Eurogamer is part of a worrying centralisation trend: where a company closes their official forums and makes either Reddit or Discord their main base of operations. HiRez and Riot Games are...
Eurogamer is part of a worrying centralisation trend: where a company closes their official forums and makes either Reddit or Discord their main base of operations.
HiRez and Riot Games are notable examples of companies that shut off their official forums because subreddits like /r/SMITE, /r/leagueoflegends and /r/tribesascend became popular ways to reach out to the community. Wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard and Jagex were to follow suit soon too.
Don't get me wrong, Discord has revolutionised how online communities are created. Back when I was heavily into games like WoW, guilds had to host their own websites & forums to recruit players. They also had to host their own Teamspeak, Ventrilo or Mumble servers to have voice chat. We're now in an era where you can just create a Discord channel and invite other users on there.
But I'm damn sure that Discord isn't profitable. The overwhelming majority of users are probably freeloaders who aren't being served ads at all, and with very little revenue from Nitro subscriptions, I do wonder how they even stay afloat without attracting biblical amounts of investment and venture capital to burn through.
What happens if Discord or Reddit financially go to shit?
Part of the problem is that if you don’t stand up your own discord and subreddit, someone else will stand up an unofficial one that speaks for your community that you don’t have any control over....
Part of the problem is that if you don’t stand up your own discord and subreddit, someone else will stand up an unofficial one that speaks for your community that you don’t have any control over. It becomes necessary to have your company’s community engagement people engaging in these sites anyway, so you might as well just go all in and figure out how to hold the reins on it.
Reddit and Discord own the space because they just have natural advantages of scale. People can be exposed to your community without seeking it out if it makes it to /r/all. People don’t need to sign up for an account to participate so your subreddit will naturally be bigger and more active than your official forums. There’s just no way around it. Game companies and publications want to focus on making games or publishing articles. Community management is a side thing for them, they don’t want to invest more into it than they have to, and maintaining or standing up Reddit alternatives are expensive and difficult.
I dunno about Discord because it's primarily a VOIP/IM communication tool and it's absolutely useful to have an official server. But publishers absolutely shouldn't be trying to hold the reins of...
I dunno about Discord because it's primarily a VOIP/IM communication tool and it's absolutely useful to have an official server. But publishers absolutely shouldn't be trying to hold the reins of subreddits. You then end up with a risk of creating major moderator conflicts-of-interest or possibly violating the rules of Reddit itself (in regards to paid promotions, astroturfing, etc.)
At best they should be treated like third-party fansites.
Another problem is when a company's staff are only active on Reddit. In the RuneScape community for example, it's a common meme to call Reddit & Twitter the developer's customer service department because Jagex's official customer support channels are so bad. Also because if you get banned for botting, it's non-appealable by said channels. Sometimes the only way to get a proper response is to kick up a stink on /r/runescape or /r/2007scape and hope your post gets popular enough to warrant a JMod response.
Given the sheer number of subreddits managed by official employee's of the relevant companies, I don't think reddit minds as long as they don't vote manipulate. And to be frank, they don't need to...
But publishers absolutely shouldn't be trying to hold the reins of subreddits. You then end up with a risk of creating major moderator conflicts-of-interest or possibly violating the rules of Reddit itself (in regards to paid promotions, astroturfing, etc.)
Given the sheer number of subreddits managed by official employee's of the relevant companies, I don't think reddit minds as long as they don't vote manipulate.
And to be frank, they don't need to artificially astroturf. You have a bunch of fans ready to vouch on your behalf for no cost. Enough that it's not worth Reddit investigating any atroturfing claims by multimillion dollar coporations.
This is an old trend. In the early days of the Internet, lots of mainstream newspapers and magazines had forums. Most posts were low-quality and eventually they got tired of it and closed. Now...
This is an old trend. In the early days of the Internet, lots of mainstream newspapers and magazines had forums. Most posts were low-quality and eventually they got tired of it and closed. Now people talk about mainstream news on Twitter or other forums.
It's not too surprising that something similar might happen for game magazines.
