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Is there any way to bring old school forums back?

I was initially optimistic about Lemmy but it doesn’t seem to have caught on much, certainly not enough to truly compete with the likes of Reddit. Also, it doesn’t seem to have caught on except for topics involving technology. Even as someone really proactive trying to branch out into forums, it is next to impossible to find forums analogous to the forums of the 2000s/early 2010s. Has it truly died out? Is there any way to replicate it?

The one thing I can think of is to have a foundation built firmly on open source principles, which works on its UI and marketing to the point where network effects can truly take off. Most open source alternatives really do not focus enough on UI and general appeal to make this work.

I’m happy to be proven wrong; if I’m just not looking in the right places, please do link them!

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

Other than the actual coding of it and how it differs slightly in some functions: you’re on one.

Want it to be even more like one? Sort by “new comments.”

Also Something Awful never went away, so there’s that.

solrize ,

They exist. I use several. Lowendspirit.com (about cheap vps for self hosting) is one. I’m not active there right now but have been at various times.

_NetNomad ,
@_NetNomad@kbin.run avatar

forums face a lot of the same issues federated platforms do, chiefly- why the hell would the proverbial i join it when reddit and discord already exist? i already have an account there, there's already a community there... i think for some people that's just never gonna change. there's no closing pandora's box. i run an online community with a small but fairly active discord and we have a forum as well in anticipation of discord going full enshittification, but it's just impossible to get younger people onto it. the fedi at least has the advantage of looking like the monolithic platforms people are leaving, but forums are such a foreign concept

getting a community going is a bit of a catch 22. the best way to get users is to already have users and appear active. if i recall correctly, early on reddit had a ton of staff sock puppet accounts to do just that. i'm certainly not advocating for it but it goes to show how tricky the problem is. the only real answer on an individual level is to pick a platform and stick with it through the thin years and try to recruit a few friends- after that MAYBE hopefully it eventually gets some momentum

r3df0x ,

A lot of the old forum applications still exist. A lot of old school forums are actually still around. The problem with old school forums compared to Reddit or Lemmy is that it’s just so much easier to get people to join a subreddit or a Lemmy community. If someone discovers a subreddit, all they need to do is go there and start posting. Creating a new account usually isn’t that hard but it’s still a considerable hurdle for someone who is considering joining.

Old school forums are simply too decentralized. It’s a lot easier to get reddit.com to come up in search results then it is for some relatively obscure forum.

Deceptichum ,
@Deceptichum@quokk.au avatar

Reddit didn’t take off overnight either and was full of only technology posts for years.

Lemmy will get there in time, probably faster if they do paid subreddits.

And forums are sadly dead. Killed by FB groups imo.

TheBigBrother ,

You are a smartphone technician or what?

Dave ,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

I don’t get what you want for Lemmy. Lemmy has 50k active monthly users. The forums I used to frequent 20 years ago had a fraction of that.

How many people are you expecting for your online forum?

CaptainSpaceman ,

“Reddit is still a monolith, therefore Lemmy failed” - OP

Deceptichum ,
@Deceptichum@quokk.au avatar

I want avatars, signatures, “location” fields, and post counts back!

Maybe I should bug my admin to add LemmyBB.

rayf ,

Apart from niche forum who are still active but slowly dying, there’s not so much anymore, since social media came. Reddit was the right mix of forum and social media. Lemmy could be too. But it less easy to understand and use than a classical forum for common people. And there’s not this “organized” topic forum thing. (Reddit too).

But with social media become less comfortable to use, less interesting, perhaps forum alike will rise again.

Actually, if you just want to feel some “old” web, what it still active is “webrings” stuff. Basically, people make their own little website, with just html/CSS, and they are part of a webring, where you can surf between each website inside of it. And it tend to have this 2000’s web vibe.

Here’s one for example, but there’s lot a different webrings, with different theme sometimes. And it can be hard to find. ring.recurse.com

flamingo_pinyata ,

The point is not in the form but in the critical mass of users to achieve an active community. Lemmy (and Reddit before) are way superior in every way to forums on the technical software side.

We need more people. Share, comment and participate. That’s the only way to create a community

r3df0x ,

The “critical mass of users” is the essential part. People want to participate where there are already other people.

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