What are we going to do about it?
Sorry for the Google Translate Link. An easy alternative is much appreciated.
Especially considering reddit is publicly traded and discord is having an IPO soon, and reddit has gone full 1984 censorship.
Internet forums are disappearing because now everything is Reddit and Discord. And that's worrying.
Submitted 3 weeks ago by tfm@europe.pub to fediverse@lemmy.world
Comments
foggy@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Forums lifespans weren’t all that much anyways.
The real downside to everything being on StackOverflow, Reddit, Discord, etc is that it has made it easier for big tech to run their shady data collection and analysis schemes including AI Training.
tfm@europe.pub 3 weeks ago
Forums lifespans weren’t all that much anyways.
Couldn’t this be much different if “web 2.0” hadn’t taken over?
Most sites that were hosted before 2010 are gone now.
Many of them are still alive but don’t get the exposure they deserve because of centralized networks.
The real downside to everything being on StackOverflow, Reddit, Discord, etc is that it has made it easier for big tech to run their shady data collection and analysis schemes including AI Training.
Right. But what can we do to get people to switch to the Fediverse and put an end to this?
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Couldn’t this be much different if “web 2.0” hadn’t taken over?
Probably not, even if you have time to maintain your site by updating it occasionally then it still falls upon individuals to fund the hosting services and hold the domain name. Even Hexbear’s domain wound up for auction a little while back because they forgot to pay their bills.
Many of them are still alive but don’t get the exposure they deserve because of centralized networks.
Since Net Neutrality has been off and on enforced, it’s generally been considered illegal to block, hide, or throttle traffic, but I agree those small sites didn’t get as much search indexing unless they paid for ads.
nokturne213@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
Most sites that were hosted before 2010 are gone now.
I hosted a forum for guilds in several games I played over the years. I had mine up from 2005-2019 but my board’s php version got way behind the host‘a and it no longer works. Someday I will find someone to help me fix it, or start a new one.
noodlejetski@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Most sites that were hosted before 2010 are gone now.
yeah, because virtually all communities moved to Discord or Reddit.
mrodri89@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Im starting to see Lemmy isn’t any better. Mods deleting my comments for asking questions.
Irelephant@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Stay away from any communities on .ml, they censor so many things.
mrodri89@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Do you know if there’s a way to filter them out?
krdo@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
Switch to another server or start your own?
mrodri89@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Im participating in all. I dont pay attention to server or the drama around servers.
Its just always something we are going to face no matter the platform. Mods generally will always get power unhinged no matter if its privately funded or not.
tfm@europe.pub 3 weeks ago
Is this the comment or just the mod message? If it’s just the mod message what was the comment?
nothingspecial@retrolemmy.com 3 weeks ago
Decentralized and smaller platforms definitely help preserve open discussion. But when it comes to company security culture and internal comms, even forums are giving way to automation. Tools like cyberupgrade.net show how even training and risk detection are now handled without Slack threads or forum debates.
orcrist@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Doesn’t that depend on the forums, though? For many organizations, those sites fit the needs perfectly fine. If you don’t care about archiving and you would not be totally screwed if the forum disappeared tomorrow, you’re going to opt for something simple like that.
RedAggroBest@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yea that’s my issue in this argument too. Saying forums are replacing everything, or even that that’s a big problem is like saying “Swords are disappearing from warfare and that’s a problem” in the late 15th century. We don’t need forums for everything because the format isn’t the only tool we have anymore.
LedgeDrop@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Yeah, bring back Usenet! (rabble, rabble, rabble) /s
Agrivar@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It’s still there - but, I do wish it was more active (other than the piracy and porn, that never die I suppose)
atrielienz@lemmy.world 3 weeks 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).
Buelldozer@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
As to what we do about it?
Nothing. We do nothing about it. I’ve literally watched this happen over and over and over and over since the early 90s. $Place on the internet gets popular and is then ruined by the hordes of normies and the commercialization they attract. It’s even worse now with rise of influencers, troll farms, online advertising agencies, and power users.
The normie users add almost nothing to the online experience and they take so very much.
So the wisest move is to do nothing and let the flotsam and turds of the internet wash up in harbors like Reddit.
ABetterTomorrow@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
I hope someone is archiving that data. Lots of great small communities with great info/help.
Gluca23@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Every forum i joined for my hobbies are always been full of shills in disguise.
tfm@europe.pub 3 weeks ago
That’s sad
Loki66@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I agree with the previous comments: forums are hard to manage because of trolls, hackers and lack of dedicated resources … The main responsible being, before reddit and discord, the ugly social networks mainly facebook. I hope this company will crumble …
Ledericas@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
forums tend to be more restrictive in certain subject. i was in a health type forum, where i was not allow to mention the word black people, or african american, because they its racist trolling, when its really not.
Xamrica@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Kagi also offers Website translations: …kagi.com/…/foros-internet-estan-desapareciendo-p…
sloppychops@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Try DeepL. It’s the superior translation app, as far as I’m concerned. Based in the EU, I believe.
tfm@europe.pub 3 weeks ago
Haven’t found a website translation service from them, unfortunately.
tfm@europe.pub 3 weeks ago
That looks good!
sentient_loom@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
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.
tfm@europe.pub 3 weeks ago
Sow how are we getting people to join the Fediverse?
sentient_loom@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Hire Steve Bannon as a marketer?
ramble81@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
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.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
To me, Discord feels like someone shoehorned a bunch of features into an old '90s instant messenger. Like if the only way you could access Wikipedia was by searching through your MSN Messenger chat history or something.
quokka1@mastodon.au 2 weeks ago
@ivanafterall @ramble81 IRC with emoticons
nasi_goreng@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
…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.
tfm@europe.pub 3 weeks ago
Isn’t there anything in friendica or diaspora like that?
nyamlae@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The Friendica UI is terrible, unfortunately. Way too complex.
nasi_goreng@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Not as comprehensive as Facebook Groups.
