this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
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i started using the internet in the late 2000's and still remember when you search for something most of the times it would return with a forum post ... now its just random websites ... if you ever need real and concise answer you have to add site:reddit.com at every search and since discord or twitter are not crawlable by these search crawlers they are not mentioned . Where did all those forums went...are there still active forums ?

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

I was on several fitness forums back in the 00s. I think some are still around, but largely abandoned. Facebook groups, Reddit, and Discord all seem to have killed them off.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

I'm pretty sure Google (and potentially other search engines) de-prioritized blogs and forums. There's plentry of both out there, although less than there were originally, they're just being cut out of some search results

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

All the forums I visited and participated in twenty years ago have been overrun with right clowns shouting into the void hoping to be noticed by anyone.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Similar reason why people take photos with their phone rather than a point and shoot camera, anyone can do it and it doesn't require extra work to setup.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Weird, I’ve never had issues of Reddit posts not being included in the top five results.

It’s actually the opposite issue. I’m finding in need to remove Reddit to get any meaningful results sometimes.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

-reddit indeed

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I know City-Data Forums is still pretty active. I've used it a lot when deciding on places to move. I'm also a bit of an urban design nerd and there's a lot of fascinating discussion I come across there.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Depends on the subject, though they are definitely nowhere near as popular nor used anywhere near as much as in the past. Niche groups can probably be found, but I wouldn't know too much about where to look since I usually don't go to them.

Closest I go to is Steam Underground and that is just for certain files.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

A couple of fully active mycology forums with helpful searchable information.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I'm a member of a couple of hobby-specific forums that are still doing okay and I think there is still some life left for them. The nice part is they tend to attract subject matter experts who will answer questions from newbies without the nastiness you see on StackExchange. The small number of users and the lack of public visibility keeps a lot of trolls away. But there aren't many left. Lots of them moved to groups on Facebook or other venues where the owner no longer has to manage their own server. When they do that sometimes their archives get lost, which sucks since who knows how long social media sites will keep things or whether they'll surrender the data for someone else to archive.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

There's a live discussion on https://www.twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew right now about Atari's aquistion of AtariAge with the homebrew developers and fans in the chat. To me, it's the last of the original forums around that still feels healthy, and everyone there is just hoping it won't get killed by Atari.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

There's tons of active Q&A format Discourse forums for different things that I've ran into.

Forms are definitely less active than before but they're not dead yet

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There's still a lot, but they're generally niche or are more business related (eg. answers.microsoft.com). Hosting fees and technical knowledge have lead to many people just using reddit or facebook groups.

For gaming there's places like ResetEra and I think SomethingAwful still has their forums going.

There's a ton of support group like ones, often related to certain medical conditions.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

SomethingAwful is still kicking, although Lowtax is dead and no one mourns him, but that’s a story for a different time. I’m coming up on 18 years there myself. It’s been a lot more than just gaming for a long time though, and before Reddit, it was the place where memes were born.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Thumpertalk.com is an active forum.

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