemmy.world
What are we going to do about it?
Sorry for the Google Translate Link. An easy alternative is much appreciated.
Met my wife on a little internet forum called 9chat. Right before it disappeared.
These little spaces on the internet were quite nice to be. Always seeing the same people. It has a different feeling.
Decentralising social media will have its positives. When one tries to control public opinion, people can flee to another one for example.
That’s why we have to make sure the Fediverse is the future!
It’s been 1 week since I found out about Lemmy, liking it quite a bit.
I wonder, is there an area on this social media that are extremist pro free speech?
Such as, okay you’re being a total shithead, I still won’t ban you.
I’m just curious if spaces such as that even exist, and if they do, what they lead to.
Discord, Reddit and Lemmy are bad choices for forums. If you want ANY useful information to stick, put it on forums you know are gonna get indexed and archived reliably. Reddit is indexable but there’s no guarantee the page will still be there when you search for it through Google.
Discord is completely unindexable so any information that exists on a server that gets deleted is lost forever.
Lemmy is a half-way house. As far as I know it’s kinda indexable but not really.
Discord is bad because its forums are not world-readable, therefore not indexable. It’s very useful to the rest of the world to have conversations be public. I bet the youngest users here don’t even remember but searching Google in the 2000s before Facebook went huge and when forums were all world-readable, it was a different world. You could find somebody who was talking about your niche issue/product - no matter what it was. It was kind of magical. No matter what thing happened to you, you could be pretty sure it had happened to someone else and they were talking about it.
Not anymore. Everything’s on Facebook now and Google can’t see it, nor can anyone else - except Facebook. All that legacy knowledge just tucked away in Facebook’s data vault and essentially useless to anybody but Facebook, which makes it less than useless.
Lemmy is as indexable as Reddit.
Not only that, the ongoing discussion format means all knowledge is in the same place and people don’t need to keep asking the same question over and over by creating new posts and you don’t end up with the same conversation happening in three different branches of the same post like on Reddit/Lemmy.
Looks like Lemmy has great indexabiliy: www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aeurope.pub
europe.pub is only about two weeks old and hundreds of pages have already been indexed. Currently setting up the Google Search Console to get more details.
I hate that Discord id being used as a forum replacement because it’s fucking terrible for it. There’s pretty much no way to collate and archive information in a way that is actually useful.
That’s by design for sure.
Push Lemmy out there. Help Lemmy grow. Lemmy has a few issues that need addressed;
The Name needs changed, you see who shows up when you search Lemmy. The easiest thing to do is switch it to “Lemme” (Sounds like “Let Me”, like just lemme post this) or Lemy.
Lemmy needs an app that is just as easy as Reddit to sign up for. It needs to drop on the person’s computer desktop and sign them into a default federation that auto accepts everyone. The initial signup process is confusing to people, with the website listing different federation and having to apply and wait. Some auto accept, people need to be pointed to those.
If communities get big enough people will sign up because a particular instance is a community where they want to be and then they can discover federation on their own time.the problem is that we’re still small enough that there’s only barely enough to see in the first place and instances are thus far mostly interchangeable.
Agree with these points so much. It feels like I have to learn how to sign up, then learn to use it, rather than just use it.
The Name needs changed, you see who shows up when you search Lemmy. The easiest thing to do is switch it to “Lemme” (Sounds like “Let Me”, like just lemme post this) or Lemy.
Good ideas for new names, however, I think this is seen very controversial in the community.
Lemmy needs an app that is just as easy as Reddit to sign up for. It needs to drop on the person’s computer desktop and sign them into a default federation that auto accepts everyone. The initial signup process is confusing to people, with the website listing different federation and having to apply and wait. Some auto accept, people need to be pointed to those.
Some sort of rotation system would be cool that distributes the users across multiple instances. That way no single instance gets too big.
Oh yes, that is an amazing idea. That or a welcome “pad” style federation that boots you out of it after 30 days. That way people don’t “zerg” one federation.
I agree with this. Have like 50 or 20 and have the mod screen be part of the experiment, and once they hit a certain threshold number of users they are removed to help encourage diversity
Personally, I would be irritated to be signed up for an instance I didn’t choose and may not be what I like, especially if the app hid the fact that I had a choice.
Recently I’ve created a private forum and so far I’m very happy with it. It’s nice that our discussions are private, keeping data gobblers, programmatic advertisers, grifters and other schmucks like this out in the cold.
To be clear, I’m advertising the idea, not membership.
That’s cool! Was it hard to set it up?