I don't think we'll run out of online forums. If Reddit collapsed, something else would take its place. (Maybe a bunch of substacks?)
That's been my dream for some 3-4 years now, to be honest. Partially why I came here, even if it doesn't quite accomodate all the things I'd want from a forum.
If Reddit collapsed, something else would take its place.
That's been my dream for some 3-4 years now, to be honest. Partially why I came here, even if it doesn't quite accomodate all the things I'd want from a forum.
The order in the title is wrong even though the body of the article talks about it. It’s not that eurogamers closed their forum and moved it to discord, it’s that all the users on that forum moved...
The order in the title is wrong even though the body of the article talks about it. It’s not that eurogamers closed their forum and moved it to discord, it’s that all the users on that forum moved to discord (and Reddit) then eurogamer closed it.
That makes a big difference. Why is the impetus on eurogamers? It’s not like maintaining a forum no one uses would change this trend even if they paid for its hosting in perpetuity.
It’s user mentality that you have to change if you want the traditional forum to revive again. You have to either convince users that their current love of discord and Reddit should stand next to the traditional forum or find new people who prefer the traditional forum. Just having more traditional forums does nothing when they’re fundamentally social platforms that are only worth using for the other people on there.
I hate this trend. It's been going on for a while. Oddly enough, the one that hit me hardest was IMDB shutting down their forums in 2017. Not that the average forum post there was particularly...
I hate this trend. It's been going on for a while.
Oddly enough, the one that hit me hardest was IMDB shutting down their forums in 2017. Not that the average forum post there was particularly high quality but it was a very specific source of information. Want to know about a certain cut of a movie from the 80s? Someone likely posted a list with detailed descriptions. Want to know how production is going for some major upcoming movie? Someone probably posted photos of the shoot in Romania. Want to discuss an obscure detail about a character in your favorite movie? Sure, just spawn a 10-page thread and get the input of the 20 people on earth who obsess about it as much as you do.
It's just a different structure for discussion. On reddit-esque sites, the barrier to post a new topic is just slightly higher. Threads also disappear much quicker since they have to compete with actual news and content posts that IMDB, for example, would just have on the movie's main page. Chat platforms like discord are designed for casual conversation so you don't get the in-depth posts. Also its messages disappear even quicker. Forums have a very specific way of preserving all available information about a certain discussion topic and let you expand on it.
As for why it's going away: I blame the assholes.
Sure, it's a money decision but that money would have gone to moderators (server cost is a factor but I doubt it's the biggest one or what made the decision). There's always been assholes on the internet, but somehow it got worse over the past 8 years or so. The bizzare absorption of right-wing ideology, the general self-righteousness, the astroturfing... I mean, I kinda get it. Who wants to deal with this shit? I get gaming sites doing it and I get why Nintendo is avoiding doing any kind of serious social networking on the Switch. Still, it's a shame that it has come to this.
It's not a satisfying explanation to posit that assholism just grew up on its own. The growth is coincident with the rise of social media sites that gamify participation and design for engagement....
There's always been assholes on the internet, but somehow it got worse over the past 8 years or so.
It's not a satisfying explanation to posit that assholism just grew up on its own. The growth is coincident with the rise of social media sites that gamify participation and design for engagement. Awarding points for talking encourages you to talk in ways that get you points. Intense statements get more points and attract more attention. Thus assholes proliferate, people see this sort of behavior and become socialized into behaving this way. They then bring that behavior everywhere they go.
I argue that it's simpler than polarization: there's just a lot more people on social media now, even compared to the early 2010's with the boom of Facebook and Twitter. And well, to use a very...
I argue that it's simpler than polarization: there's just a lot more people on social media now, even compared to the early 2010's with the boom of Facebook and Twitter. And well, to use a very old reference. This is just the latest experiment of what people will do and say when there's no accountability
This happens in online games too, but games are much more worth hiring 24/7 moderation for. forums were never a signifigant money maker outside of the obviously dedicated ones. And even then, I haven't heard if Twitter and reddit even turn a profit yet.
