Fediverse

Every forum I used before Reddit even existed is still active (hell, PHPBB was updated as recently as November!) and new platforms, like Lemmy, pop up all the time . IDK what the fuck these articles are talking about. Maybe they just don't know how to actually find anything on the web? 🤷🏻‍♂️

Maybe Lemmy is a 2020s version of phpBB (the forum software, which is open source like Lemmy is). Lemmy and phpBB can both be hosted by anyone, but of course the interesting thing about Lemmy is that Lemmy servers can share their content with each other.

How do we create more forums?

I believe this is what they call "preaching to the choir".

Reddit is literally unusable now. I use old.reddit to browse certain subs but there’s no point commenting or interacting cause pretty much everything gets you banned

Here is a chrome extension that copies all messeges and media from a discord server you're a part of.

In case the stuff on a server is what keeps you coming back.

Everytime I want to look for modern solutions to newer projects online it's always in the damn discord. I have like 20 discords in folders just because I feel like I'll need them to troubleshoot eventually.

I think this is an XY problem.

People keep trying to bring back the old internet ; This is an broken and outdated solution.

The root problem (in my opinion) is that we need to share critical information to the masses, but the masses introduce "tyranny of the majority". It's a really tricky problem to figure out, and I really really really want mathematicians working on this.

If you live in the states, the Electoral College exists because they were looking for a practical solution to this problem. Considering the outcomes, it did not work - but there is no shame in this, as I think this is actually a really hard problem to solve.

The only known solution is to not share information to the masses (a.k.a keeping the normies out). In essence, this is what the old internet was - and a large part of what made it great. But this is not correct as it does not meet the criteria of the problem. Nor does it translate well, since your neighbors are apart of the masses.

If anyone has any thoughts on this, please share. If you do math for a living, please gather your friends and make an open-thesis about this.

EDIT

After some discussion in the comments, I have a general hypothesis:

• One platform, one name.

People must be able to distinguish the resource they are accessing - highly recommended this process be easy. This provides consistent "edges".

• Open protocols only.

Looking at "tyranny of the majority" from a different perspective, one answer is to standardize how people communicate. This means no closed ecosystems nor convoluted protocols. This provides "standard weight" while preventing "infinite weight".

• Server-wide censorship cannot be allowed.

This eliminates every platform I know of. Servers should not be given any tools to prevent incoming nor outgoing data. People should handle moderation individually - sane UI can of course be made available (BlueSky block filters could be inspiration?). Blocking should only be handled by the "nodes", this also prevents "infinite weight".

I find it really funny that this conclusion kind of alludes to the early internet in a lot of ways. Maybe it wasn't the internet-forums, but the internet itself that has changed.

Internet forums will come back when AI overtakes Reddit and Discord goes awry because they go public.

Indeed, especially since both (Reddit more than Discord admittedly) give out blanket bans on a whim and that means being blocked off from the modern internet, the stakes are too damn high.

Though what do they mean "Disappearing", isn't this like pulling the alarm because you just learned "There's not that many dinosaurs left"

Indeed, forums are almost gone. In particular, I miss one forum about science fiction, one about aeromodelism, one about electric vehicles (another still exists) and one about anarchism. An interesting hold-out in the country where I live, is a military forum, where rules say that respectful discussion is the only kind of discussion accepted - ironically, the military forum has a peaceful atmosphere. But it could come crashing down much easier than a social media company.

As for why forums disappeared - I think that people became too convenient. They wanted zero expense (hosting a forum incurs some expenses and needs a bit of time and attention), and wanted all their discussion in one place. Advertisers wanted a place where masses could be manipulated. Social media companies wanted people to interact more (read: pick more heated arguments) and see more ads - and built their environments accordingly. Not for the public good.

I think the most urgent job is getting rid of algorithmically steered social media - sites where one can't know why something appears on one's feed.

Its been driving me crazy, I am so close to abandoning the internet and going back to old reading just out of spite. yesterday I went looking on how to fix something simple a small electric item and all i got was adverts for a replacement, I use DDG and i closed the screen at three pages. I miss when you could simply search a question and the answer was there. Excited to see the resistance starting to emerge.

Don't forget random Telegram groups!

What Reddit did 2 years ago proves that most people aren't going to switch to alternatives just because it's "the right thing". They only do that when they want or need something from the new platform. If we want people to come to Lemmy, Matrix, and whatnot else, we have to make them into appealing alternatives both in functionality and content.

Sorry for the Google Translate Link. An easy alternative is much appreciated.

Firefox can translate websites locally now.

I proudly still use a super specialised old school online forum and it works great for those purposes.

Discord, Reddit and Lemmy are bad choices for forums. If you want ANY useful information to stick, put it on forums you know are gonna get indexed and archived reliably. Reddit is indexable but there's no guarantee the page will still be there when you search for it through Google.

Discord is completely unindexable so any information that exists on a server that gets deleted is lost forever.

Lemmy is a half-way house. As far as I know it's kinda indexable but not really.