What old-style forums do you still frequent? Any you'd recommend?
What old-style forums do you still frequent? Any you'd recommend?
I enjoy the way forums work and how they're laid out. I also love how useful they are, especially when so many companies are replacing their entire communities with a Discord channel, which is less than ideal. I only use a few forums, but I'd like to find some more to browse through, it doesn't matter the topic!
My wee list:
- TIGSource Forums - Video game developers big and small post here, there's even a section for showcasing work-in-progress projects which is really cool.
- The Metal Archives Forums - The main site is pretty much the gold standard for metal music cataloguing. The forums are obviously about the metal genre, too.
- Cook'd and Bomb'd - This is a comedy aficionado forum. It's about all comedy, but it originally focused on the work of Chris Morris (Brass Eye, The Day Today).
EDIT: "Meal" to "metal" 🤦
I still frequent XDA Forums for all of my custom ROM needs.
I can't say I "frequent" it, but if you ever have ANY troublesome A/V-related question/difficulty, there are absolute wizards of the exact sort you're imagining lurking over in AVS Forum.
I still find some good answers for questions on my car in some good old, car forums specific to whatever make you may have.
The Fantasy Grounds forum is for a virtual tabletop for TTRPGs that's pretty active, and it's been going through a lot of good UI updates lately since the guy from DnD Beyond joined.
That's because the format itself promotes the accumulation of knowledge instead of the constant repetition from Reddit style forums which are better at generating new content.
I hope we don't lose them. Or someone is archiving all this knowledge.
I enjoy http://tildes.net/ Old style, but with a modern design. You’ll see what I mean.
If you have a Gemini browser such as Lagrange, then gemini://bbs.geminispace.org is one of the better forums there.
Therpf.com forums if you are serious about making costumes and replica props.
Tomshardware forums are still pretty decent for tech help.
LS1tech.com if you are working on an LS engine. Everything you could possibly want to know.
There’s actually quite a few Internet forums out there that cater to crowds that may be a little averse to technology and adopting things like discord or using Reddit. Car repair, Automotive, DIY construction and home repair, surprisingly quite a few tech forums like XDA developers or Tom’s, machinists, prop-making, Making in general…. Sometimes they’re not very active unfortunately, but they do have a searchable wealth of knowledge.
Doomworld for new maps and mapsets for Doom 2 and Heretic.
Something Awful
I've been tempted to join that site, but it seems to have too many rules.
Still worth it to lurk, they manage the fine line on being edgy without also being annoying.
I do like Whirlpool, an Australian forum primarily centred on technology. It's still active despite the general decline of forums, has a lot of useful info to turn up in searches, and I appreciate how it has remained clean and fast without the visual clutter and wasted data of modern web design.
Planted Tank is great for planted aquariums, and Fish Lore has an active general fishkeeping forum.
Vortex is a Volkswagen forum but has tons of conversation around other brands, too.
The official LOTRO forums are the only official game forums I've found that aren't super toxic. Great community.
Really, I think old-school forums are best for specific niche interests.
+1 for vwvortex!
Fish lore was great until i got banned for offering to help. No discussion or chance to appeal. Its run by a bunch of abusive idiots if you ask me. The forum and users are great though.
Whirpool but it's Australian focused
The stack overflow of PLC programming.
https://www.thelincolnforum.net/
It’s for maintaining and restoring classic Lincoln continentals. Lots of knowledge both in the content and in the members. You don’t find much outside of the forum.
RageZone, I still love to talk about private servers. Every now and then I play a private server myself!
What was that app or site that brought a bunch of forums built on the same framework together?
Used to visit skyscrapercity.com
FuckCombustion: a forum about cannabis vaporization.
The Cartographer's Guild. Although I have never actually posted there. I just stop by when I'm trying to draw a better map for my D&D games
Board Game Geek is cool, and Metal Archives is useful when I want to check that an interesting black metal band is not, in fact, a pack of nazis
Specialty interests. There's one for solar power, one for your specific brand of car, one for NAS devices, one for security cameras.
rpg.net is pretty good, but I don't post there anymore. I may have eaten a large ban in a stupid argument about accessibility. I still don't think being able to unilaterally change the rules of the game in your favor in a multiplayer game falls under accessibility, but apparently some people do!
For context, plenty of facepunch forum users came over after they closed their forum.
I don't often browse there directly but I do end up there a lot.
Knockout.chat, the old facepunch forums reborn.
Only one I frequent is a NSFW forum. Not sure if I should name it
Well now you have to
F95zone
Meal.. Music?
https://www.home-barista.com/ Is pretty good for coffee related topics, specifically espresso. It's a lot more technical than /r/espresso
The Magic Cafe - Forums for magicians of all skill levels