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Rant Forums - Dying out, or staying relevant ?

Discussion in 'General' started by MT. Mods, 7 May 2017.

  1. MT. Mods

    MT. Mods Case Modder

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    So there's 2 of us (Modders) saying, forums will always be relevant to project logs and other things.
    While 2 friends (Not modders) (Well one is, but he's not forumy) are adamant that forums are dying and we'll be posting our logs on facebook soon enough.
    (Worth noting, we're all friends, and it's a heated argument, but it's all fun at the end of the day)

    Personally as a modder, i despise posting on facebook, it's a complete pain in the arse for posting logs, especially when it contains more than one photo.

    Just looking for your feedback,
    Thanks
     
    Last edited: 7 May 2017
  2. jrs77

    jrs77 Modder

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    ...
     
    Last edited: 2 Jan 2018
  3. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    I have the fervent hope that forums will slowly drift from the public consciousness as people get mesmerised by social media, and they become once again the exclusive domain of a small community of hard-core geeks. A quiet little corner of the internet, hidden from the madding crowd, a sanctuary for like-minded individuals to meet and discuss interesting things.

    And forums will be once again like they were between the 80's and 90's, a place for geeks, by geeks, and we will see that it is good.
     
  4. Vault-Tec

    Vault-Tec Green Plastic Watering Can

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    Most of the forums that I have seen go down to social media went down because they were rubbish. IE - there was no friendship or anything like that, just a bunch of shallow people showing off.

    I don't think forums will ever be as busy/popular as they once were, but the good thing is that most of the people left are the hard core type you want on a forum. All of those who saw it and treated it as a fad weren't worth having any way IMO.

    I deleted my Facebook around 2.5 years ago now (well, I didn't delete it at first but then I heard you could actually delete it so I activated/deleted it). I also deleted the Twitter account I had used once and that pretty much put me back to being nice a private. Facebook to me was a fad. At the end of the day there was a bloody good reason why I hadn't seen the people I found on there in years and years and that was because I probably didn't like them. Why would I then give them a window into my life?

    So yeah, forums to stay IMO. They won't be as busy though but in honesty I absolutely hate forums that are too busy, too. Go to Linus's. The build logs are 99% shite (most of them don't even have any pics in) and the topics are watered down and quickly forgotten as the place moves so fast. Any decent conversation you could have had is soon ruined by kids with animated GIFs any way.
     
  5. Anfield

    Anfield Multimodder

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    Old style forums over social media for me all the way.

    And if the next generation can't wrap their head around that? I don't really care for their arguments, just like my grand parents didn't care about why they should use online banking rather than waiting around to do the same stuff in a branch.
     
  6. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    Animated GIF of kid did you say. :)

    [​IMG]

    Sorry i couldn't resist.
     
  7. Vault-Tec

    Vault-Tec Green Plastic Watering Can

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    hah !

    I like to read. So whilst video may have killed the radio star it will never kill the written review star.
     
  8. MT. Mods

    MT. Mods Case Modder

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    THIS^^^
    Couldn't have been put any better.
     
  9. davido_labido

    davido_labido Your Alphacool Contact.

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    well, asking on a forum will only get you one answer really... the people here use forums still :p

    The sad truth is that forums are dying and it is social media and YouTube is taking over, at least, at the moment. This can be seen particularly in the build log section. It used to be that 100,000 views per build weren't uncommon, now you are lucky to get 20 or 30k. Platforms like instagram, facebook and twitter ensure that builds get seen far easier as people are already browsing them, it takes far less time and people can just click 'like' to interact with the post rather than typing.

    I much prefer forums and I always will. We are looking into ways to ensure our forums stay relevant too, but there is no denying that social media is taking a huge chunk of the action.
     
  10. Behemoth

    Behemoth Timelord in training

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    Forums over social media for me any day of the week. I only use FaceBook for a few groups but its mainly there to keep in contact with friends who lives miles away from me.

    The majority of the people on some (not all) tech based groups isn't very good. Some people are just plain rude and a lot of them don't even know how to type. Seeing the text talk that is used is just plain annoying too.
     
  11. Guest-16

    Guest-16 Guest

    If forums were as convenient as social media it'll survive. But posting pics and reading this forum on mobile, for example, is an exercise in frustration. There are already big modders groups on Facebook, and a lot of modders post their end work there, not logs. You can't read logs. Logs are niche detail - most people and sponsors just want to see and sell the end result. Social also gives you rough 'stats' that you can 'sell' too.
     
