Fediverse

Seems like an interesting post, thanks for writing it!

If there was a Reddit/Lemmy style website (where people create communities for various subjects but it's all available from the same website using the same credentials) with forum style discussions I would be outta here in a moment.

Ongoing discussions with bumps are so much better for knowledge accumulation (that's the reason why they're still used by specialized communities), the major issue with forums, as pointed out, is the hassle of having to go from one website to another to talk about various subjects and needing to sign up to each one of them.

As for solving the "little Kings" issue, dumb backend, smart frontend. Remove admins from the equation, those hosting are only there to host. People moderate communities but communities can easily be replaced. People create a frontend to access the backend but from a user point of view it doesn't make a difference what frontend they use, they will get access to the same content.

The fact that I've written this comment a dozen times since last year proves a point, Reddit/Lemmy style websites just lead to content being repeated again and again. This comment will get lost to time just like all the other times I shared my opinion on the subject. On a forum it would be part of the ongoing discussion and anyone who wanted to go through the whole thread where all discussions on that subject to place would read it, no matter how long it had been since I posted.

Because we prefer to sign up to one thing that combines all our interests to signing up to dozens of different forums

Great post!

I would be curious to know how many people on here have found memories from BBcode-style forums.

Personally I kinda skipped web 2.0 - I had some accounts, sure, but I hardly interacted with anything else than direct messaging. However I used to hang out on phpBB for probably hours every day before Facebook took over, having been lured in by needing help progressing in Pokémon on my GameBoy Advance.

I guess I'm a minority around here in never having used Reddit much. But I'm wondering if we're, in general, a bunch of ageing nerds who are nostalgic to web 1.0, or if we're a more diverse bunch than that. ;)

Edit:
Oh, and speaking of nostalgia, I'm sad LemmyBB is not maintained any more! It makes perfect sense that it isn't of course, but what a blast it would be.

I used to participate in (what was then) the largest and most active automotive enthusiast forum for a specific brand. They had forums for each major model run, and classifieds, etc. I'd go there for how-to's, detailed info, reviews, tips and tricks, and of course, to tall with like-minded people. Meet ups even spawned from these groups, and friendships were forged.

As it really picked up steam, though, the forum creators decided to monetize, as every large website grapples with how to sustain their growth. Unfortunately, they decided to implement ads, subscription/pay wall, and within a month, there were five competing websites. The majority of us left in the first two weeks.

Now that forum still exists, but the content is gone, deleted by users who didn't appreciate their content being monetized (sound familiar, June 2023?). The replacements? Some struggle on, and one or two are vibrant, but mostly, it imploded. There was one glorious pair of years though, when I (and thousands of others) spent hours every day on the forum, and every topic was covered.

In hindsight, the downfall was more than just the advertisements and pay walling. It was a few non-admins that were treated as defacto mods, and they had bad attitudes. Flaming anyone who asked questions that were asked before (this was before Google made searching easier), and also holding their own practices as the only way to maintain their cars.

The reddit versions of the forums were not remotely the same, with people coming and going and not really sticking around. The best place for the info is still forums, though I think they struggle with server upkeep and costs. It's sad to me, but all things change. I'm glad for archive.org.

While your post does mention notifications which really helps with engagement and was lacking from most forums, the main issue was IMHO lack of good mobile support of all the main forum platforms until as you said Discourse came along, but by then it was too late.