Facebook strength is having big community from Asia and Africa. While fediverse is mostly Westerner (and isolated Japanese). Unless people from those continents move here in huge wave, I don’t think Facebook will get replaced.
Mastodon is not valid recommendation for them, as these people doesn’t even use Twitter or even hates them.
Ledericas@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
yuck facebook, ive seen people who cant handle criticism move there, because they can delete or have control of thier discussion at will, without getting reported themselves.
nasi_goreng@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Any social media technically host the same variation of people. It can be good or bad depends of your social circle and what kind of people you follow. Even fediverse has its own bubble of hostile people.
espressdelivery@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
I’m looking for a study group for a specific maths textbook I’m reading
Discord math forum is too big and my queries get swamped so I don’t use it
I’d appreciate some advice on this and also how to develop my federated use of the internet
tfm@europe.pub 3 weeks ago
Maybe !math@lemmy.world ?
espressdelivery@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Cheers I’ll check it out and revert back
Itzdan@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Let us know if you find something!
espressdelivery@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Thank you, I’ve posted in math.lemmy to see if anything crops up
Ephera@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Original link (in Spanish): xataka.com/…/foros-internet-estan-desapareciendo-…
androidul@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
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
tfm@europe.pub 3 weeks ago
What do you think is the reason why not a lot more people are joining the fediverse?
fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
Little awareness
androidul@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
I think there are more reasons, but the most prominent ones are
- the fediverse is not that aggressively publicized
- if by any luck your average bob joins, he’ll be confused because a) the UI/UX is less appealing b) he doesn’t know where to go and what’s the difference between Mastodon, Pixelfed, Lemmy etc.
Wrongdoer4094@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
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?
tfm@europe.pub 3 weeks ago
What hosting do you use? You can easily host it using docker.
Itzdan@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It’s why I went to the Chime.In app. It’s not perfect, but it’s not Reddit
Irelephant@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
ChimeIn is cool.
udon@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Welcome to 2015 I guess?
Nangijala@feddit.dk 3 weeks ago
For real. My preferred forum was closed I’m 2015 after 13 years active. Facebook killed it. I will never understand why people chose Facebook over that forum. You could blog and post pictures and chat with people in peace and quiet without having to deal with the entire world looking in on your cringe teenage angst.
Generally, I just remember how all these forums and blogsites that used to make up the internet were pretty much dead and gone by 2017. The art community went from having good platforms like Tumblr and deviantart to having to deal with the nightmare that is Instagram and Twitter. There still hasn’t been a good alternative to artists posting their artwork since Instagram took over. It was a shittification then and it has only gotten worse since. But people now have grown up with this bullshit and therefore they don’t question or demand better. They don’t know what it used to be like to be an artist online. It was fun and inspiring. AI slob hasn’t helped the matter either.
GoodOleAmerika@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Discord 🤣🤣 is that even end to end encrypted?
HK65@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
Which end to which end?
cantstopthesignal@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Ass to ass
GoodOleAmerika@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
None. Don’t get caught in oligarchy because they can intercept.
_____@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Me when I’m fucking banned from some Linux .org forum for no reason (did not read or make a post or even login)
ermmmmm contact the web admins 🤓 how about no?
Forums are extremely unfriendly and need a complete redesign if they hope people will use them
tfm@europe.pub 3 weeks ago
That’s unfortunate
AizawaC47@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
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.
conicalscientist@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
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.
Ledericas@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
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.
AizawaC47@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
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.
jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 3 weeks ago
There’s a shared theme with like all of humanity’s woes: people don’t care that much.
From pollution to injustice to shitty websites, if people cared just a little more the problem would be dramatically reduced or even eliminated.
But so many people are just apathetic. Overwhelmed and checked out.
bizza@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
I actually just launched a PHPBB forum for specific interests in regards to the indie web, building websites, and sharing random banter (among a few other things). I find Reddit and Lemmy to be useful for seeing what’s going on in the world overall, and Discord has mostly just been annoying ever since its launch, and forums seem like a good answer to recreating actual communities. And if there are more people who feel this way, maybe they’ll make a comeback (because they definitely haven’t just started to be affected by corporations attempting to centralize everyone to one thing).
MECHAGIC@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Do you have a link to your forum?
bizza@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Haha sorry, would have responded earlier but am stuck at work
Tag365@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yeah, forums were pretty cool!
f4f4f4f4f4f4f4f4@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
In the USA, Section 230 protections are going away in 2027 so that should finish off any remaining forums.
tfm@europe.pub 3 weeks ago
Damn. Good that I’m not in the US
nova_dragon@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
oh damn, why am i just now hearing about this
PattyMcB@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Ironically posted on lemmy
nl4real@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
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.
batmaniam@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
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…
fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
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
tfm@europe.pub 3 weeks ago
Why not creating a community around this topic on Lemmy and crosspost forum posts there?