I HATE the way that people seem to love to use Discord nowadays. It's a fantastic chat application but people use it to replace all other functions of a website and it's just really not suited for...
I HATE the way that people seem to love to use Discord nowadays. It's a fantastic chat application but people use it to replace all other functions of a website and it's just really not suited for that.
My favourite example is the Discord for the Skyrim mod Skywind. They have a channel where they post WIP screenshots but I can't enable notifications on that channel because Discord won't let me enable notifications on servers above x number of users so ultimately I never see the posts. Compare that with an RSS feed which would be far more suited to the purpose.
You could ask them to set the channel as an announcement channel. This would allow you to forward everything that gets posted there to a server that you control which should enable you to get...
You could ask them to set the channel as an announcement channel. This would allow you to forward everything that gets posted there to a server that you control which should enable you to get notifications.
If you're only there for the screenshots, you could mute every other channel in the server. That way when there's a new message, the icon should be marked "unread". Not exactly a notification, but...
If you're only there for the screenshots, you could mute every other channel in the server. That way when there's a new message, the icon should be marked "unread".
Not exactly a notification, but still filters out the noise.
One thing I really hate about Discord is how every 'server' has a hundred channels that never / rarely get used. Even the most active servers I'm in aren't even that active, despite having...
One thing I really hate about Discord is how every 'server' has a hundred channels that never / rarely get used. Even the most active servers I'm in aren't even that active, despite having hundreds or thousands of members. Then again, I'm in the 'irc or die' camp and still don't see the benefit of using discord outside of team gaming (e.g. in place of teamspeak etc.)
Moving a forum to a chat seems like a step backward.
Reddit is nice for what it is, but I really miss the old Yahoo groups and similar sites. There really is a need for something like this, even though its a niche.
... then again, I'm also looking into running Leafnode or another NNTP server, so I might just be too old.
When I was running my gaming community’s discord, I tried to keep channel count to a minimum. But it’s pretty useful to have many of them as you can individually mute topics you don’t care about.
When I was running my gaming community’s discord, I tried to keep channel count to a minimum. But it’s pretty useful to have many of them as you can individually mute topics you don’t care about.
Any forum software requires hosting, which requires servers. Servers always cost money, it's just a question of where the money is coming from. There are free forum sites, but these aren't the...
Any forum software requires hosting, which requires servers. Servers always cost money, it's just a question of where the money is coming from. There are free forum sites, but these aren't the sort of thing a major organization should use for many reasons, starting with security and branding. You'll never see eurogamer.proboards.com, for example, because it will tarnish their image. If you wanted a forum for some niche group you're in online, it wouldn't be an issue.
The same hosting rules apply to Discord, even. Discord provides their infrastructure through a mix of user subscriptions and venture capital (skewed very heavily towards VC funding), effectively subsidizing their hardware costs for anybody who sets up a free server through them, and bringing the cost down if they use paid features.
Reddit is a similar example: Funded by advertising, subscriptions, and VC so it can provide free subreddits, which are effectively hosted forums.
The servers are almost the cheap part compared to the time it takes to maintain and secure a forum on a server. Self hosted things are not just set and forget, otherwise they very quickly end up...
The servers are almost the cheap part compared to the time it takes to maintain and secure a forum on a server. Self hosted things are not just set and forget, otherwise they very quickly end up hacked.
The value in managed platforms like discord is so immense that it’s no wonder everyone picks them.
It can be done somewhat on the cheap with managed instances, and it's cheaper than having your own server+IT, but anything like that is still going to cost some significant amount (I think...
It can be done somewhat on the cheap with managed instances, and it's cheaper than having your own server+IT, but anything like that is still going to cost some significant amount (I think Discourse starts at like $100/mo?).
The only downside i have found of Discourse is self hosting it with Ruby on Rails or using Discourse.org hosting gets north $100 per month. Apps as Discourse or Guilded any person can open a...
The only downside i have found of Discourse is self hosting it with Ruby on Rails or using Discourse.org hosting gets north $100 per month. Apps as Discourse or Guilded any person can open a server in few minutes.
