Rant Forums - Dying out, or staying relevant ?

Hell no. Social media can die in a fire for all I care. I "grew up" on BBSs, IRC, and forums and I think there will always be a place for forums - albeit probably far more niche than it was in the past. I still have my Facebook account because it's practically the only way to keep in touch with a lot of people I know; but aside from posting the odd meme now and then that's pretty much all I use it for. I'm oddly proud of my 15 year-old join date on here (I was a lurker for a while before that and used to regularly use the [H]ardOCP Forum before that).

But I'm definitely with Bindi: a lot more needs to be done to bring forum software up to date with modern mobile platforms. Especially this forum!! (I kid, I know it's being worked on )

EDIT:

Bring back Gopher!!

 

I detest facebook and the only reason I use it is because I get my Ecig juice from a group on there, and it's a dummy account basically, I created it just for that purpose my "main" facebook account got deactivated by myself, because I was sick of all crap on it from people talking about Jeremy Kyle or what they did in the toilet etc.

I don't use instagram or anything like that, the only social media type thing I use is Twitter and Youtube and even they rarely get used.

If I want to see a project log of someones mod or ask a question or even answer questions about pc's or other stuff I go to certain forums and will always do that because to me there is no better place for it.

I can understand this whole thing about people posting stuff to facebook etc because they generally can reach a larger base of people but, those who are really interested in certain things will always look for somewhere to get the information from in a better less restricted way which to me is forums.

For me as long as Bit-Tech and OC3D stay up and running I am happy, as they are generally the only forums I use other than a few game specific ones.

I can ask questions on here and not get stupid comments, I can vent on here and not get preachy comments from people and generally the people on forums don't instantly jump to the wrong conclusion about what someone has posted and will look at it logically, you cannot get that on facebook etc as people on there like to look for drama or some reason to cause drama.

So no I don't think forums will die off but I think they will get less use by the casual person and will become something used by those who are really interested, in what the forums relates to.

 

Yes!

 

I see forums as a way of archiving knowledge and having discussions even a few days after something was originally posted. I see social media as being only relevant based on the last post and about the here and now. with discussions seeming being all about talking rather than a proper back and forth. I see the people on the forums as a community working together where as social media as a plague of locusts descending upon everything. They feast then move onto the next shiny thing.

 

I think forums still serve a purpose, but they need to move with the times a bit... well at least the forum software does. IMO we shouldn't have to be relying on things like tapatalk to make most forums even vaguely tolerable on a phone or similar all because most forum software is older than god's dog.

 

I'm not saying add likes. I'm saying I should be able to take a photo/video and post it direct. Not **** around with vB's way of doing it.

TW BB's are sometimes 1990s - no GUI, all text.

If someone wants to suggest a good forum with deep technical discussions I'm all for it. I can't find a good one.

 

nodebb can do that, along with responsive layouts, toast messages, desktop notifications, etc...the problem is that forum admins tend to be attached to php.

 

Forums used to have a bigger place on the internet, but I don't think that social media replaced them. I think Reddit killed most of them.

And that's fine. Reddit is amazing and serves a great purpose.

But Reddit isn't good for posting a long-running build log that takes months to a year+ to complete. There is no good subreddit for computer modding, and that makes sense because posts on Reddit are meant to expire. So computer modding forums still exist (in large part) due to the fact that their content is better suited to forum threads you can return to and bump to the top again.

The only way I'd post a build log to social media was if I hosted the original log on my own website and was only posting a link to my social media account pages.

But I do miss the golden age of internet forums. There was junkmachine (owned by Tim Wasson) and then oldschoolsystems, which were both about NES PC modding, PC modding, and Nintendo in general. Those forums died and most of the people there ended up moving to TheBestCaseScenario, but Paul Capello lost interest in PC modding and started doing air rifle videos, and then some drama split the community and things slowed down. A couple years later there was a major server issue that lasted over a month and that was enough to break most people's habits of visiting.

But as others have said, these are communities, and they're driven and kept alive by those in them. When the communities are strong you get to know the big personalities. You follow their work (via build logs) and their personal lives, achievements, and major life events like graduation, marriage and having kids. When things go bad, the community comes together to help. When people die (and it does happen), family members post in behalf of the deceased or someone else on the forum posts about the tragedy and we all mourn together.

And I don't see that on facebook or twitter. There is no community there. There is no reputation or cred, no sense of "town square" chatter that you get with forums. I can't say that bit-tech will be here forever, because I honestly thought some of the other forums I used to visit (which were huge) would last forever too. But I can say that as long as people find value in bit-tech, and add value to bit-tech, it's not going anywhere.

 

I dislike how easy it is to fine people, not content, on social media. Be it cars or computers, its nigh on impossible to track down a piece of information on Facebook or Instagram. Forums aren't always easy, but you get there in the end. Not to mention all the information you tend to end up giving to social media platforms.

Unless the forum owners have put it behind a paywall. They're just arseholes though.

 

Not a user of vacuous guff rant media.

Forums will always have a place for people who want a realitively 'real' life experience on the internet, i.e. a place where they can share ideas rather than just insults or what they just ate.

 

Honestly, I think over the last year I've had more "real" interaction with people on FB than elsewhere. I do still post my love to multiple places, but quite frankly I'm almost completely bored of the process. It takes hours to do each post! That's actually a lot of time to sit down and do something you basically don't benefit that much from anymore. I've just struck off any forum I deem as on-essential for this reason.

