What are we going to do about it?
Sorry for the Google Translate Link. An easy alternative is much appreciated.
Edit: thanks to @Xamrica@lemmy.dbzer0.com for this translation alternative: https://translate.kagi.com/translate/https://www.xataka.com/servicios/foros-internet-estan-desapareciendo-porque-ahora-todo-reddit-discord-eso-preocupante
Met my wife on a little internet forum called 9chat. Right before it disappeared.
These little spaces on the internet were quite nice to be. Always seeing the same people. It has a different feeling.
Decentralising social media will have its positives. When one tries to control public opinion, people can flee to another one for example.
I honestly don’t think Internet forum will ever loose itself. You will always always have small amount of people who will migrate to smaller forums for whatever topic or subject that they are interested in. Yes it might seem like discord and Reddit might appear to be the major forums of today’s modern age of communication under the title of forums.
People will always migrate and do whatever means to obtain freedom of speech. If Reddit and discord, well Reddit that I actually know of continue to perm ban or ban because of a word that our overlords aka moderators ban, because they are drunk with power and micromanage their sub Reddit then it’ll die. It will take time but forums like Lemmy and IRC (I know this ages me.) which still exist today, will never die. People just are not aware that other forums exist. They just have to do a little research or stumble upon it by accident which is how I found Lemmy. I was familiar with the term fediverse, but just never really looked into it.
So there’s hope. Humans are peculiar and interesting. We are highly intelligent, and I will always lean on the fact that we are tenacious and we never lack in ingenuity. They can never control our creativity and imagination. If something tries to monopolizes and put us in a box, there’s always a rebel creating a door for some of us to escape.
Ugh, Discord is an information black hole. I despise how so many of my niches have fled there.
Reddit seems to be trying to destroy that “role” of theirs as hard as they can though. A few very niche subs I follow are drying from some kind of “bug” that deprioritizes their discoverability.
It’s not a bug. It’s absolutely a feature for making Reddit more generic, farmable garbage and noise.
They are both trash. How can we get more people to join Lemmy and the Fediverse?
Keep talking about it abroad
“The net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.”
Users will search for new places. The fact that we are here is proof.
Build it, and they will come.
Yeah, well, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok are not the net, they are siloes. Discord too. Even Reddit is trying as hard as it can to be insular.
Much of my family doesn’t even know how to use a browser, at least not beyond the bare minimum for work. They probably never will.
I think old school internet folks are underestimating just how much of a grip Big Tech has on users’ attention.l, and their devices.
I think old school internet folks are underestimating just how much of a grip Big Tech has on users’ attention.l, and their devices.
With all sincerity this is fine. Seriously, let’s leave it this way.
As someone who was already around when Eternal September happened the Internet was never for normies and inviting them into the space has destroyed it. Everything that attracts the attention of normies ends up ruined; MySpace, Digg, Reddit, Facebook, Slashdot and so very many more…they are all trashed because when they attracted enough users the commercialization started.
So maybe lets just leave the Fediverse for those “in the know” as long as we can.
Thing is it’s kinda too late, and the, uh, “commercial net” has all but taken over society.
Whatever happens, it would be nice if that part burns down. And I think yanking the techies from the space with the Fediverse will help.
R.I.P the original Xbox Scene forums 💔
The worst is Discord. It doesn’t show up in search engines and somehow you have to know that is where you are “supposed” to go for help. Privacy issues aside, I am fine with discord for playing games with friends or big conventions/LAN parties, but I don’t understand why anyone would use it as a forum.
Push Lemmy out there. Help Lemmy grow. Lemmy has a few issues that need addressed;
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The Name needs changed, you see who shows up when you search Lemmy. The easiest thing to do is switch it to “Lemme” (Sounds like “Let Me”, like just lemme post this) or Lemy.
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Lemmy needs an app that is just as easy as Reddit to sign up for. It needs to drop on the person’s computer desktop and sign them into a default federation that auto accepts everyone. The initial signup process is confusing to people, with the website listing different federation and having to apply and wait. Some auto accept, people need to be pointed to those.
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I hate Discord.
The interface is clunky. They always try to sell you useless (at least for me) options. What with the users posting so many gifs?Something I was hopeful for but seems to have died is lemmyBB. A phpBB-style front-end to Lemmy. I’d like the accessibility of being able to use an existing account that federation brings but the forum-style approach that phpBB has.