The trouble with forums is spam. I kept my forum around, but left it read only, as I was tired of dealing with spam. If anyone offered a free (or inexpensive) federated version of Tildes, I would...
The trouble with forums is spam.
I kept my forum around, but left it read only, as I was tired of dealing with spam.
If anyone offered a free (or inexpensive) federated version of Tildes, I would jump at that in a heart beat.
That's quite an interesting thought. I just asked the admins / mods from a really niche old school handcrafted forum if they need to deal with spam and their answer was "all the time". Even as I'm...
That's quite an interesting thought. I just asked the admins / mods from a really niche old school handcrafted forum if they need to deal with spam and their answer was "all the time". Even as I'm writing this new accounts are being made, around 50 per day. And somehow the spam accounts can use their handcrafted ajax chatbox and a bunch of other custom site stuff. WTF!
I still maintain some old forums in <current year>, and the spam is ridiculous. I went through 5 or 6 different anti-spam methods with no success. Honeypots, heuristic services, custom quizzes and...
I still maintain some old forums in <current year>, and the spam is ridiculous. I went through 5 or 6 different anti-spam methods with no success. Honeypots, heuristic services, custom quizzes and other techniques just didn't work.
I eventually found a plugin for integrating reCaptcha and that finally, finally solved the problem. I get why users hate captchas but I can find no suitable replacement. Plus it's only during signups, so it's a one-time solve.
Spam is a real problem for forums. It's not a big surprise they're going away, really.
Probably not. This one was designed for SMF 2.0, which itself is very old now. If you're handy you might be able to integrate it yourself though. The plugin system in SMF is horrendous, by the...
Probably not. This one was designed for SMF 2.0, which itself is very old now. If you're handy you might be able to integrate it yourself though.
The plugin system in SMF is horrendous, by the way. It works by modifying the source PHP files directly, and adds some <!-- plugin starts here --> type code to mark their place. No API, no hooks, just raw code injection.
I've already hacked the PHP in phpBB, and while I don't know the first thing about PHP, I am not afraid to google. What is the name of the plugin, please?
I've already hacked the PHP in phpBB, and while I don't know the first thing about PHP, I am not afraid to google. What is the name of the plugin, please?
Seriously. I had a simple math puzzle. You had to solve the math puzzle to create an account. Plus you had to be an organic visitor, or set the right cookie just right. I would go months,...
Seriously.
I had a simple math puzzle.
You had to solve the math puzzle to create an account. Plus you had to be an organic visitor, or set the right cookie just right.
I would go months, sometimes years with no spam accounts, then someone tailors a bot to beat my niche sites bot prevention mechanism, and bam!
I have a photography blog that I haven't updated in the past year due to COVID, being busy with other things, lacking inspiration on what to post and still trying to decide what direction to take...
I have a photography blog that I haven't updated in the past year due to COVID, being busy with other things, lacking inspiration on what to post and still trying to decide what direction to take the blog.
Basically bought webhosting and a .photos domain, installed Wordpress with one click, edited a preinstalled template and started posting. One of my other biggest problems with maintaining the site, aside from the aforementioned rut, is spam.
Even though every comment has to be pre-approved by me before it's published on a post, and my blog barely pulls in enough traffic to be noticed by Google (at most I've had like... 30 visitors a month according to Google Analytics.), holy fuck the amount of spam I get is massive.
I've had to remove over 300 comments posted over the past year alone. Even those small numbers are exhausting for me to deal with, because you have to take time to read each comment and look for hints that it's spam. Sometimes the comment itself seems legit but the actual display name, email address or posting history of the spammer are dodgy as fuck and raise red flags.
Signs I've looked for, from most to least obvious include:
Comment being dodgy sales/phishing spam.
Display name itself being an ad
Dodgy/untrustworthy link filled in on the website section
Same spammer signing off messages with an entirely different name.
Incoherent, deliberately vague messages about how the content I post is [INSERT ADJECTIVE HERE] and how they've subscribed to my RSS feed. Don't even think I have one.