  12. Vault-Tec

    Vault-Tec Green Plastic Watering Can

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    Forums are the sum of their members. Like societies, only in miniature. TBH in the five or so years on and off I've been on here little has changed. We've lost a few loved ones but the place is pretty much exactly the same now as it was then.

    Same goes for the other forums I use (OC3D after they had a good clearout) OCUK etc. Not much has changed really, and I can't see them dying out any time soon.

    What has killed most of them is heavy handed moderation. It nearly killed OC3D, then Tom had an epiphany one day and realised he did not need 20 14 year old moderators.

    The rest that have fallen by the wayside? shallow. Only couple I know of are a fruit machine emulation site that died because it had no moderators, and a bike forum where you would post a thread about your bike before ten people all posted pics of their bikes in your thread. Those type are better off on Facebook.

    If a forum values its membership it will last.
     
  13. David

    David μoʍ ɼouმ qᴉq λon ƨbԍuq ϝʁλᴉuმ ϝo ʁԍɑq ϝμᴉƨ

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    My main interest in project logs is how people overcome or design around a problem/challenge - little insights into their thought process. The end result is almost secondary.
     
  14. VipersGratitude

    VipersGratitude Multimodder

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    It's a matter of fitness and suitability. At one time forums were the only avenue for mass discussion, but when social media arrived on the scene it absorbed much of what was originally reserved for forums. Facebook is convenient for most interactions, but not all. Forums still have their place, but they'll never be as popular as they once were. They're much better for retrieving info that wasn't published in the past week, for example.
     
  15. Cthippo

    Cthippo Can't mod my way out of a paper bag

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    I think forums will always be around to some extent for discussions of specialized / technical topics, but their heyday has passed. Bit certainly isn't what it used to be, but I think part of that is that case modding, our core focus, has largely declined.

    A few months ago one of the sites I read a lot started a Slack channel as a Patreon subscriber benefit and OMG for the first time in my life there are other nuclear weapons geeks to talk to! I still feel like there are only a handful of us in the world, but finding any others at all has been incredible.
     
  16. Guest-16

    Guest-16 Guest

    Yep but it's a niche, and forums will fulfill that niche. BUT the software needs to be brought up to date to deal with mobile/picture posting convenience etc
     
  17. JR23

    JR23 Minimodder

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    I'm honestly not sure, it's very rare I sit and read other peoples project logs despite having a genuine interest. Facebook manages to get most of my attention and it's where I discover projects and look through albums. It's more likely that I would pass comment on another build on facebook rather than forums. Despite that i've always been active on at least one forum until last year and they have advanced my interests more so than any other platform. Started more friendships too.

    I do still post my project logs to forums, there is no doubt in my mind they are dying, especially here, but then there are still moments of great engagement. Information is exchanged and people are truly inspired.

    Instagram changed things for me, for a long time I was dismissive about it but now i'm finding it really suits the way I like to show projects. Having been chased off forums for posting pictures of products or packaging to see it appreciated is amazing. I'm not a modder. I enjoy the experience of unboxing, building, creating, sometimes just owning and in general admiring the prowess of hardware, it feels like the right place to do that. Nobody trolls like facebook and a wide range of people appreciate and relate to it. But the finished articles and moments from a build are equally valued, the engagement is sincere, even if it's literally showing off.


    So on the whole, I don't know. Really just, why not both? Forums can be very hostile to what people actually want to do, even just the way they are organised, condescending guides and rules, several brought on their own demise by trying to be too much like social media in my opinion. But they let the user build their own identity, show what they want to, be controlled in their presentation and what they say and create an enduring piece of content, not just a temporary flash of instant satisfaction. I can't tell you which more people are actually looking for however they are both important.

    JR
     
  18. Xlog

    Xlog Minimodder

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    IMO, forums create communities, social media - celebrities. What I also don't like about social media in general is that comments are not indexed by search engines, so any knowledge exchanged is pretty much hidden from anyone but the percipients of that conversation.
    In the end I see forums going the route of mailing lists, irc, etc - only relevant to some groups while completely invisible to general population.
     
  19. Vault-Tec

    Vault-Tec Green Plastic Watering Can

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    Ahh the modern word for laziness. Too easy to click a f*****g button than actually saying something.
     
  20. theshadow2001

    theshadow2001 [DELETE] means [DELETE]

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    I kind of want that for the entire internet.

    Step 1: Remove all the GUIs
     

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