Are specialist forums dying?

***F1ZZY*** said:
I don’t think it’s a surprise but the average age of the account replying to this thread is around 15 years I’d guess.

what was the peak of users online at any time? I’m sure I recall tens of thousands.
Click to expand...
Symptom of lockdown? Seen a few returners.
 
Apex said:
Guys blue is so 2014. Please select the dark theme. It's much better once you have spent 1 week with us you'll never want to go back to blue.
Click to expand...
100%. I thought the blue theme was someone screen-shotting a legacy post.

Edit: Maybe it is a symptom of getting old as well but I seem to favour dark themes across everything recently. Definitely wasn't the case before!
 
dLockers said:
100%. I thought the blue theme was someone screen-shotting a legacy post.

Edit: Maybe it is a symptom of getting old as well but I seem to favour dark themes across everything recently. Definitely wasn't the case before!
Click to expand...

They're all ancient screengrabs I dug up from when the dark theme required a browser extension. :)
 
I'm still not sure how much sense it makes to keep so many topics split away from GD now given the forums are less busy nowadays. It means people end up not seeing or replying to those "niche" posts when they could have something useful to add.

I bet many people just stick to a couple of sub-forums and that's it. I miss having random DIY and other stuff in GD.
 
They haven't died they've just gone to different platforms. Reddit is still a forum, it's just a different paradigm. It was a good idea in theory "upvote for contributes to discussion, downvote for doesn't contribute to discussion", which meant all the good debate goes to the top, and all the troll posts/threads go to the bottom. However it's not used that way, upvote/downvotes are purely used as agree/disagree which leads to echo chambers, which is the exact opposite of the voting systems intent. Really, you should be upvoting the people you disagree with and engaging in discussion with them. Reddit is doomed to be an echo chamber because people don't use the voting system properly.

That's why I prefer this place and I like that it doesn't have any 'like' or 'voting' buttons on posts and threads. It means sometimes you have to read drivel but at least you get both sides.
 
I used to like browsing the console and games forum on here, well I still do but it isn't the same, I remember years ago that games were talked about a lot more, pretty much every new release had its own thread, now its just the same old rubbish at the top of the page, either a console thread or fifa thread.
Like said though perhaps just not as many people browse forums to talk about stuff.
 
FurryLemon said:
Downside of Youtube is the lack of proper debate, so while forums will continue to decline, they won't die out completely.
Click to expand...

Saying proper debate rules most forums out. The level of vitriol and picking over every word means that middle ground people are more loath post, leaving "debates" to people mostly trolling for reactions.
 
I think OCUK is a nice, old school style forum that is helpful, fairly tolerant of opposing views and more polite than many forums.

Reddit is too much of a political hive mind with poor ranking of posts, leading to jokes and memes being higher than posts of substance. I read Reddit but wouldn't post there as too many toxic users.

I feel OCUK is more polite than most due to being mostly British, definitely less confrontational than many forums I've been on. I also feel it's relatively even in terms of politics and still mostly focused on helping users and non political topics.
 
Definitely Facebook is a big kick in the nuts for forums. Couple car forums I'm on are still strong, pistonheads etc. I wonder if Facebook never come along and we still had MSN we would be more social.
 
I think it’s an age-group thing - when I was in my teens forums were the way shared interest groups interacted and you didn’t have all encompassing social media the way you do now, so naturally people cling to what they’re used to unless that thing is totally obsolete (remember the days of Friends Reunited before FaceBook was open to all?).
 
OP invokes Betteridge's Law :). There's still lots of great advice to be had here. The problem isn't lack of specialist advice it's the increase of keyboard warriors and trolling. The anonymity of forums leads to certain individuals being a bit too forceful with their opinion and getting borderline aggressive, a recent example being a guy running around various threads telling people they are idiots if they can't see that a 3080ti is releasing imminently.

Unfortunately, forums are suffering from the polarisation that social media has created. However as I say, there's still some really knowledgeable people on here happy to spend time helping others out. I also enjoy SC as there's some really interesting stuff discussed, but you need to wade through oceans of egos and arguments in order to fish out the good stuff.

I believe the mods even have alt troll accounts that they use for giggles?
 
I think there are too many snobs here, people who cannot help when mere minions ask for information.

I've been here over ten years and used to be a great source for help and ideas.

Now its just full of big headed know it alls
 
Al-Ectrician said:
I think there are too many snobs here, people who cannot help when mere minions ask for information.

I've been here over ten years and used to be a great source for help and ideas.

Now its just full of big headed know it alls
Click to expand...

Actually you're wrong and I would explain to you why but tbh you should have learned to Google it by now.


:p
 
A lot of competition now; social media, reddit, youtube, pornhub... er scratch the last one.

Would be nice if traditional forums didn't die, they all have their place. Reddit's voting system and obsession with the latest news can make it a very difficult place to converse.
 
Reddit is horrendous to be honest, I'm also not sure if it's just buggy or doesn't play nice with my browsers. Trying to follow discussions is a nightmare making me jump elsewhere and blocking out the rest of the thread or jumping to the wrong part of a page.
 
Most car forums I'm on are now deserted, Facebook groups have taken over which for a number of reasons I don't get on well with. It's a shame.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom