As if you all didn’t know by now, I’m a forum veteran, which really is a dolled up version of saying “forum whore”. I love forums – they provide a great medium for discussion, they have persistent threads that retain the history of the forum, and they are a good place to expand your online social circle, through others that share your interests.
But forums are also an interesting beast, and by that I mean a beast that bucks and kicks and threatens to throw you off. The dynamic nature of forums and forum posting means that as little as a single line can turn into a multi-page flame fest, filled with the usual internet memes, name-calling, and e-thugging many of us have come to expect. When you run forums as I have, the practice almost becomes popcorn-worthy, as a simple disagreement can turn into two or more people ripping each other to shreds.
Despite all this, I still like forums. For all their serious business and electronic trolling, the idea of having discussions among peers that you normally wouldn’t due to distance is an amazing thing that I think people take for granted these days. Even though social networking sites have worked to enhance connections people hold with those that aren’t in their immediate circle of friends, all of that had a foundation in forums, where people who regularly visit talk about themselves and the things they enjoy. This kind of core is what keeps me managing forums, despite the difficulties it presents.
I think that if geekfolks were less concerned about presenting themselves in a serious, credible light and more about discussing the matter at hand, forums themselves would be less turbulent. The faceless anonymity of forums is both a blessing and a curse after all – you can be credibly seen on the internet as the foremost expert on something and within minutes be seen as a great online fraud. The internet is fickle, and it’s a harsh mistress when it comes to things like this. But if it wasn’t exciting to navigate, a lot of us would be sworn off forums completely, content to post on our blogs or even eschew the internet’s lures entirely. No, many of us are hopelessly hooked on the siren call of a good forum discussion – I just hope most of you learn not to take it so seriously.
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Do you think that forums are going to be less prevalent in future? I wonder sometimes if they’re a product of their time. I love my forums (I spend way too much time hanging out on guild forums and rpg.net) but I wonder sometimes if the average crowd is aging with me and more recent arrivals to the internet are finding other ways to communicate (ie. facebook groups, etc).
I think forums are obviously stamped with a time limit like every other form of communication out there, but they aren’t really going anywhere anytime soon, mostly because social networking sites are, well, pretty personable and many people aren’t readily willing to share their RL info with everyone.
Forums are also better suited to the ins and outs of communication with threading, categories, and the like. You may see forums evolve but I doubt they’ll be going away.
I heart forums. I spend way too much time on them. I love the honest discussions, and the heated debates, and to some extent, the trolling as well. As far as them fading in time, as long as people are bored and work and want to talk about their hobby, they’re going to do so with people who share that hobby, and the internet is the best way to meet up with them. Hardly noone at my job plays MMOs (only one person that I know, and she plays F2P asian-grinders. BOOOO!!! HISS!!!), so I can’t talk to them about it. Hence, I turn to forums and blogging for cathartic, hobby-release.