Making Time for Internet Forums
I'm going to assume without preaching at you that you are decided to put an effort into using forums. Whether or not we think it would be a better use of our free time on the Internet than something like social media or an always-on chat app isn't something I'm going to go into. It doesn't matter if that's the case or not. We miss forums. We want to try forums. How do we build this behavior?
It's interesting that we're using language like "put an effort into" and "building this behavior." That is because reading forums is not as convenient as some of the mainstream, modern ways of using the Internet. And even if you're okay with putting in the work today, another thing you have to swallow is the glacial pacing that forums sometimes move at. So whether or not you become a forum user comes down to, "Do you return to the forum at any interval." There is a lot of room for that interval to vary. You can check boards everyday or you can check them one Sunday per month.
In this post we're going to assemble a list of forums to read. Each is going to fill a different niche, and we're going to subscribe to all of them like old men and women reading the newspaper.
Guidelines For Being Successful on a Forum
Lurk Moar
The first thing you have to do is find forums that you like to read -- browse -- however you want to phrase consuming the content. If you're going there with a big smile thinking about your first post and all the people that are going to respond to it, you might find that you don't get the response you're expecting. You might not see a response for a week maybe -- or more. You might post something that doesn't match the tone of the place you're posting it. You need to be a forum reader -- a lurker -- first. That isn't to say you should live in fear of posting (especially if the boards in question depend on someone posting on them). You should simply understand where you are at.
Reply to Other Peoples' Threads Before Making New Threads
This is a flexible guideline. If you have an amazing post with great value, content, that other people will have something to add to it, by all means post the new thread. But most likely you should be getting a feel for replying to existing threads when you don't. There's a list of reasons why.
- It takes the pressure out of not always having something worth posting a new thread about. People will generally be more forgiving of unintentionally bad posts.
- The OP will be happy to see their thread doing well. Other people will feel more comfortable saying something if you are saying something.
- Everyone involved in the thread will have a growing awareness of your posts and will be more likely to be involved in your threads.
There's obviously a lot of things that change this up, like anonymous posting, or places that are intended for shitposting. But I think it still applies, because at the end of the day forum interactions are about bouncing ideas off of each other. If you're only willing to bounce your own stuff off other people and never bounce back theirs, then you better have some good things to post.
Be Search Engine Aware
Everything you write on a forum is going to be easily searched and found on Google and similar sites -- for the most part. It's best not to post more information that identifies you than you need to.
Lots of Forums to Choose From
The most common misconception is that forums don't exist anymore. There's actually so many of them. There's old ones. There's new ones. There's some that are on life support with a few rock people that want to stay. There are some with threads that fill up with so many posts per day you have to give up on reading all of them.
There's a lot of reasons you would want to dabble a lot into the sea of what possibilities are out there. Different forums serve different purposes and they have different cultures. Unfortunately they often lean in one direction or another politically and you sometimes have to take that into account when you pick places to post. There are places that will expect you to be on topic all the time. There are places that are more and less relaxed about how you're allowed to express yourself. There are places that you will leave from wanting nothing to do with that place. But there are yet other places to look at that you would prefer.
On Identifying Strongly With One Forum
So you've found the forum you prefer over every other. It's the place where the other people get it. It's the place where you start reading and posting the most. It sounds like it should be all positive things to say from here, but the longer you stay in and use the same forum, the more things you will be aware of.
- The forum is not the perfect place you thought it was. There are great things about it and not great things about it.
- The culture shifts and changes over time. The way it was at one point is not the way it will always be.
- You will change. You will not always be able to get everything that you want to get from an Internet community in the same place.
I'm not saying you should try to avoid this. Finding a forum that you like is what we're hoping for here. Having a strong preference for one is very likely to happen and these points are just things to be aware of so you will be less likely to find disappointment after investing a lot of time in one place.
I generally think the web is better if you are spreading yourself out and involving yourself in different communities.
My Forum List
I can't decide for you what you're looking for. But the more forums you start lurking in, the more ideas of what's out there you'll have.
I read all of these.
Something Awful Forums
I'll start by saying if you're not familiar with Something Awful culture, this will be the hardest one to assimilate into as a new user. It's a very elitist community where you are expected to know the culture. One way this is enforced and maintained is that you have to pay ten bucks to make an account on Something Awful. You can read a lot of things without one but to see everything and to post you have to pay.