Think I need an automated solution to deal with it that can easily be deployed on a Wordpress blog, because if the blog ever grows in traffic . Mere captchas ain't going to cut it.
Not even sure if it's a problem with WordPress as a platform. It's just how spammers are. Give them the ability to post comments and they will utterly deface a site. If I can't find a WordPress...
Not even sure if it's a problem with WordPress as a platform. It's just how spammers are. Give them the ability to post comments and they will utterly deface a site.
If I can't find a WordPress plugin that provides advanced spam filtering options, I've thought about just outright removing the ability to comment on the blog, and maybe drawing my traffic from running separate Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr accounts to share content and interact with the community, along with trying to optimize my posts for SEO (I use Yoast SEO as a plugin) as much as possible to organically get traffic from Google.
Long-term goal is to grow the blog to the point where I can eventually run ads on it for some upkeep/drinking money. Don't really give a fuck about affiliate marketing or all the other things bloggers get themselves into.
Probably for the better that Tildes is a closed garden with a selective invite-only community. When a site either becomes mainstream or starts to attract the wrong crowd, it becomes a nightmare to...
Probably for the better that Tildes is a closed garden with a selective invite-only community. When a site either becomes mainstream or starts to attract the wrong crowd, it becomes a nightmare to police.
Such a great point. That's exactly why I don't want to self host. I'm guessing Disqus's business is 95% spam management, much like Paypal is 95% fraud detection built around a light payments...
Such a great point.
That's exactly why I don't want to self host.
I'm guessing Disqus's business is 95% spam management, much like Paypal is 95% fraud detection built around a light payments management system.
I'm wondering why you think federation is important? It seems like "don't cross the streams" is a better policy. Tildes is open source, but maybe starting a substack would work better?
I'm wondering why you think federation is important? It seems like "don't cross the streams" is a better policy.
Tildes is open source, but maybe starting a substack would work better?
I also hate the way substack is being pushed lately. It will become the next medium (the blogging platform) an then someone else will come with an idea of how to make money and so on. Why don't...
I also hate the way substack is being pushed lately. It will become the next medium (the blogging platform) an then someone else will come with an idea of how to make money and so on.
Why don't people keep blogs like they used to? It wasn't that hard.
The difference is that they are paying (some) writers. Starting a blog is easy. Getting paid for writing is harder. I think good writers should make money for doing their thing, so it seems like a...
The difference is that they are paying (some) writers. Starting a blog is easy. Getting paid for writing is harder.
I think good writers should make money for doing their thing, so it seems like a positive development.
It’s subscription based. You can post a mix of free content and subscriber-only content, and if people like your writing enough they will subscribe. They signed contracts with some established...
It’s subscription based. You can post a mix of free content and subscriber-only content, and if people like your writing enough they will subscribe.
They signed contracts with some established bloggers for pretty substantial amounts to switch to their platform and start selling subscriptions. Enough to make a good living.
For most people, though, it’s more like trying to get started with Patreon. You need a way to grow a fan base. They aren’t going to do it for you.
Weird left hook here but: Youtube was the beginning of the end. Much, much easier to monetize, and vlogs are even easier for people to produce than blogs. Granted, vlogs arent something you can...
Why don't people keep blogs like they used to? It wasn't that hard.
Weird left hook here but: Youtube was the beginning of the end. Much, much easier to monetize, and vlogs are even easier for people to produce than blogs.
Granted, vlogs arent something you can just do anymore by itself and profit off of. But if you ever make it as a youtuber you can basically live of small update posts like that.
Then I believe instagram and Vine (later, tiktok) were the killing blows. Taking pictures? even easier than talking to a camera, especially nowadays.
(PS I am VASTLY oversimplifying how hard it is to be successful in both mediums. But blgs weren't exactly super lucrative either, so it's tit for tat).
Yeah, something embeddable in an iframe with minimal chrome, content tenanted to my site... I have a slightly unusual use case tho... logic puzzles. Each logic puzzle generates an inordinate...
Yeah, something embeddable in an iframe with minimal chrome, content tenanted to my site...
I have a slightly unusual use case tho... logic puzzles.
