What do forums still have to offer?

[warpus]

I was thinking about games' participation and how we are basically a generation stuck with the technology of our prime time. Yes, we have debates and we can share information/links and create insider community relationships, but what is the comparative advantage of a forum as opposed to other types of media.

Forums are a different beast from most social media, in that here we have a small yet somewhat consistent group of regulars who comment. It is a smaller tighter-knit community than something random like Facebook. Facebook is what, comments by random people you don't know? You can create custom groups and invite whoever you want there, but from my experience at least, those either tend to blow up to include lots of randos or don't get used and die. The other difference is that on facebook you can see most people's real names, whereas here we are hidden behind our handles and avatars.

Discord? Yeah, you can build up a community there. Discord seems to basically be IRC on steroids. It's designed for more in-the-moment fly-by sort of chatter though, instead of more indepth conversations that last weeks or longer.

Reddit? Most subreddits have so many users that you rarely run into people you know, unless you stick to fairly niche subreddits, which most people don't. The way upvotes work also doesn't lend itself very well to debate-like conversations. The most upvoted stuff ends up going to the top, it's not displayed chronologically. So you end up getting a completely different user experience from a forum.

Live messenger and zoom? None of my friends love video chat, we prefer chatting on our keyboards and all that jazz. We've played games like that, out of necessity, due to lockdowns.. but aside from that, what sort of community can be built in zoom? These approaches seem to work better at the office, for business meetings, etc.[/quote]

What is so unique about forums?

They are basically a leftover of the world of Bulletin Board Systems that was so popular in the 80s and 90s. Forums made up a big part of almost every BBS and they were structured essentially the same way modern forums are.

Whereas reddit is more designed to be a place where members of a community can find community-related information quickly (since popular posts float to the top).. forums are more designed for similar communities to exchange ideas and have conversations with each other in a more back and forth method.

Is there anything that will bring the new (and, well, current) generations to foruming as a media? Games or otherwise?

Yes, the stupid puritan American hate of breasts and nipples needs to be revisited and burned to the ground.

Aside from that, you'd be surprised how many niche communities exist out there with their own forums.

 

[Samson]

No problem.
My fuel cap is on the right side of my car.

Spoiler :

That is a thing that has irritated me so much over the years. I have frequently driven short lived cheap cars or random company cars and driven into the petrol station not knowing which side of the car the cap is on. If it has been on all those fuel gauges I will kick myself, and thank you every time from now on.

 

[Kaitzilla]

That is a thing that has irritated me so much over the years. I have frequently driven short lived cheap cars or random company cars and driven into the petrol station not knowing which side of the car the cap is on. If it has been on all those fuel gauges I will kick myself, and thank you every time from now on.

It only became a standard feature around 2012 or so.

I'm sure lots of people don't have the handy arrow.

Ya, great for rentals and company cars.

 

[Samson]

Yes, the stupid puritan American hate of breasts and nipples needs to be revisited and burned to the ground.

Aside from that, you'd be surprised how many niche communities exist out there with their own forums.

There are all sorts of niche communities involving all sorts of rearrangements of those words...

 

[Kaitzilla]

There are all sorts of niche communities involving all sorts of rearrangements of those words...

Hah!

There are only 10 years in a persons' life when they are not interested in the universal intuitive interface.

 

[warpus]

There are all sorts of niche communities involving all sorts of rearrangements of those words...

Rule 36

 

[MontyJava]

I figured out you can just script-block the whole like system, so I found my solution.
I will never know if you liked this post, and I cannot like your posts, nor know if anyone else did.
I am content.

I am clean. (also signatures and about 2/3rds of the visual clutter)

 

[Kaitzilla]

I guess my favorite thing about forums is they give you enough time to come back with the perfect zinger.

Turn based ya.

