Author Topic: what if there are other communities like us (Read 1138 times)

Awesomebread� · May 31, 2022, 12:23:23 AM

So, most of us could probably agree that as of now, this forum is pretty obscure, right? I mean besides word of mouth, you probably only know about this place if you had some actual connection to it (in this case, playing blockland or being a career stuffposter at some point). I'm aware this forum had a ton of activity at some point (1.5 million posts in 2011, wow imagine that) but now it's just some lone corner of the internet with a mere fraction of the community left, with a community which is certainly no longer growing. Basically what I'm trying to say here, is that for as big as this place once was, it is still absolutely smacked by websites like youtube, reddit, twitter etc and ANY mainstream social media platform. Compared to them, the BLF does not exist. Yet, this place sits as a remaining outlet for a few people who know of its existence.

Now, imagine the same circumstances above but applied to a different community of similar size somewhere else, with a different theme. Possibly not even video game related. And they've got over 10 years of culture, lore, in-jokes, drama, and their own set of starfishs who just won't leave. Just like this place.
They're out there somewhere, staving off the inevitable transition to discord, and having their own little random discussions.

And we will never know about them.

sorry if this seems a little scattered it was just a random idea i thought was interesting

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16-Bit · May 31, 2022, 01:10:16 AM

Most definitely, but I also fear that this shared experience of niche forum communities can never be created again in the modern internet. Social media and media aggregator websites have created this strange trend in that people post things in order to validate themselves with platitudes and/or fake internet points. Whenever I post to a thread here I actually wish to contribute to the conversation, however small or stuffty my contribution may be, to at least leave some sort of impact on the thread or other forumers. The forum threads themselves also have an enduring value to it, where certain conversations and topics can be found neatly in specific posts under specific sections and can usually be viewed or searched for without having to sign up. This is in contrast to the modern Discord server which have mostly replaced forum communities.
To actually see anything you have at least have an account to join the server, then search function is awful and all information is found between conversations in the constant stream of text and images that is the chat history. Because of its nature as a messaging client it also forces you to have to keep up with the current conversation. With forums I can reply to a thread and just read new posts later. On Discord its a constant back and forth conversation and some people are prolific enough posters that it becomes too much of an effort to catch up. It also makes it awkward to post replies to previous topics and conversation because if its too late many people have already moved on from the "topic of the moment". Though forum posts can run into similar issues these problems are exaggerated by how Discord works. Sorry if this felt like a crotchety old man rant, I just felt like I had to at least share my opinion on the medium before its too late.

Awesomebread� · May 31, 2022, 02:40:31 AM

Quote from: 16-Bit on May 31, 2022, 01:10:16 AM

Most definitely, but I also fear that this shared experience of niche forum communities can never be created again in the modern internet. Social media and media aggregator websites have created this strange trend in that people post things in order to validate themselves with platitudes and/or fake internet points.

I would argue the same thing used to happen here, but it's definitely is true for social media websites which promote whatever gets the most engagement, creating websites like reddit where upvotes turn the whole culture into everyone rushing to be the first one to make some dumb joke to get the most updoots or gold or whatever.

Quote from: 16-Bit on May 31, 2022, 01:10:16 AM

This is in contrast to the modern Discord server which have mostly replaced forum communities.

It's a shame, because it feels like discord wasn't even designed to replace forums, it just kind of did. Discord feels like it was created out of necessity, considering how much of a pain in the ass it was to deal with skype groups, and teamspeak servers that needed to be hosted 24/7. Now it's incredibly convenient to talk to other people with it, and since people will usually gravitate toward whatever is the easiest to use, it seems like most people would rather just send quick messages on a program they already use daily than bother to browse multiple forum websites and adapt to the varying structures.

From my experience peeking into the ultra-massive topics like the pony/furry/real life pics threads, they've always felt more like chatrooms rather than forum discussions, probably due to the nature of the topic theme being so opened ended. And of course the night/day discussion topics could never again be replicated while discord exists. Those topics would probably be better suited to discord rather than being a forum topic.