Technically? Not very much, but I’m handy with NixOS. The hardest part was the configuration of a mail server. I should probably blog about the setup process. But of course the real work is attracting people and keeping them engaged.
I’ve actually been going out of my way to look up new forums to use since the Reddit API controversy. Finding them can sometimes be a pain in the ass because search engines suck nowadays, but I’ve found a few I hang around on. I spend way more time on them than I do Lemmy.
Someone should compile a directory of every forum out there, and share a widely and updated every 3 months. Having some creation to say that this one is a good car for him that one’s good for this Etc it help people if the process. Go sift through the net and find the best stuff and Elevate it for people
Why not creating a community around this topic on Lemmy and crosspost forum posts there?
They do still exist, I have a specific but popular vehicle, and there’s a dedicated forum style site directly from 2011.
In a perfect world, that would be folded into the “fediverse” protocols, but like they’re already paying their own hosting etc. In the end that’s all reddit did: absorb some nominal hosting and IT for exposure. It made sense for hype niche communities, which is how reddit grew, but now that they’re killing control of the communities… Well… It turns out people were willing to pay for those servers back when they were expensive…
Is talking on Lemmy ok?
Kindly refrain.
What do you mean?
Original link (in Spanish): xataka.com/…/foros-internet-estan-desapareciendo-…
The big problem with web forums was dealing with spam.
Also, one thing this article overlooked is that X is no longer indexed by Google, because you’re required to log in to read most things.
xcancel.com to the rescue! Simply replace x.com with xcancel.com and see everything and don’t give them a single piece of data.
Its been driving me crazy, I am so close to abandoning the internet and going back to old reading just out of spite. yesterday I went looking on how to fix something simple a small electric item and all i got was adverts for a replacement, I use DDG and i closed the screen at three pages. I miss when you could simply search a question and the answer was there. Excited to see the resistance starting to emerge.
not trying to make fun of the idea and I share big part of your sentiment, but I just got the mental image of a person leaving the internet, opening a book angrily and saying to the air: “ha! it serves you right! I don’t need you anymore!”
and I chuckled a little xD
This is precisely the reason I’ve been using LLM so often. Finding what I want on Google or DDM has become two time consuming. I’m sure the answer is on there. I just have to scroll through all of the BS ads, spam content, AI written garbage.
Using an AI search engine is ok. But you definitely have to check the sources.
Try Ifixit next time. If it runs on electricity, there’s a good chance that they have taken it apart and documented how to repair it.
Its finding it in the first place. It wasn’t even a tough question it was actually about changing a plug on something, i just wanted to double check it was suited, but the effort of finding out the info outweighed the effort to find. Something like iFixit is a good idea but you have to find it in the first place. These places are so buried now.
Me too! What do you think we can do to get more people to join the Fediverse?
One of the things for me is over the last few years i have suppressed my inner geek, censored my voice and gone along with the common group areas. I have tended to read rather than be part of something. I am kinda techie always have been however I have slept walked into a hole that I need to get out of, and instead start contributing to real communities of interest. Spaces i love, spaces where people share my passion.
I think the benefits of diversity the fediverse and infact the world we live in needs communicating. Convenience (or what i believed to be) has been a hell of a drug that I am waking up to and walking away from. And that means me getting involved in healthy internet spaces. Spaces that work me not me not the other way round. As a real life analogy, Supermarkets are great, but as i get older i am going back to farmers markets and boot sales, i like the experience, i find things i didn’t know i wanted.
Kagi also offers Website translations: …kagi.com/…/foros-internet-estan-desapareciendo-p…
That looks good!
Try DeepL. It’s the superior translation app, as far as I’m concerned. Based in the EU, I believe.
Haven’t found a website translation service from them, unfortunately.
They already disappeared around 2017 when Steve Bannon’s racist troll armies flooded every single social media site or app. The auto-immune reaction killed the host, which I suspect was the point.
Sow how are we getting people to join the Fediverse?
Hire Steve Bannon as a marketer?
Yeah, bring back Usenet! (rabble, rabble, rabble) /s
It’s still there - but, I do wish it was more active (other than the piracy and porn, that never die I suppose)
I honestly don’t think Internet forum will ever loose itself. You will always always have small amount of people who will migrate to smaller forums for whatever topic or subject that they are interested in. Yes it might seem like discord and Reddit might appear to be the major forums of today’s modern age of communication under the title of forums.