Each logic puzzle generates an inordinate amount of people wanting to explain why the correct answer is incorrect...
I like it! Reposting your old puzzles somewhere else (perhaps here?) might gain attention, if you care about that. I thought of an alternate solution for one of them, and would be interested in...
I like it!
Reposting your old puzzles somewhere else (perhaps here?) might gain attention, if you care about that.
I thought of an alternate solution for one of them, and would be interested in the source for another.
I'd be interested in a source on how pricing things at $9.99 started. For the one about a woman giving birth to two sons, I was thinking it could be using two calendars. But on second thought it...
I'd be interested in a source on how pricing things at $9.99 started.
For the one about a woman giving birth to two sons, I was thinking it could be using two calendars. But on second thought it won't work. The Julian calendar is only 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar, so it would have to be some other calendar with a small number of years' difference.
That is a good point. It's been twenty years since I created this small collection, and I don't think I vetted that one too carefully. I will have to think about how I can update it.
pricing things at $9.99 started.
That is a good point. It's been twenty years since I created this small collection, and I don't think I vetted that one too carefully. I will have to think about how I can update it.
Substack is a fairly new site for email newsletters and blogging. The main difference from other blogging platforms is good support for paid subscriptions; some writers make good money. But you...
Substack is a fairly new site for email newsletters and blogging. The main difference from other blogging platforms is good support for paid subscriptions; some writers make good money. But you can also use it for free, and much like other blogging sites there is support for comments, and you can have "open threads."
Not vouching for Ruqqus (the site) here, because until recently it was one of those "free speech havens" with a racist right-wing community to boot. But Ruqqus (the platform) is open-source and...
If anyone offered a free (or inexpensive) federated version of Tildes, I would jump at that in a heart beat.
Not vouching for Ruqqus (the site) here, because until recently it was one of those "free speech havens" with a racist right-wing community to boot. But Ruqqus (the platform) is open-source and technically you could fork it to host your own Reddit clone. Also think the pre-2017 source code of Reddit is probably still laying around somewhere on the web.
The only major website that used Reddit's source code (SaidIt) has shut down, iirc.
Not sure how you'd make it invite-only like Tildes though. Or how expensive it would be to host your own social news aggregator.
Eurogamer is part of a worrying centralisation trend: where a company closes their official forums and makes either Reddit or Discord their main base of operations.
HiRez and Riot Games are notable examples of companies that shut off their official forums because subreddits like /r/SMITE, /r/leagueoflegends and /r/tribesascend became popular ways to reach out to the community. Wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard and Jagex were to follow suit soon too.
Don't get me wrong, Discord has revolutionised how online communities are created. Back when I was heavily into games like WoW, guilds had to host their own websites & forums to recruit players. They also had to host their own Teamspeak, Ventrilo or Mumble servers to have voice chat. We're now in an era where you can just create a Discord channel and invite other users on there.
But I'm damn sure that Discord isn't profitable. The overwhelming majority of users are probably freeloaders who aren't being served ads at all, and with very little revenue from Nitro subscriptions, I do wonder how they even stay afloat without attracting biblical amounts of investment and venture capital to burn through.
What happens if Discord or Reddit financially go to shit?
Part of the problem is that if you don’t stand up your own discord and subreddit, someone else will stand up an unofficial one that speaks for your community that you don’t have any control over. It becomes necessary to have your company’s community engagement people engaging in these sites anyway, so you might as well just go all in and figure out how to hold the reins on it.
Reddit and Discord own the space because they just have natural advantages of scale. People can be exposed to your community without seeking it out if it makes it to /r/all. People don’t need to sign up for an account to participate so your subreddit will naturally be bigger and more active than your official forums. There’s just no way around it. Game companies and publications want to focus on making games or publishing articles. Community management is a side thing for them, they don’t want to invest more into it than they have to, and maintaining or standing up Reddit alternatives are expensive and difficult.
I dunno about Discord because it's primarily a VOIP/IM communication tool and it's absolutely useful to have an official server. But publishers absolutely shouldn't be trying to hold the reins of subreddits. You then end up with a risk of creating major moderator conflicts-of-interest or possibly violating the rules of Reddit itself (in regards to paid promotions, astroturfing, etc.)
