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Ask HN: Great online forums?

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Re: Ask HN: Great online forums?

#31

Post by devopsproject »

gressquel wrote: post #28
jaykru wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoops. Well, I guess there's no harm in posting it on HN: lainchan.org

To be frank, I dont take any website with "chan" in it seriously. Think the absolute disgust coming out of 4chan is the reason

"chan" is simply short for "channel" and is left over from nomenclature used by the original Japanese imageboard users. Nothing nefarious, just a way to identify the site as an imageboard the same way "XyzBlog" would be identified as a blog. It is up to the moderates\users to control the content.

Re: Ask HN: Great online forums?

#33

Post by [deleted] »

eriknstr wrote: post #26
mrschwabe wrote: post #2

Voat.co seems like a promising Reddit alternative. Less censorship for certain, definitely not shill-proof however. Solving the problem of shills/astroturfers is IMO the most difficult and important challenge in accommodating public online discussion moving forward.

I don't remember if it was Voat or if it was another one of those "Reddit alternatives without censorship" but the last time I visited which ever of them it was, it was full of conspiracy theories and racism. All noise and no signal.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Great online forums?

#34

Post by devopsproject »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #17
larrydag wrote: post #5

Here's is how I viewed this history of collaborative forum information online in the last 20 years Slashdot - aggregating opinions from "experts". allowed comments. Lacked accountability so then came... Digg - allowed crowd source voting. active interaction. complicated and over-engineered upvote algorithm lead to... Reddit - community inclusion. more open voting (and down voting). subgroups. So that's kind of where…

The world of online forums is much more diverse than those three. Some of the best forums I've been part of have had very little in the way of voting.

I think traditional forums are different than sites like reddit and digg where votes and participation change what is shown.

Re: Ask HN: Great online forums?

#35

Post by enraged_camel »

I like Something Awful. Outside of its general-purpose forums, it's very good, with plenty of reliable information and well-researched discussion about a large variety of topics.

What I like the most about it is that it costs $10 to join, and if you get banned, you have to pay another $10 to reinstate your account. This keeps the lowest common denominator trolls out and discourages shitposting.

Re: Ask HN: Great online forums?

#36

Post by jaykru »

gressquel wrote: post #28
jaykru wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoops. Well, I guess there's no harm in posting it on HN: lainchan.org

To be frank, I dont take any website with "chan" in it seriously. Think the absolute disgust coming out of 4chan is the reason

I thought I'd made myself clear in the original comment, but I'll try again: the issue with these sites is not the "channel"/imageboard format itself, it produces great results at a certain population size. The issue is lax moderation and the greater proportion of highly active bad actors when the site reaches a certain critical mass of users. To generalize your experiences on large, less niche sites like 4chan is to miss out on some of the smaller gems out there that share the imageboard format.

Re: Ask HN: Great online forums?

#38

Post by nyolfen »

drewrv wrote: post #25

Metafilter is still around and has a great community. http://www.metafilter.com/

i participated in mefi for over a decade but the smugness and slow but constant leftward drift of the site, including quiet banning of users who signal right in the slightest against what the mods decide is the community consensus on any contentious political issue (especially wrt gender), pushed me away. it's still a useful resource for fresh links but the discussions on political subjects are one of the most intense echo chambers on the internet.

Re: Ask HN: Great online forums?

#39

Post by bdrool »

drewrv wrote: post #25

Metafilter is still around and has a great community. http://www.metafilter.com/

I've been on Metafilter for a long time (since the early 2000s -- edit: longer than that, as I just recalled discussing the 2000 US presidential election on there, so it's been quite a while it seems). It was and still is miles ahead of many places on the internet in terms of civility, intelligence, and general knowledge, however it has one very big downside these days: it has gone more or less off the deep end into identity politics. As someone who believes in equality, individuality, and enlightenment values, it's difficult to stomach at times. I basically don't talk on there any more, as I know my viewpoints would not be welcome. I just read, as I still find it informative and valuable. However if you are looking for anything even approaching balanced discussion on certain topics, it's not really a go-to place.
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