Mostly though I’ve been disappointed in the teens and twenty-somethings. They seem to have, in distressingly large numbers, just opted to go along with whatever they’re encouraged to use by large platform holders. There doesn’t seem to be an appetite to create communities and define spaces that they control. Perhaps that’s just me getting old though…
NodeBB implements ActivityPub !nodebb-development@community.nodebb.org
I think a lot of them have never known that it was possible, and things up until recently where at least tolerable. But as interest rates stay up of zero and things continue to degrade eventually more and more people will leave. The people with the most technical skills are going first and the cool people will follow and then they average people follow the cool people
Agree. It’s easy to feel disheartened by the lack of action. It’s easy to say get out and do ABC, however since smartphones and apps it’s been so easy to just hop on and scroll/consume. Plus the monetisation of content creation has captured a whole generation looking to build a career (fuelled by more apps to help them). Sharing and creating is big money now. It’s not just about saying hey look I did this just incase anyone else wanted to try it, and share there thoughts on the matter. I have concerns that even if forums popped up in a new shape they would just get scalped by those looking to repackage and sell the info.
What do you think Lemmy is missing that phpBB had aside from strong user communities built over years where many of the users knew each other IRL?
Being designed around persistent topics rather than the ephemeral post model and more visible user customisation (more prominent avatars, signatures, that sort of thing).
Being designed around persistent topics rather than the ephemeral post model
Hmmm, you’re probably on to something there. I think Lemmy could do that but no one cares to set it up.
and more visible user customisation (more prominent avatars, signatures, that sort of thing).
I’m honestly not sure this is a bad thing. Dear God, remember how threads would get blown out by hyper-configurations? Sig blocks that were 20,000 pixels long and endless GIF spam? Not sure I’m in a hurry to get back to that!
One of my favorite forums has been around since 1999 and is currently running on XenoForo which is very phpBB-esque. Anytime I get a nostalgia hankering I drop in for a few minutes. It’s not always as good as you may remember. :)
I’m honestly not sure this is a bad thing. Dear God, remember how threads would get blown out by hyper-configurations? Sig blocks that were 20,000 pixels long and endless GIF spam? Not sure I’m in a hurry to get back to that!
Honestly, no, none of the forums I ever used allowed that sort of things for, well, for obvious reasons!
Anyway, my reasoning for this is to help make it easier to mentally anchor a given interaction to a user. On things like Lemmy and Reddit I feel like it’s a constant sea of random usernames - there’s no persistence or community. I could well have spoken to the same person multiple times but I don’t notice because they’re so anonymous.
there’s no persistence or community.
That’s it right there, that’s what you are missing. The older forum communities were small enough that you could keep track of whose who, something that isn’t possible when the user counts are in the tens of thousands to tens of millions. I think a lot of us olds would like to go back to that but its impossible; our monkey brains can’t handle communities of that size.
XenoForo
Just looked it up. $60/mo is the “starter” price!? Are forums normally so expensive to run?
XenoForo is a bit spendy but they’re providing the software, hosting and data storage. IIRC the forum I’m talking about is on the “Business” plan due to how busy it is.
deleted by creator
They already disappeared around 2017 when Steve Bannon’s racist troll armies flooded every single social media site or app. The auto-immune reaction killed the host, which I suspect was the point.
Don’t forget random Telegram groups!
Indeed, especially since both (Reddit more than Discord admittedly) give out blanket bans on a whim and that means being blocked off from the modern internet, the stakes are too damn high.
Though what do they mean “Disappearing”, isn’t this like pulling the alarm because you just learned “There’s not that many dinosaurs left”
Recently I’ve created a private forum and so far I’m very happy with it. It’s nice that our discussions are private, keeping data gobblers, programmatic advertisers, grifters and other schmucks like this out in the cold.
To be clear, I’m advertising the idea, not membership.
I actually just launched a PHPBB forum for specific interests in regards to the indie web, building websites, and sharing random banter (among a few other things). I find Reddit and Lemmy to be useful for seeing what’s going on in the world overall, and Discord has mostly just been annoying ever since its launch, and forums seem like a good answer to recreating actual communities. And if there are more people who feel this way, maybe they’ll make a comeback (because they definitely haven’t just started to be affected by corporations attempting to centralize everyone to one thing).
Every forum i joined for my hobbies are always been full of shills in disguise.
Every forum I used before Reddit even existed is still active (hell, PHPBB was updated as recently as November!) and new platforms, like Lemmy, pop up all the time . IDK what the fuck these articles are talking about. Maybe they just don’t know how to actually find anything on the web? 🤷🏻♂️