If I have to post in 3-4 different forums as per sponsorship requests, then it becomes very laborious. It changes the way I work even posting to one. I don't take as many pictures of progress because it's a big annoyance posting it up to anywhere. I have to stop, take the photos, transfer the photos, edit the photos, resize them to 3 different grades (because each forum as stupid size rules), upload them to separate albums, link individual pictures from each album etc. Now consider doing that for 5-10 photos each time. Sorry but that's not being lazy, that's called simply having a life that also need tending to.

Most of my work gets seen by other modders now on social media, it only goes to a general populace when posted by a company or I share it around. I get real comments from people I actually know, not randoms behind usernames who despite being around for years I've never seen.

Bit has been instrumental to everything I do now, I will keep posting logs here and wanting the site to be successful. I always redirect people to bit, it's a true font of knowledge.

As for Reddit, jeez that place is rubbish, and IMO definitely responsible for many forums dying off. I've been a Reddit user for a good 6 years now, or at least my account says so. I've seen that place grow and kill itself. The problem is that you have to rely on a specific subreddit being small. As soon as they reach a certain size, the content and users fall off a cliff. The main subs are no better than YouTube comments, quite often worse even just because they feel more entitled. Reddit is also supremely anti-social thanks to the anonymity of the users. I know many on here probably praise that, but IMO it just makes people be ridiculous. I've had more random hatred of my work on Reddit than anywhere else, albeit balanced out by the shear adoration too.

But Reddit is particularly bad for ongoing work. Their attention spans are of the order of goldfish unless you're in a truly tiny sub with a dedicated fanbase. Even the sub I helped to create is now going downhill, cult-like behaviour is stepping in and there's not much I can do about it.

Forums will always have a place, but expect portions of their use to continue to decline whilst they're too frustrating to post content too.

 

I stand corrected, I guess it depends on who you attract.

Surely if you're asking for a favour, for help, for sponsorship then it should at least take some effort? Maybe I'm misinterpreting, I didn't get much sleep so that is entirely possible..

Quite so, forums that attract and encourage project logs and the like should make an effort to make it easier for people to actually upload content. Easier said than done though I guess.

 

SM discovery of these places/communities is almost impossible to discover, though. There's just so many groups and following modders direct is bad because you get life mixed with with work.

 

What are the odds that the forum tab froze on my phone as I replied to this the first time?

The first point is rather big though. Before I took my modding to FB I only had a load of old school or work acquaintances on it, and tbh I found the site completely pointless.

The second point is a little more nuanced though. For a start, sponsorship has changed a lot over the last few years, it's less about supporting passion projects and more about just blanket advertising. Now to me actually I don't mind that because the reality is it's up to the modder what they do with a project. If they just want a quick in/out they can, but there's nothing stopping somebody from doing something unique and personal. But the time it takes to post to several forums is not commensurate with the feedback you get. I may finish working at 12-1am some days, yeah not spending 2 hours posting up a few pictures then. Okay so I save to the next day, well then it interrupts the normal working day so I have to wait until after then and so on. Then add family commitments etc. and you can see how it matters. Meanwhile I can just pop a quick picture online from my phone as I work, sure maybe it's not as structured as a log, but it works for the most part.

Yup and that's a failing with social media. It's all too hard to find anything, that's why love definitely still have a place for the immediate future. That said my life basically is my work and from what I can see, there will always be a heavy mixing of the two. I've got around that by making clear distinctions for when I do what along with how I interact.

 

I appreciate the sentiment - being surrounded by people who more closely share your interests - and without some sense of real community BT would be half of what it has been over these years... But we need fresh meat every so often. We need new ideas/opinions, we need to be challenged so we don't stagnate and settle into a narrow, very-defined groupthink.

Plus we need to educate the fresh meat on why we need dremels and who/what the Relix is. Evangelists need audiences.

As said above, with no broader influences than your FB friends, how will you grow?

BT attracts people with similar interests - you don't need to know each other, you just need to be a similar sort of geek. It's a much broader gene pool, whereas FB is far more incestuous.

Agreed - and vBulletin v5 is only a couple of hundred dollars. I don't know if it is perfect, but it looks like something crafted this century, at least. A move away from vBulletin would be a mammoth undertaking though....

 

Great topic, IMHO, unfortunately activity and discovery of "all forums" is dying. My advice is to utilize any or all resources available for gaining exposure for your work. btw, Insolent Gnome brought up this thread last night, https://youtu.be/a59kOcQESWA?t=2609

 

Actually I've found the opposite. I used to stay almost exclusively on Bit-Tech, because that's where I found out about modding to begin with. I lurked from about 2006 before setting up an account to do my first mod, so I was around for much of the glory days. Back then it was so stupidly busy here, people from every corner of the globe constantly posting, so you could be forgiven for thinking Bit was the home of modding worldwide.

Well it turns out, Bit-Tech only scratches the surface. I've been exposed to hundreds of PC modders around the globe thanks to FB, largely due to visiting Computex actually from last year's contest. I'd say both my stage and influences have expanded so greatly since I accepted social media as part of things.

It may not feel like it at times, but Bit is a very small pool of fish. I now grow not by just looking at other modders, but by looking at other industries. CNC machinists, furniture makers, artists etc. The scene has changed so much that it makes sense to take on board points from all over. And a lot of the time, I don't find many of the bit regulars to be the same sort of geek either.

I love this place, hence why I comment basically every day. But I do recognise there are faults too, again it just boils down to Bit and other forums having their niches.

 

Sorry Rich. I should have pointed out that I didn't mean you I hate like buttons and heart buttons and god knows what else..

I've never used Reddit. I'm not even exactly sure what it is. It just looked like a forum to me only filled with douche bags all ready to hate each other. Kinda like the comment section on Youtube.

I think given the response this thread has achieved we're safe for at least the foreseeable