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this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2023
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Just waiting on someone to create Reddit in forum form so long discussions over weeks/months/years on any type of subject can happen...
Think those are just called forums?
Yes, what I mean is instead of having separate forums for everything, a Reddit/Lemmy type platform where people can create their own community to start threads. So if I wanted I could create a tractor community with sub communities for different brands and in there would be a single discussion to discuss a specific model, but my credentials would also allow me to go on the cooking community, in the baking sub community to take part in a discussion on strawberry shortcakes that's been going on for months...
Reddit type "forums" just lead to the same questions/content being posted again and again and if you know a lot about a subject and just happen to miss the one time someone asks a question about it then that discussion is lost to time.
Ah, I see what you mean. I feel like that adds a lot of moderation overhead though because it needs people there to stop nefarious grave-digging.
Instead of resurrecting old posts, on Reddit/Lemmy you have people asking the same question again and again and again... On the cars subreddit you have the same "most interesting 5k$ car for sale around where you live" post getting created every few weeks, on a bulletin board you would have a single thread and people would just post new stuff when it comes out, the thread would come back to the top of the community's front page and those interested would go check the newer reply...
I'm honestly surprised how many people that reply to me don't seem to have experienced bulletin boards considering they're still the place that "experts" hang on for most things (vs Reddit that is a better fit for enthusiasts that don't want very technical info)...
Cheers, still use forums for very granular info. I think it's more of a scale issue. If you put the volume of users on these niche forums as are on reddit/lemmy, I think the multi-post nonsense would ensue. I remember having to tell a lot of people to use the search in forums. Sounds similar.
Kind of like if there was a Lemmy Star Trek server and it hosted a bunch of communities with different topics that are all related to Star Trek?
The architecture is in place to do what you're talking about. Just needs the right people to adopt the approach over time.
Yes and no, the bulletin board system leads to more in depth discussions than anything you'll ever get on the Reddit system of discussions that don't get bumped...
So what I'm talking about is a decentralized bulletin board system with the federation system in place, so you can sign up to the Star Trek bulletin board but use the same log in to post on the Home Renovations bulletin board...
Basically, fix the biggest issue with forums, i.e. having to create an account for every single topic that interests you.
That's just a function of how the host server sorts posts. ~~I am fairly sure that functionality could be implemented without the need to even fork the version.~~
You can go to your user setting and select new comments and do this now.
It still doesn't work like bulletin boards where all users would see discussions get bumped and replies were linear. It only works if the sorting mechanism is the same for everyone and the discussion is ongoing. I could point you to discussions that are still active more than ten years after they started, where all the knowledge available on a subject is available...
Here's an example: https://www.advrider.com/f/threads/klr650-only-thread.742912/
Over 42 000 replies over 12 years on that specific model of motorcycle, that's simply impossible on a platform that doesn't work like bulletin boards do.
Bulletin boards is like having people sitting at a table and discussing a specific subject. Reddit/Lemmy is like an event with everyone scattered around the place with groups each having separate conversations, it might be a Star Trek convention, but you can't follow every conversations so the same thing keeps getting repeated again and again by different people because they don't realize someone already said the same thing.
There's a reason specialists still hang on forums and enthusiasts hang on Reddit...
Edit: The Lemmy devs even started developing my idea, but development stopped when the Exodus happened...
Some things like federated identities, or even federated content would go a long way into making forums a thing again.
I still think lemmy could use a "community type" enum where you can say what kind of discussion you want there.
I miss forums so much. A federated backend for forums would be nice. I'm so tired of having these giant communities of angry strangers if I want to talk about anything
Ironically that’s also lemmy https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmyBB
😱
Edit: And both instances don't work 🤣
Oh yeah i forgot to mention it hasn’t been maintained since the huge influx of users
In theory, but I used to hate when people would get mad at threads getting brought back from the dead. If the person has a question relevant to the topic, why start a new thread?
Not as if that was solved by instead having people tell OP to research the answer one of the many (now dead) discussions where the same question was asked!
That's a culture-thing. I'm a member of two forums that are still pretty active. One views dead thread revivals as amusing, the other almost literally has a celebration in-thread when it happens as all the members with older posts in it come piling in. Heck, the second forum has a thread so active that people literally ask for, and get, recaps for the last X amount of time for it.
Exactly, some people would complain about bringing back zombie threads, while others whine that people didn't use the search feature to find existing threads on the topic. You can't win either way with forum gatekeepers.