 

[The_J]

Now, to the topic:
I was recently with @Noble Zarkon on the live Twitch stream for the CivGive, and before that the organization went via a Discord server. The initial contact came via Twitter.
I was a bit bothered by that, because once upon a time, the forums were the center. Everything regarding community engagement was 15 years ago, and probably also still 10 years in the forums. Now it's not, and as @Gelion points out, there is "competition". I thought about that, especially about how to draw the streamers more to the forums, since they're content-creators, and therefore a precious addition. But then I realized that this will not work, because the platforms are just different, and server a different purpose.
- Twitch is a one-to-many conversation via video
- Twitter is a public live-discussion and news platform
- Discord is a semi-public live-chat platform
- Reddit is where you when you want to have unstructured news about what's hip, meme's, etc
- Facebook is where you grandparents hang out... I mean it's somewhere in the middle between news and a community

In contrast to that, the forums are less "live", more slow, and you can go more in-depth on a topic.
You'd not go to any of these platforms if you were looking for a Civ strategy or modding guide. You'd not go there to discuss any mechanisms in depth. You'd not go to any of these to get an overview over a subject. That's what we can still offer.
I'm therefore a bit puzzled that a part of the modding community seems to have moved to Discord, since this seems to be a suboptimal platform for their purposes, unless someone has live-questions while working . I do see why the CivPlayers league has moved to Discord, because for finding a playing partner who is right now online Discord is definitely better than the forums.

For the Civ7 release (whenever it might be), we'll have the challenge that we'll need to be fast with news (I think we can manage that, since we're also present on Twitter), and then we need to be also fast with making overviews (that has so far always worked, I think). If we can do that, the forums will have their place in the future.
Biggest challenge is that we are still competing with the Steam forums, which are obviously bigger. Our advantage is maybe that only the hardcore fans are here, and that the smaller base leads to more civilized discussions. The Steam workshop also has been a disaster modding-wise, and I don't think we'll be fully able to compete. We can partially though, since we have dedicated modders, a discussion community and our database is more suitable for the upload of parts than for full mods, which is also absolutely necessary. As a plus we have the HOF and GOTM, which others will not easily be able to replicate. This is part of the community-building around the game, which other platforms can't offer, so we definitely need to keep it up.

There is a future, but we'll need to work for it.

 

[RobAnybody]

No problem.
My fuel cap is on the right side of my car.]

Fascinating. I literally just went & checked my car & sure enough, there's a little arrow next to the gas tank icon pointing to the right. I would have never noticed it, much less realized what it was trying to tell me.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

Whatever it is, it's like crack to me. But just this one. I don't use any other forums.

 

[Gorbles]

Anecdotally, another forum just bit the dust - the Gearbox official community forums. Game-specific Discord instances have been setup (or were already existing + managed officially by the company).

It's pretty dead these days to be fair, but still managed a baseline of activity for the regulars. What was more interesting is the notification about the move of the forums to read-only happened basically overnight. I visit it daily, mainly out of habit, and the first time I noticed the banner was the night of the 19th / early morning of the 20th (today)

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I used to frequent a small but quite active Doctor Who forum, but drifted away from that over time. I revisited it recently and it was almost completely dead now. Just two people posting back and forth with weeks between messages. Even though I've not been in years I found it quite sad to see that it had died like that. It was cliquey, but lots of fun and their approach to the whole "babe thread" idea (boo! hiss!) was a unique and fun one that probably helped it survive long after such things were consigned to the pits of hell around here.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Young'uns seem to prefer the the more chaotic discord approach to sharing and talking: less formal, less structured, fewer rules, more chatty, less moderation.

 

[Gorbles]

Young'uns seem to prefer the the more chaotic discord approach to sharing and talking: less formal, less structured, fewer rules, more chatty, less moderation.

Speaking from experience, less moderation is often not how it works out. The approach will differ from Discord-to-Discord, depending on the ideals of who runs it, if they're answerable in a legal sense (like Discords that are run by actual corporate accounts, like Gearbox), and so on.

 

[amadeus]

Young'uns seem to prefer the the more chaotic discord approach to sharing and talking: less formal, less structured, fewer rules, more chatty, less moderation.

I’ve seen some really anal-retentive discord people though. Just anecdotally, and not related to anyone else here.

 

[Samson]

Young'uns seem to prefer the the more chaotic discord approach to sharing and talking: less formal, less structured, fewer rules, more chatty, less moderation.

These "young'uns" do not know what "less rules, less moderation" looked like in the usenet days.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I'm happy with a lack of rules and moderation. I'm less happy with everything being dumped in one long chat log.

 

[Kyriakos]

Creativity can still be promoted in forums, any look at the creation subforums will show as much. Though if you are after an audience, you'd better just post at reddit or twitter.

 

[AdamCrock]

Good company ! , No matter how screwed You are, And boy am I screwed ! - alcoholic , low-life, I am screwed and this forum showed me nothing but compassion and good will , I am ashamed of how I acted sometimes but still this is the greatest forum on earth ...