thefsb
Member
There used to be the Internet: a network on which anyone could set up a service and build a community. That was awesome, although not without problems. So many forums, email lists, IRC channels, ... and so little time.
Then twitface, ig, slack, and all those other platforms took over. Instead of connecting to each other over the internet, they became the internet. Communicating online meant using one of those portals that makes its cut through mind control (ads). That sucked because I wasn't willing to use these things. And it also sucked because there was little alternative. For a long time the original forum programs had fallen way behind. There was no way I could ask people to join phpBB or things like it back in the early-mid teens. Or recommend them.
Eventually Discourse was released and it gained some traction and it was again possible to set up your own corner of the internet and ask people to join without it being an embarrassment of bad UX.
But last year and this I have found myself joining lots more special-interest forums. And not just Discourse. The PHP forum software seems to have upped its game. Works ok on a phone. Gamified. The post editor works well. Easy to add images, audio and videos. Good email integration.
And these forums appear to be thriving. It's almost as though the Si Val stranglehold on our online conversations were in a small but important way broken. Am I dreaming?
Then twitface, ig, slack, and all those other platforms took over. Instead of connecting to each other over the internet, they became the internet. Communicating online meant using one of those portals that makes its cut through mind control (ads). That sucked because I wasn't willing to use these things. And it also sucked because there was little alternative. For a long time the original forum programs had fallen way behind. There was no way I could ask people to join phpBB or things like it back in the early-mid teens. Or recommend them.
Eventually Discourse was released and it gained some traction and it was again possible to set up your own corner of the internet and ask people to join without it being an embarrassment of bad UX.
But last year and this I have found myself joining lots more special-interest forums. And not just Discourse. The PHP forum software seems to have upped its game. Works ok on a phone. Gamified. The post editor works well. Easy to add images, audio and videos. Good email integration.
And these forums appear to be thriving. It's almost as though the Si Val stranglehold on our online conversations were in a small but important way broken. Am I dreaming?
