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Btw in case anyone wants to smile, Newgrounds.com is still kicking. Same owner, same purpose, still no ads.
It's kind of beautiful. I feel the need to protect it in this current internet hellscape. Like some rare specimen of near extinct species, this one must survive
Wow! That's a beautiful butterfly in today's internet. Thanks for letting me know, time to kill an afternoon.
There was a celebrity nudity message board I was a member of that had been running since the mid 90's that shut down late last year.
There's also a harm reduction message board that I joined in 2000. It was the center of my existence for years. I traveled all over the country hanging out with people I met on the board. Had a ton of fun, did a bunch of stupid things, ran from the cops a few times, almost died a few times... I even ended up shacking up with a girl I met on the board for a few years. This board helped me turn my 20's into a vague blur of gonzo madness... And it's still running. I'll pop in from time to time to see how it's going but it'll never be like it was back in the heyday. That's probably for the best though, since I'm too old for that life now.
Reddit mostly replaced a lot of the places I used to go. Now that I'm off Reddit I'm trying to find ways to get back into decentralized communities like those.
ran from the cops a few times, almost died a few times
You say it was about "harm reduction"?
Shifting harm. From one thing to another ๐
That was the premise, yes.
Something Awful is still around. Most others I frequented are long gone.
I miss the heyday of Something Awful. It was an experience that was great while it happened and should never come back given current sensibilities.
TVTome was my very first. Such a fun site. Basically a proto-wikia from the early 2000s. You managed a page for individual TV shows and filled it with info, and every show had it's own forum attached, that you moderated.
https://web.archive.org/web/20040727075622/http://www.tvtome.com/ (19 years and 3 days ago)
And then, as a sign of things to come over the next 20 years, the onwer of that site sold it off, along with all the community created works, and the community forums that went with them, to some trash company whose name I can't even remember anymore, and it doesn't matter because they probably got bought at some point too.
TVTome became TV.com, over the massive protests of its community. And it went to shit immediately.
Now tv.com is...shit, it isn't even around anymore? Wikipedia and Wikia destroyed that niche, and then Fandom enshitifed Wikia.
I miss TVTome!!
I had a lot of good years on Fark.
it's still there
I'm on a very active PHPBB forum for 2 stroke motorcycle enthusiasts, mainly RD350LCs. The amount of collective knowledge is insane. Between the members, they know EVERYTHING.
back in like 2010 - 2014 the steam forums used to be a goldmine, specifically the "off topic" section. You had people asking random-ass questions i.e. asklemmy, people playing forum games, chatting about current events, etc. It was always super active and you'd usually get dozens of posts at any given hour. I remember commenting enough times that I got added to the "off topic regulars" steam group which was comprised of a whole load of people that I still chat with to this day
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/B9q2jNjOPdk
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
What changed? I've always seen them as a cesspit but even from a distance I can tell they've gotten lots worse lately; been using since 2009 or so.
I think people who just contributed regularly and made good posts left for more well-run and well-organized sites. Lots moved off to discord where they could chat faster and more regularly. After that you were left over with what the forums were designed for: people who asked questions about specific games and software, rather than people contributing to a community.
Thirdgen.org
Forum for 82-92 Camaro and Firebirds, decades of information.
Yeah, Miata.net is still the Miata resource
Kuro5hin.
Old school forum from '99. Was a bit of a home for slashdot refugees.
Most notable memory:
One of the MIT students that was in the group that card counted in Vegas, which became the 2008 movie 21 posted a long form story about the incident. It was the first public announcement of the story and much of the detail was in the movie.
Anything phpbb still makes me smile.
Badger and Blade
Paradox Plaza. I haven't posted there in ages, though.
The Penny-Arcade forums, specifically the Social Entropy uh... I forgot what the various "room/categories" used to be called back then. I don't remember why I stopped going there or what my username was or anything, though it might have to do with my first BF. Met him through the forum and he dumped me outta nowhere and broke my heart.
Even just the name Penny Arcade had me in flashbacks!
The Eurogamer forum was my place in the early noughties. The forum was suddenly shut down in late 2021, removing about 20 years of discussions.
metafilter
www.homebrewtalk.com for beer, wine, and mead brewing. Great source for recipes tips and techniques. Everyone is relaxed and friendly.
sciencemadness.org is a fantastic resource for home chemistry. I love that necroing is encouraged, and never understood why so many other forums forbid it.
I can see rules against necroing being needed for some communities.
For example, a guide written at the release of an MMO would be pretty useless when you have games like Everquest running for 25+ years.
Telling some to "just camp" an item (for example, the Circlet of Shadows) is useless because the version they're talking about no longer drops. The info is no longer valid, because the pre-nerf version was super useful, the current version has some use at super low levels (too low to solo camp the item) but with the way the game has grown and expanded, its not even necessary. You can unlock an ability that does the same, eventually.
Bumping that post would at best be a massive waste of time or currency to acquire.
I don't know if this counts but I recently got roped into Flight Rising, a pet sim, and the forums there really capture the old-forum vibe.
Does gamefaqs count?
It better. Those walkthroughs were best friends with my shitty printer 20 years ago. I think I still have a Majora's Mask 100% mask walkthrough print out somewhere in a box.
Anyone out there remember the Megadeth forums back in the mid 2000s? I met a lot of amazing people through that site.
advrider.com for off-road/dual-sport motorcycling
My all time favorite was the Nintendo Nsider forums. Young me was devastated when they announced they would be shutting down
Anything running TAG. I once got dual node running in Windows 3.1, first that I knew of.
Does gearspace count?
I understand why it had to happen, but I miss seeing the old name everywhere โน๏ธ
Yeah I was going to use the old name but didnโt want to appear to be taking a political stance ha. It just feels weird still.
trionictuning for Saab ecu tuning
G4 forums and then the Amazon ones were great for a while. That was a long time ago.
Gametrailers.com
HardOCP was an awesome board back in the day. When it came to building PCs and overlocking them, there was nowhere better. It still exist but it is just a shell of its former self. https://hardocp.com/
I loved the gulli.com forum back in the day lol.
I occasionally drop by Head-Fi
My favorite old school forum is the Silent Hill community at Silent Hill Heaven / silenthillforum
I miss the IMDB forums. Each movie had their own individual forum threads.