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Ask HN: What are some more authentic online forums?

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Re: Ask HN: What are some more authentic online forums?

#41

Post by arman_ashrafian »

scottlocklin wrote: post #32
ClintEhrlich wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sherdog has suffered a lot from losing traffic to Reddit. The main forum still has enough users that it superficially seems similar to how it was 10+ years ago, but the subforums are dying. F12, the grappling forum, used to be one of my favorite places on the internet. It barely has new content anymore. There has, for reasons I don't fully understand, been a mass exodus to r/BJJ. I can't overstate the loss of communi…

Thanks for the update; I no longer roll and don't follow the sport very much, but it makes me sad to hear that all-devouring reddit is eating Sherdog. I suspect the future of forums is going to be stuff which is kicked off of platforms. For example: right wing people kicked out of reddit, or nude enthusiast types formerly of Tumblr or whatever. There's probably a r/bodybuilding reddit, but I bet it's tame and lame co…

r/bodybuilding is actually pretty hilarious, one of the best communities on reddit imo.

Re: Ask HN: What are some more authentic online forums?

#42

Post by IronWolve »

seattle_spring wrote: post #34
jvagner wrote: post #5

I'm particularly perplexed by [location] sub-reddits. No one uses the FAQs, search, or Yelp. Everyone wants to post a daily request for a good place for a drink, and a good hike, for just about every city on the planet. The annoyances in those threads seem to keep other participants away. It'd be nice to have a forum, message board, etc for people who are willing to try one tick more than the masses.

The Seattle subreddits are so bad about this. There's one with ~200k subscribers that is basically only sunset pictures and requests for good food. There's another one with ~100k subscribers with slightly better submissions, but every comment thread has the same 10 people brigading from a THIRD Seattle sub that focuses on alt-right politics.

The 2nd sub was created due to the primary sub pushing left-wing politics during the elections and just kept going farther left with approved/trending posts. Then the 2nd sub became right reactionary and pushed all the news the main sub would exclude due to leftist politics, pissing off the people who fled the primary sub due to politics. The posters are a small subset of the readers, if you think only 10 posters are conservative in one of the largest cities in the US, you are mistaken. The sub says Seattle Metro area which includes many conservative cities in King County.

Maybe when people read /r/seattle they dont want to read about more lawsuits the local government and state government have against conservatives, gun owners and business owners. The sub has become a damn PR sub for left wing politics. I read more Seattle based tech news on HN now. HN seems to at least balanced compared to reddit. (mostly, ymmv)

Re: Ask HN: What are some more authentic online forums?

#45

Post by catacombs »

tetraca wrote: post #31
catacombs wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's quite a few I can think of, but most of them I'd rather not mention so the eye of Sauron passes them over. You've piqued my interest. What are they?

Unfortunately, you can't just simply tell anyone, because that's how most enjoyable places get ruined.

Then why mention it?

Re: Ask HN: What are some more authentic online forums?

#46

Post by rc-1140 »

catacombs wrote: post #45
tetraca wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, you can't just simply tell anyone, because that's how most enjoyable places get ruined.

Then why mention it?

Probably indication for the OP that such groups are still out there, rather than leaving it open to interpretation that reddit has finally absorbed the last of such groups.

Re: Ask HN: What are some more authentic online forums?

#47

Post by tetraca »

catacombs wrote: post #45
tetraca wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, you can't just simply tell anyone, because that's how most enjoyable places get ruined.

Then why mention it?

The person above is merely relaying their experiences that these communities indeed still exist. You can read this implicitly as: "having authentic experiences online is absolutely possible, if one is willing to find and seek them out, but you must be willing to seek". And also: that those that aren't willing to seek these things out themselves, will ultimately destroy these communities for they lack that same necessary passion required to have these sorts of interesting and authentic experiences.

Not everything communicated online is intended for the direct and easy benefit of yourself.

Re: Ask HN: What are some more authentic online forums?

#48

Post by kradeelav »

grey-area wrote: post #21
egypturnash wrote: post #4

Ugh same. I went out asking if anyone had pointers to a decent comics forum the other month (I make them and miss having somewhere to hang out with other people who do) and all I got were offers to people’s Discords, which feel like the exact opposite of what I want.

What do you hate about discord, too chatty and ephemeral?

Another comics creator, here: the fact it's a closed system unavailable to lurkers, on top of those things. Discord's great for some things (support-group kind of interactions that you don't necessarily want bared to the public), but it can create insular cliques real quick.

Re: Ask HN: What are some more authentic online forums?

#50

Post by dlivingston »

tetraca wrote: post #31
catacombs wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's quite a few I can think of, but most of them I'd rather not mention so the eye of Sauron passes them over. You've piqued my interest. What are they?

Unfortunately, you can't just simply tell anyone, because that's how most enjoyable places get ruined.

To be frank, that's how I feel about HN: it's a little haven of (usually) calm, rational discussion, and I fear that as it gets more popular the level of discourse and content will decrease.
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