Is there anyone else still here?

[Butterfree]

Honestly I don't think Discord is even maliciously out killing forums. Forums were declining before Discord got popular - the main thing is most people use big social media sites or apps to socialize online these days, rather than seeking out independent websites. But also, the live chat element of chat clients like Discord did sort of outcompete forums for the niche interest spaces, once they had decent organization features: quicker, shorter messages, more instant gratification with immediate reactions and responses, etc. I love forums, but even I can feel my brain getting more out of the everyday socialization drive with live discussions.

Which is a shame, because as you note, it's a lot more convenient for the internet as a whole when helpful information exists in places like forums, where search engines can index it. I'm still devoted to maintaining my website as an actual, searchable website with a proper menu and most all the content that's ever been on it still there, and it's very important to me that that means the info on it is searchable and will continue to be there and work. Community management was never my main passion, though, unfortunately, and then I basically thoroughly burnt out on it some years ago for various reasons, so I don't quite have the drive to be here personally trying to fight the times to keep the forum discussion going.

Always enjoy when we do get a thread that actually generates some talk, though!

 

[Trinket]

I still lurk intermittently. I keep thinking how nice it would be to get back into the swing of forumposting, what with the wider Internet being on fire and all, and then not getting around to it ehehe

 

[A_Polished_Scyther]

Reddit has some responsibility for killing forums too, although discord is worse because it's not indexed by search engines. Back in the day you could google some hobbyist like game modding and find a guide written on a forum that's viewable on the open web. These days all those forums just point towards a discord community, so one discord goes down it's lost forever without any wayback machine archives (and searching on discord is a pain, too).

This. There are still forum posts from 10-20 years ago that can help answer some questions even now, and can be found with a quick Google search, that is if the forum is lucky enough to still be around. But we're in the future now, why should something so simple be harder to do?

Because it's the future, everything has to be overcomplicated in the future!

 

[ValBones]

Honestly I don't think Discord is even maliciously out killing forums. Forums were declining before Discord got popular - the main thing is most people use big social media sites or apps to socialize online these days, rather than seeking out independent websites. But also, the live chat element of chat clients like Discord did sort of outcompete forums for the niche interest spaces, once they had decent organization features: quicker, shorter messages, more instant gratification with immediate reactions and responses, etc. I love forums, but even I can feel my brain getting more out of the everyday socialization drive with live discussions.

I get your point, but the thing is that different means of socialization work better for different people. Being an introvert with ADHD I find being in a chatroom with a bunch of strangers pitching in several quick messages at once to be very overwhelming, and even with the organization features Discord servers still just feel very messy and chaotic to me. I find forum discussion much easier to manage and take at my own pace, and I can stay on only specific topics that I actually care about. For me, live chat is only good to do with friends and usually just one-on-one, just as I would talk with someone in real life. This is why I mentioned in an earlier post that I wish there were more options for people with diverse interests and needs, but unfortunately these days we live in a very conformist age. It's ironic when there are all these big groups and coorporations preaching about "accepting everyone" and yet more often than not they end up promoting the opposite mentalility, but I guess that's a whole different discussion.

 

[A_Polished_Scyther]

Honestly I don't think Discord is even maliciously out killing forums. Forums were declining before Discord got popular - the main thing is most people use big social media sites or apps to socialize online these days, rather than seeking out independent websites. But also, the live chat element of chat clients like Discord did sort of outcompete forums for the niche interest spaces, once they had decent organization features: quicker, shorter messages, more instant gratification with immediate reactions and responses, etc. I love forums, but even I can feel my brain getting more out of the everyday socialization drive with live discussions.

I get your point, but the thing is that different means of socialization work better for different people. Being an introvert with ADHD I find being in a chatroom with a bunch of strangers pitching in several quick messages at once to be very overwhelming, and even with the organization features Discord servers still just feel very messy and chaotic to me. I find forum discussion much easier to manage and take at my own pace, and I can stay on only specific topics that I actually care about. For me, live chat is only good to do with friends and usually just one-on-one, just as I would talk with someone in real life. This is why I mentioned in an earlier post that I wish there were more options for people with diverse interests and needs, but unfortunately these days we live in a very conformist age. It's ironic when there are all these big groups and coorporations preaching about "accepting everyone" and yet more often than not they end up promoting the opposite mentalility, but I guess that's a whole different discussion.

Not just this, but Discord and forums are designed with two entirely different depths of discussion in mind. You can't make a particular thread about so-and-so that has dozens, if not hundreds of people replying to it over the course of its lifespan on Discord. Sure, you can bring these things up within particular channels, but don't expect people to actually engage with what you want to talk about in any meaningful capacity beyond a few brief replies at the most.

Discord's good for brief, generalized discussions. Like, for example, a server dedicated to posting updates and allowing those who are interested to talk about a particular mod for a video game. But forums are for more in-depth communication, and the internet is sorely lacking in the latter nowadays since it just seems like a lot of modern day community managers just want to be lazy and dumb things down by boxing everything into ultra-specific, easily managed topics. Though just how "easy to manage" that really is varies from person-to-person.

Once again, it boils down to "Chat Program" vs. "Message Board".

...I'm pretty sure I just repeated my last post on the subject.