People will always migrate and do whatever means to obtain freedom of speech. If Reddit and discord, well Reddit that I actually know of continue to perm ban or ban because of a word that our overlords aka moderators ban, because they are drunk with power and micromanage their sub Reddit then it’ll die. It will take time but forums like Lemmy and IRC (I know this ages me.) which still exist today, will never die. People just are not aware that other forums exist. They just have to do a little research or stumble upon it by accident which is how I found Lemmy. I was familiar with the term fediverse, but just never really looked into it.
So there’s hope. Humans are peculiar and interesting. We are highly intelligent, and I will always lean on the fact that we are tenacious and we never lack in ingenuity. They can never control our creativity and imagination. If something tries to monopolizes and put us in a box, there’s always a rebel creating a door for some of us to escape.
Forums were micromanaged far more than modern social platforms. Reddit is one of the “free speech absolutist” sites like its sibling 4chan. These were opposing paradigms to forums.
I’ve long contended that modern social media users would absolutely hate the old style forums. If people think subreddit mods and reddit content mods suck. They haven’t met the admin of Joe Bobs phpbb forum hosted from his garage. Joe Bob doesn’t suffer fools gladly.
I don’t think it’s a free speech problem. I think people have not only been conditioned to be content junkies. They’ve become addicted to being Greater Fuckwads.
Maybe nobody cares what you think and whatever your words are they aren’t that important. Social media has devoured peoples egos turning them into the Greatest Fuckwads. With social media everyone has a podium and everyone has very important words with billions of doomscrollers as an audience. Don’t you dare steppy my freedoms!!1!
Anyways I think the real test is whether people can handle a small forum with strict moderation and focused discussion. That will reveal who has half a brain apart from the fuckwads. I’ve seen people come to what are now basically private forums and get smacked down real quick. A sobering dose of reality for them.
depends on the forums, some entrenched mods like in the main military forum(joining) are very anal. and some dislike you mentioning any kind of race, when its relevant to a medical issue.
Anyways I think the real test is whether people can handle a small forum with strict moderation and focused discussion. That will reveal who has half a brain apart from the fuckwads. I’ve seen people come to what are now basically private forums acting like a garden variety social media user only to get smacked down real quick. A sobering dose of reality for them.
I see what you mean. It will be interesting to see who is a brain dead NPC influenced by social media in the mass monopolization sector of it. Who is really into the niche topics and genre of commentary in the essence of forums. I will always hold out in hope when it comes to social media that is built by the people for the people. But you are exactly correct in being a test.
That not all, search engine too are killing internet. They become worst ad time pass. You can’t even found again some piece of info which is still here on a forum or something. Google prefer to send you to a reddit which doesn’t answer you question than on a forum which has the specific answer and that you found some years ago. It fell like search engine are purposely killing old plateforme even if they are still up.
thier obssession with using AI to do all the searches is also excluding the actual sites you want to see.
I’m using DuckDuckGo and Qwant and get way better results than on Google now. I don’t know what’s going on there at Google but I hope they make it even shittier so they loose more users.
Yeah I am using duckduck go and starpage too. But you have to admit result still Los quality. Even if it is not as bbad as google.
Forums are where I learned literally everything about technology I know now. Every hack, jailbreak, method of bypassing something, building, literally anything I’ve done around my tech hobbies. Pi hole, emulation in the late 90s, how to use Photoshop, how to run Linux from a USB, everything I’ve learned from forums. I’m sad to think that me joining certain discords help deliver the death knell to the concept of forums.
XDA forum was that for me. Great place to start and then follow links or do more research using the keywords used in the discussions. Just helpful for things like learning if a kernel is potentially fixable or not before buying a second-hand device for a custom rom project. The new look / reorganisation of stuff annoys me though as I find it harder to find stuff than it used to be but that’s because I am using it on autopilot. I guess new users might find it attractive / easy to navigate?
How about crossposting forum post links on Lemmy? This would help to get them exposure.
I’m not convinced at least half of those communities trust Reddit and Discord enough to leave forums, but then again I stopped using them mostly because I haven’t had time for those hobbies. My emulation groups are still active on forums, at least.
a lot of them died because they never bring in new people and people leave for a variety of reasons.
Reddit is shadow banning people in droves for bad upvotes
What are we going to do about it?
Nothing. People move to reddit and discord for a reason. If forums were worth saving, this problem wouldn’t have existed.
I have never once used discord and it makes me wonder how much information I haven’t been able to find, but I’ve managed to get what I need so I don’t know if it was important anyway.
Fuck discord and fuck reddit.
I proudly still use a super specialised old school online forum and it works great for those purposes.
…and Facebook Groups.
A lot of people simply don’t realize that a lot of traditional community, especially more niche are moving to Facebook. There’s no even Reddit alternative for them.