This is the forum I grew up reading and posting on the most as a teenager. Even though I was away from it for decades, it was the primary inspiration for this site: an E/N site with a forum -- or an image board in my case. It was a home coming for me to go back, and I imagine a lot of people reading this have something in mind that they have a lot of nostalgia for. It's worth it to poke back into that place and see what's going on there. In my case it was very worth it. But you might find things have changed and that you'd rather leave than stay. That's okay, too.
YOSPOS
These days I mostly read YOSPOS, or "Your Operating System is a POS." It's basically just a techie forum for old hackers with day jobs. It's acceptable to shitpost there more than other spots on the forums and there's a lot of amusing things if you're that type of nerd. This is where I keep my ear to the ground for cybersecurity stuff I should know happened.
I also like Cavern of COBOL which is a more serious programming spot. It's a sub-forum of Serious Hardware / Software Crap. It's obvious what I'm doing around Something Awful. But there is a lot more going on there.
General Bullshit
If you're not sure where to drop in, there's nothing wrong with GBS.
Blue Dwarf
If there is any forum on this list that I would like to see blow up with attention and realize its full potential as an idea (other than my own board of course :P), it's this one, which was designed to be a social media alternative that distinguishes itself from software like Mastodon by being light weight and otherwise not a one-for-one copy of the corporate web. Space Ghost talks about what it's all about here.
If I had to describe the threads I've seen since I found this place, I would say, "It's a unique twist on Hacker News with its own categories and topics to post about." Rather than having different boards, all the threads are aggregated into one simple feed that can be filtered and sorted by different criteria. I suspect that Space Ghost would be open to having a lot of different subjects posted about than what you see already. The tagline of the site is, "A social network for the small web. No topic off limits. No verbal abuse."
It is small in every way.
Melonland
Melonland is one of the spaces that grew from and outlived the yesterweb era. Melon recently described the forum to me as a "fusion point where Neocities culture and the wider art web culture can meet."
Web design by artists is the best way to describe this place. I don't think I should spend a lot of time talking about it. You should just open it up and look at it. You're going to know very quickly if this is a place you want to be.
Melon is a cool person that gives measured advice about using the web to the community.
Basement Community
This board has a lot in common with mine in that both are heavily inspired by Something Awful. Basement Community makes less assumptions about copying the culture of Something Awful and instead focuses on being a more modern version of the software. This is a community I only found when I returned to Something Awful and was curious if anyone would be interested in my site, only to find there are others who came from SA.
Super Mario World Central
Would it really be a proper list of forums without something so infinitesimally niche that only a microcosm of a microcosm would get anything out of it? Enter a community that's been romhacking a Super Nintendo game for decades. Whether you want to play or make romhacks, this is the place to get the tools to do it and share the results.
⭐ Divchan ⭐
What, you really think I'm not going to talk about my own board? This entire site is engineered to put attention on my board ROFL.
What can I say? Divchan is an anonymous imageboard that you can optionally log into and post with your account as your name. It's an elaborate guestbook and comment system for the articles on this blog, but it could be a lot more than that if you wanted it to be. It is open source and looking for contributors.
The rules are a minimized version of what you find on Something Awful. The primary motto is that chaos is okay, cruelty isn't. I would like this board to be a measured, mature version of 4chan for the small web -- something that's not a festering hole in the Earth for terrorists and state actors.
Your Forum Lists
I want to update this list with all the best forums on the Internet. But in order to do that, I need your help sharing your forums with me. I made a thread on divchan where you can post any links to any forums on the Internet.
Here's some stuff to consider that you shared:
Fandom Forums
Fandom is possibly one of the best avenues for finding a forum if you are a fanboy/girl.
No Homers Club - The Simpsons
Planet Express Employee Lounge - Futurama
The Trek BBS - Star Trek
Holy Cow
This is a lot of forums.
How Do We Make Time For All This?
- Put your most important forums in a list
- Bookmark them
- Make a page on your site or whatever you will see it that links back to all of them
- Use a password locker like BitWarden to make logging into these accounts from your computer and phone effortless
- Put a browser on your phone and get used to just accessing services through it instead of an app
- Make links to all these sites and put them on your phone and computer desktop
- You can set calender reminders to visit sites if you want to not forget to do it.
- I find that just keeping the links available where you will see and click on them is good.