A Reddit thread on how Reddit is killing forums.

I don't use Reddit regularly, though I've found (mostly helpful) answers to some really obscure questions I've had.

And, to add on to what David said, we'll do our best to keep the lights on for you all for as long as you all are here.

TJL (Forum Supporter) said:

Years ago after hearing about how great reddit was, i checked it out. I figured i was doing something wrong as it appeared to just be crappy old format bulletin board. I asked a tech friend of mine who is my age and the answer was no, it really is just a crappy old format bulletin board. "Meh". 

I'm a lazy engineer, so I'm glad you typed all that for me.

Reddit always felt like standing in the middle of a shouting crowd to me. The signal-to-noise ratio was bad enough that I never joined. 

This, Overland Bound, and iRV2 are the only forums I frequent. I do follow several FB groups, but mostly local ones like Charleston Off Roading and Venture Unknown or very specific ones like Chinese Excavator Owners. 

In reply to Toyman! :

I have to frequent many forums for my Star Wars stuff.  Between the 501st Legion, the Rebel Legion, local Ohio Garrison, various forums for each Detachment (costume group like Sith Lords and Armored Calvalry), local event calendar, I think I counted like 19 different forums.  There's no way I can keep up with that.  Luckily most of the quick popular stuff gets posted on FB groups and the meat of the content then gets added to the appropriate forum we can go check out.

David S. Wallens said:

Thank you, everyone, for the long-term support in keeping this a healthy, vibrant community. 

I keep coming back for Margies booby pictures!

Reddit is great for obscure or niche interests. It has such reach that you are bound to find some response. I always struggle with forums and taking a month to get a response on slow moving topics. However i have spent so much time arguing with people who are morons on Reddit. If i had a nickel for every downvote i got for posting easily verifiable facts...

Even worse is the Facebook groups. It's easily the most active forum for really specific topics, but it makes it impossible to query old posts. So much valuable information is lost all the time . Only upside is that you don't get nearly as many drive by morons as most groups are private.

I love Reddit for my niche interests.  It is still the internet but at least focused groups keep the porn and weird content down.

logdog (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Olemiss540 :

*right clicks*

*save image as*

Muchas Gracias.

Forums till I D. I. E. Trying my best to keep bimmerforums alive as well. Love this place.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.  Forums killed forums - with the exception of this one.  Sometime around 2004-2006, it became cool for the moderators and long-timers to treat everyone, especially the NOOOOOOOOBS, like E36 M3.  I had a car friend who didn't use your/you're the right way and got obliterated.  Everyone became giant jerks and I didn't want anything to do with it, so I logged off and never returned.  This story was told across many forums.  

In reply to Scotty Con Queso :

Cough, Miata.net, cough.  Bigly. 

In reply to Coniglio Rampante :

Any non-stock headlights, well, just still back and watch the circle jerk. What a bunch of shiny happy people.

brandonsmash said:

ddavidv - you were probably banned for breaking the rules. It's a common narrative that mods are "woke" or "power hungry" or whatever, but the reality is that most just want to create a neat community and a fun, topical space. If you were banned from multiple communities with different moderators, I'd suggest that you look at what there was in common with those interactions.

I was waiting for that.   I knew the rules, and was careful to formulate responses that didn't directly break them. I'm pretty good at crafting my words. What I experienced was moderators 'interpreting' the rules to fit their narrative, and providing ZERO warning when a response I wrote may dance too close to what they felt was an infraction. The two subs were similar in topic. One simply could not drift even close to the edge of advice that was (in their view) unpopular, even when the advice was practical.

My ban from the first sub was possibly deserved, and I'll take that one. The second time (months later) was truly undeserved, and was clearly a vendetta against opinion the mod didn't agree with (I believe I suggested the work of an author, not specifically banned in the 'rules', that was truly not of the same ilk as the ones they didn't approve of). They wanted an echo chamber, not a discussion.

In reply to Coniglio Rampante :

The turbo miata forum was by far the worst, worst I've ever seen.  Horrendous treatment of well, everybody.  I've complained about it before on here and a lot of people come to defend the site "well so and so was actually a great dude" or "people didn't search good enough". I get it, new people not searching can be annoying, but treating people in a way that sinks to a new low, even for the internet, shouldn't be tolerated.  /end rant. 

In reply to Scotty Con Queso :

My favorite forum I ever got banned from. 

"Hey I've been searching for days, your links to write ups are great, but all the pictures are broken. Can you guys like update then or something to eliminate so many of the repetitive questions you hate so much?"

*Banned*

forums always complain about people not searching while always having the absolute worst search function ever. This includes reddit for that matter. 90% of the time you're better off using google with site:reddit.com or whatever instead of the built in search

buzzboy said:

I tend to think that Facebook Groups killed forums, not Reddit.

It's 100% this. 

And to the post above this mentioning the crappy search on vBulletin-based forums, Facebook is 10000000x worse. And many Facebook pages get created and never moderated. People posting their crap in completely unrelated groups, or asking completely stupid questions a 12-year old could answer.

"Hey do you guys know where I can find wheels for my new BRZ?"

or

"What wheels fit on my car?" While being too lazy to read the pinned post in the group that would explain EXACTLY that.  



 

z31maniac said:

buzzboy said:

I tend to think that Facebook Groups killed forums, not Reddit.

It's 100% this. 

And to the post above this mentioning the crappy search on vBulletin-based forums, Facebook is 10000000x worse.

Actually, I find the Facebook search to work fairly well.

I think the worst search ever is the forum everybody's raving about, this one.

In reply to Peabody :

I have never actually been able to find what I searched for here. Not once. I've found things,  but it was complete luck, and nothing more.

David S. Wallens said:

Thank you, everyone, for the long-term support in keeping this a healthy, vibrant community. 

Like coming home.

I think this conversation has overlooked conglomerates like VerticalScope and Internet Brands buying up forums and running them into the ground with advertising.

In reply to red_stapler :

Weirdly, I busted more than one forum spam ring on Reddit. You're right: VerticalScope, etc., would buy forum names in bulk (bronco6g, corvette8g, whatever) and then we'd get a lot of astroturf spam from those forum domains. We'd ban the primary accounts behind these but the spammers always had huge queues of fresh and/or aged accounts spun up to take over the spam duties when on account was blacklisted.

The really stupid knock-on effect of this was that we had to ban several forum domains from r/cars and r/trucks specifically because of the forum conglomerates you mentioned. 

IB ruined forums. 

The community here is good. The software sucks. But, it's worth exactly what you've paid for it. And GRM is a magazine, not an internet forum. The forum is just a free bonus you get.

Reddit, GRM and FB all have terrible search features. Using google with "site:grassrootsredditbook.com" helps but it's not perfect.

One feature I miss from other forums: I can go to my profile and find a list of topics I've started. One of the few things reddit got right.

Obscure reddit groups are great for obscure topics. FB is great for a quick hit of interest and then never seeing that topic again. Forums are best for searchable repositories of info and continued discussion over time. No weird algorithm bumping some topics and not others.

I feel like Facebook and Reddit contributed equally to the death of forums.

Facebook marketplace def killed off craigslist. I refuse to have any kind of FB account just to sell things and still have moderate success on CL or eBay.