From fried chicken cooking, big tree photography, McDonalds toys collector, to local history archiver.
It’s harder to convince them here, unless there are Facebook Group alternative for fediverse.
Subreddits were not a problem before since they were accessible on the web without needing an account. But now reddit is gradually locking them down behind authwalls and things like not letting search engines index (other than Google).
Lemmy communities dont have this problem and because lemmy is federated, its resistant to such enshittification (plus you can easily create your own lemmy instance for only your team). So imo they are a good alternative to forums (and reddit) and a good solution to this problem.
it’s worrying because all that knowledge will be lost instead of living somewhere in a forum indexed by a search engine.
But in the same time, I see more people fleeing from traditional search engines to AI … I don’t know where we’re heading at
Was this article written 10 years ago?
First and foremost I’d like to point out that this alarm has been sounded before. In the early 2010’s, in the late 2010’s, during the pandemic etc. Part of that is because megaforums like reddit (slack, github, and I guess digg) swallowed them up. Which is more convenient for the average user (younger internet users especially) who only have to go to one or two places with apps that allow them to use their phone to format in a readable/engageable manner for them.
I would posit that the internet forum isn’t dying exactly so much as it has morphed into things like the above mentioned megaforums. Those megaforums have their own trials and tribulations but they are popular for multiple reasons.
Ease of use - One tap to open an app you’re already signed into on a phone or tablet from anywhere.
Ease of discoverability - An algorithm that helps you to find things to engage with. An algorithm that promotes content that lots of other people engage with so that new users who don’t have preferences known yet can still find things they like.
Ease of navigation and search - I’m still using udm14.com to search for things on lemmy because if I don’t save them the search function on the site isn’t good and doesn’t always provide me with results at all. Reddit’s search is pretty bad but it’s still more usable than lemmy’s in a lot of ways.
Easy to sign up - I think this speaks for itself. Lemmy has a higher bar to clear for vetting an instance and even understanding the difference between instances than any other corpo platform, and while this has gotten easier over time, it will never be as simple as, go to this website and fill out the form to make an account.
I say all that to say that 1. we got here by ignoring the warnings for years and years. 2. We can compete but are unlikely to be the number one choice of the general internet masses for a lot of reasons. 3. Smaller forums will continue to die and get swallowed up by megaforum websites or platforms like reddit or lemmy because of the benefit of convenience on the user side and I believe we have probably reached the point of no return in that respect.
As to what we do about it? We cultivate ours to be better, add features and users in an organic way that would make our platform the preferred one. But we can’t really focus on growth alone and part of the reason for that has to do with the user subset who don’t want to become like reddit or digg etc. Additionally, I think we might be able to win over the artists and creators if we added something to prevent AI from scraping their works.
The main thing for users who are already here might just be better decorum. Lemmy users are often mean (myself included in that statement) to people who we view as stupid or ill-informed and we often treat them like trolls. We also assume a certain amount of known information about any given situation and act as if everyone should know, which is problematic.
One last thing I’d like to point out. People on the internet more and more engage with content they don’t have to read. I think that’s an important part of why forums are dying. Illiteracy is rising. It’s hard to have a conversation in written or typed forums when you don’t have that skillset. Discord allows people to engage via voice in ways lemmy just does not (this is not advocacy for discord because it’s not a forum and treating it as one is problematic on just about every level).
Especially considering reddit is publicly traded and discord is having an IPO soon, and reddit has gone full 1984 censorship.
I have been trying to build a forum recently, but found phpbb really ugly and difficult to customize (even changing the logo was oddly difficult). I know about discourse but I would prefer a PHP based solution I can host in one of my current servers.
Are there any better solutions?
Are there good alternatives?
I feel like forums really fell behind the times, with shitty threading systems and awkward text formatting interfaces and the horror that is bbcode.
Meanwhile discord handles image embedding gracefully, with markdown formatting and previews.
What’s the next-gen forum system that’s keeping up with modern times? Is there a part of the fediverse that meets this?
Discourse seems the most modern, but not sure if it is open, let alone federated.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 1 year ago
Every forum I used before Reddit even existed is still active. IDK what the fuck these articles are talking about. Maybe they just don’t know how to actually find anything on the web? 🤷🏻♂️
tfm@europe.pub 1 year ago
I think it’s more about the scale. 80% or more of the content gets created on Reddit or alike, probably.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 1 year ago
Barely any content is created on Reddit. It’s an aggregate site where 90% of the posts are links to other sites, just like Lemmy.