At best they should be treated like third-party fansites.
Another problem is when a company's staff are only active on Reddit. In the RuneScape community for example, it's a common meme to call Reddit & Twitter the developer's customer service department because Jagex's official customer support channels are so bad. Also because if you get banned for botting, it's non-appealable by said channels. Sometimes the only way to get a proper response is to kick up a stink on /r/runescape or /r/2007scape and hope your post gets popular enough to warrant a JMod response.
Given the sheer number of subreddits managed by official employee's of the relevant companies, I don't think reddit minds as long as they don't vote manipulate.
And to be frank, they don't need to artificially astroturf. You have a bunch of fans ready to vouch on your behalf for no cost. Enough that it's not worth Reddit investigating any atroturfing claims by multimillion dollar coporations.
This is an old trend. In the early days of the Internet, lots of mainstream newspapers and magazines had forums. Most posts were low-quality and eventually they got tired of it and closed. Now people talk about mainstream news on Twitter or other forums.
It's not too surprising that something similar might happen for game magazines.
I don't think we'll run out of online forums. If Reddit collapsed, something else would take its place. (Maybe a bunch of substacks?)
That's been my dream for some 3-4 years now, to be honest. Partially why I came here, even if it doesn't quite accomodate all the things I'd want from a forum.
Probably by stealing your data and selling it to marketing companies.
The order in the title is wrong even though the body of the article talks about it. It’s not that eurogamers closed their forum and moved it to discord, it’s that all the users on that forum moved to discord (and Reddit) then eurogamer closed it.
That makes a big difference. Why is the impetus on eurogamers? It’s not like maintaining a forum no one uses would change this trend even if they paid for its hosting in perpetuity.
It’s user mentality that you have to change if you want the traditional forum to revive again. You have to either convince users that their current love of discord and Reddit should stand next to the traditional forum or find new people who prefer the traditional forum. Just having more traditional forums does nothing when they’re fundamentally social platforms that are only worth using for the other people on there.
I hate this trend. It's been going on for a while.
Oddly enough, the one that hit me hardest was IMDB shutting down their forums in 2017. Not that the average forum post there was particularly high quality but it was a very specific source of information. Want to know about a certain cut of a movie from the 80s? Someone likely posted a list with detailed descriptions. Want to know how production is going for some major upcoming movie? Someone probably posted photos of the shoot in Romania. Want to discuss an obscure detail about a character in your favorite movie? Sure, just spawn a 10-page thread and get the input of the 20 people on earth who obsess about it as much as you do.
It's just a different structure for discussion. On reddit-esque sites, the barrier to post a new topic is just slightly higher. Threads also disappear much quicker since they have to compete with actual news and content posts that IMDB, for example, would just have on the movie's main page. Chat platforms like discord are designed for casual conversation so you don't get the in-depth posts. Also its messages disappear even quicker. Forums have a very specific way of preserving all available information about a certain discussion topic and let you expand on it.
As for why it's going away: I blame the assholes.
Sure, it's a money decision but that money would have gone to moderators (server cost is a factor but I doubt it's the biggest one or what made the decision). There's always been assholes on the internet, but somehow it got worse over the past 8 years or so. The bizzare absorption of right-wing ideology, the general self-righteousness, the astroturfing... I mean, I kinda get it. Who wants to deal with this shit? I get gaming sites doing it and I get why Nintendo is avoiding doing any kind of serious social networking on the Switch. Still, it's a shame that it has come to this.
It's not a satisfying explanation to posit that assholism just grew up on its own. The growth is coincident with the rise of social media sites that gamify participation and design for engagement. Awarding points for talking encourages you to talk in ways that get you points. Intense statements get more points and attract more attention. Thus assholes proliferate, people see this sort of behavior and become socialized into behaving this way. They then bring that behavior everywhere they go.
