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While other forms, like farcebook, twitter, and reddit have something to do with it, I think it has a lot to do with the general decline of literacy in our civilization. (Why would anyone want to read an article when they just look at pictures with captions? [/sarcasm])
Facebook, Twitter etc have taken many of the users of forums. Most young people are not interested in anything less than 144 characters. Another issue is forums typically cover specific topics and if it's older forum not a whole lot left to be said. Personally I have seen my own forum grow but the demographic is going to be an older crowd, not a whole lot of Facebook users on my site.
Have you checked out Reddit? It is a new generation forum. It really is. And it's popular as hell with all demographics. FB and Twitter had something to do with it but people are flocking to Reddit right now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TRex2
While other forms, like farcebook, twitter, and reddit have something to do with it, I think it has a lot to do with the general decline of literacy in our civilization. (Why would anyone want to read an article when they just look at pictures with captions? [/sarcasm])
Yea, I get it's sarcasm but also disagree. There may be a decline in literacy but there is no shortage of people typing on the internet...
Have you checked out Reddit? It is a new generation forum. It really is. And it's popular as hell with all demographics. FB and Twitter had something to do with it but people are flocking to Reddit right now.
Yea, I get it's sarcasm but also disagree. There may be a decline in literacy but there is no shortage of people typing on the internet...
I checked into Reddit, looked more like monkeys banging on keyboads. The Sarcasm was about pictures and captions being just as good as really reading, not sarcasm about people doing that. IMHO, that is what most of them do. I see it on here, too. People will answer something on a thread, and it is obvious they haven't read the thread, often they just skimmed the first posting, and don't even get that right.
Getting back to Reddit: is there any sort of forum on there that isn't self spamming? Every thing I read on there is like a twitter storm, with the same stuff appearing over and over and over.
No, I think I will stick to regular forums, like this one, and hope the monkeys banging on keyboards go elsewhere.
Getting back to Reddit: is there any sort of forum on there that isn't self spamming? Every thing I read on there is like a twitter storm, with the same stuff appearing over and over and over.
Reddit is a mixed bag. Each group (or Sub Reddit) is created / run / administered by volunteers so how good a group is depends upon the people in it. But for very targeted groups it can be quite good. I participate in several programming language specific subs, and a few hobby and lifestyle related ones, and they are all well run and generally filled with quality content and good people.
That said, there generally isn't a nanny level of mod interaction like you'd find on this type of forum (removing things like bad language for instance).
The trick is to not see the "front page" or main feed, but to just restrict your account to the subs that fit your particular interests.
Each forum has it's own distinct environment almost like internet neighborhoods. It's absolutely necessary obviously for forums to be moderated to ensure that anarchy doesn't reign and a high degree of civil discourse be the norm.
Some forums decline for a number of reasons including the kind of surveillance some of the volunteers who monitor for adherence to the TOS engage in. There are some forums which strike me as hostile and arbitrary. I avoid these forums and go to the ones that are more user friendly.
Facebook, Twitter etc have taken many of the users of forums. Most young people are not interested in anything less than 144 characters. Another issue is forums typically cover specific topics and if it's older forum not a whole lot left to be said. Personally I have seen my own forum grow but the demographic is going to be an older crowd, not a whole lot of Facebook users on my site.
The trick is to not see the "front page" or main feed, but to just restrict your account to the subs that fit your particular interests.
Skunky knows.
You need to spend a little time customizing it and then it's a good fit. If you just go to the front page and start reading... yea it can be a mess. Create an account and pick and choose the subs (or forums) that you want to see and suddenly it becomes all your forums in one front end web page. Bit of a learning curve there.
(Big reason why C-D needs to get with the program and move to Tapatalk.... )
So now when I go there I see only stuff from the areas I WANT to see: Mazda, Gaming, Sys Admin, Home Automation, Cleveland, Android, Android Auto, one for JUST my phone model, Duh Browns, Wine, Cordcutters, and the Walking Dead TV show.
Everything I want to read about, nothing I don't.
Seriously... Reddit is killing forums... and to a lesser extent FB, Twitter and all that. Only because of time spent there. Spend so much time on FB you don't have time for forums anymore.
And yea... FB IS for older people nowadays. Once we adults discovered it, the kids all ran to find something else.
Skunky knows.
You need to spend a little time customizing it and then it's a good fit. If you just go to the front page and start reading... yea it can be a mess. Create an account and pick and choose the subs (or forums) that you want to see and suddenly it becomes all your forums in one front end web page. Bit of a learning curve there.
(Big reason why C-D needs to get with the program and move to Tapatalk.... )
So now when I go there I see only stuff from the areas I WANT to see: Mazda, Gaming, Sys Admin, Home Automation, Cleveland, Android, Android Auto, one for JUST my phone model, Duh Browns, Wine, Cordcutters, and the Walking Dead TV show.
Everything I want to read about, nothing I don't.
Seriously... Reddit is killing forums... and to a lesser extent FB, Twitter and all that. Only because of time spent there. Spend so much time on FB you don't have time for forums anymore.
And yea... FB IS for older people nowadays. Once we adults discovered it, the kids all ran to find something else.
Reddit is just vast. You can pretty much find anything you want. I sometimes feel like news sites are using Reddit for content. You see something on Reddit, then three days later you see it on a news site. Obviously we're talking about more local stuff that ends up on the national scene.
To me, it's the best of both worlds, you can as granular as you want, but also as wide as you want. Not too many places you can talk about a specific way to attack a vulnerability in PHP and flip over and talk about which driver released in 2018 has the highest MOI.
As with anything else of course, there is always a level of BS that you'll encounter.
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Another issue is forums typically cover specific topics and if it's older forum not a whole lot left to be said. Personally I have seen my own forum grow but the demographic is going to be an older crowd, not a whole lot of Facebook users on my site.