Quote from: 16-Bit on May 31, 2022, 01:10:16 AM

To actually see anything you have at least have an account to join the server, then search function is awful and all information is found between conversations in the constant stream of text and images that is the chat history. Because of its nature as a messaging client it also forces you to have to keep up with the current conversation. With forums I can reply to a thread and just read new posts later. On Discord its a constant back and forth conversation and some people are prolific enough posters that it becomes too much of an effort to catch up. It also makes it awkward to post replies to previous topics and conversation because if its too late many people have already moved on from the "topic of the moment". Though forum posts can run into similar issues these problems are exaggerated by how Discord works. Sorry if this felt like a crotchety old man rant, I just felt like I had to at least share my opinion on the medium before its too late.

I'm hoping one day that discord will find some way to deal with these issues, and somehow become more structured for larger conversations without sacrificing the convenience.

I will say though that discord's search feature is slightly more reliable than BLF's. Slightly.

Conan · May 31, 2022, 04:30:23 AM

gang garrison 2 forums were like this 5 years ago - at this point its just probably a friend group on skype or discord. being such a small community they didnt have starfishs cause they would quickly get shunned/ignored

Epicduke · May 31, 2022, 10:28:42 AM

probably any old forum for a band is like this place. i heard from someone else that there are a few small weezer (🤮) forums that were fairly popular but eventually got super niche as forums started to die off.

Trogtor · May 31, 2022, 10:39:56 AM

closest thing to a forum like this on a larger scale would be SA

c · May 31, 2022, 01:10:36 PM

ashes to ashes, dust to dust

Mr Queeba · May 31, 2022, 03:00:22 PM

yeah there are definitely plenty of other internet communities/forums that had a healthy userbase but eventually died down as social media/discord/etc became more prevalent and caused subgroups of people to splinter off or leave entirely. i do agree that forums are very well suited for more in depth / longer term discussions of stuff and its kind of a shame the replacements arent exactly perfect at fulfilling that niche

Awesomebread� · May 31, 2022, 03:51:19 PM

oh, also if you think this place is dead, we definitely still have much more to lose. i was browsing a newly discovered super old futurama forum, as well as tigsource (which also just happened to be the first place minecraft was shown off, fun fact) and these places are DEAD. like 1-2 posts per week, on a good week.

Quote from: Epicduke on May 31, 2022, 10:28:42 AM

i heard from someone else that there are a few small weezer (🤮) forums that were fairly popular but eventually got super niche as forums started to die off.

should i be glad i chose the knockoff lego game forum over the weezer forum 🤔

TurnipBlog · June 01, 2022, 09:22:40 PM

I feel like it's unlikely that you'd get younger generations that did not grow up in the era of the internet where forums were the main social media outlet. The more we progress into the future, the less likely you'll find people actively looking for forums or even knowing that they existed in the first place. You'd probably have to garner some media attention to the forums and/or Blockland itself to showcase how despite "the odds," the forums continue to exist. On the flip side, I think that with the turbulence of the past few years, you'll likely see some people from yesteryear stroll through for some comfort.

Goth77 · June 02, 2022, 05:44:27 AM

Quote from: TurnipBlog on June 01, 2022, 09:22:40 PM

I feel like it's unlikely that you'd get younger generations that did not grow up in the era of the internet where forums were the main social media outlet. The more we progress into the future, the less likely you'll find people actively looking for forums or even knowing that they existed in the first place. You'd probably have to garner some media attention to the forums and/or Blockland itself to showcase how despite "the odds," the forums continue to exist. On the flip side, I think that with the turbulence of the past few years, you'll likely see some people from yesteryear stroll through for some comfort.

exactly. very well said!! I believe this to be the case also. it would be really cool if blockland could gain some attention again - after all it is still an amazingly fun game it's just a matter of having an audience!