Upvoted! (I realise the irony, but your point stands)
I argue that it's simpler than polarization: there's just a lot more people on social media now, even compared to the early 2010's with the boom of Facebook and Twitter. And well, to use a very old reference. This is just the latest experiment of what people will do and say when there's no accountability
This happens in online games too, but games are much more worth hiring 24/7 moderation for. forums were never a signifigant money maker outside of the obviously dedicated ones. And even then, I haven't heard if Twitter and reddit even turn a profit yet.
I HATE the way that people seem to love to use Discord nowadays. It's a fantastic chat application but people use it to replace all other functions of a website and it's just really not suited for that.
My favourite example is the Discord for the Skyrim mod Skywind. They have a channel where they post WIP screenshots but I can't enable notifications on that channel because Discord won't let me enable notifications on servers above x number of users so ultimately I never see the posts. Compare that with an RSS feed which would be far more suited to the purpose.
You could ask them to set the channel as an announcement channel. This would allow you to forward everything that gets posted there to a server that you control which should enable you to get notifications.
If you're only there for the screenshots, you could mute every other channel in the server. That way when there's a new message, the icon should be marked "unread".
Not exactly a notification, but still filters out the noise.
One thing I really hate about Discord is how every 'server' has a hundred channels that never / rarely get used. Even the most active servers I'm in aren't even that active, despite having hundreds or thousands of members. Then again, I'm in the 'irc or die' camp and still don't see the benefit of using discord outside of team gaming (e.g. in place of teamspeak etc.)
Moving a forum to a chat seems like a step backward.
Reddit is nice for what it is, but I really miss the old Yahoo groups and similar sites. There really is a need for something like this, even though its a niche.
... then again, I'm also looking into running Leafnode or another NNTP server, so I might just be too old.
When I was running my gaming community’s discord, I tried to keep channel count to a minimum. But it’s pretty useful to have many of them as you can individually mute topics you don’t care about.
Can't forums be moved to some other centralized forum platform instead of Discord? Like Discourse?
Because they still need to pay for infrastructure to host it. With Discord they don't.
Maybe there alternatives tha are free and not a chat service?
Any forum software requires hosting, which requires servers. Servers always cost money, it's just a question of where the money is coming from. There are free forum sites, but these aren't the sort of thing a major organization should use for many reasons, starting with security and branding. You'll never see eurogamer.proboards.com, for example, because it will tarnish their image. If you wanted a forum for some niche group you're in online, it wouldn't be an issue.
The same hosting rules apply to Discord, even. Discord provides their infrastructure through a mix of user subscriptions and venture capital (skewed very heavily towards VC funding), effectively subsidizing their hardware costs for anybody who sets up a free server through them, and bringing the cost down if they use paid features.
Reddit is a similar example: Funded by advertising, subscriptions, and VC so it can provide free subreddits, which are effectively hosted forums.
The servers are almost the cheap part compared to the time it takes to maintain and secure a forum on a server. Self hosted things are not just set and forget, otherwise they very quickly end up hacked.
The value in managed platforms like discord is so immense that it’s no wonder everyone picks them.
It can be done somewhat on the cheap with managed instances, and it's cheaper than having your own server+IT, but anything like that is still going to cost some significant amount (I think Discourse starts at like $100/mo?).
Not sure how that would change the amount of effort Eurogamer would have to put forward to maintain them.
The only downside i have found of Discourse is self hosting it with Ruby on Rails or using Discourse.org hosting gets north $100 per month. Apps as Discourse or Guilded any person can open a server in few minutes.
The trouble with forums is spam.
I kept my forum around, but left it read only, as I was tired of dealing with spam.
If anyone offered a free (or inexpensive) federated version of Tildes, I would jump at that in a heart beat.
How much of Tildes being operational is there being one guy keeping a clean house and the site never going into open enrollment?
That's quite an interesting thought. I just asked the admins / mods from a really niche old school handcrafted forum if they need to deal with spam and their answer was "all the time". Even as I'm writing this new accounts are being made, around 50 per day. And somehow the spam accounts can use their handcrafted ajax chatbox and a bunch of other custom site stuff. WTF!
I still maintain some old forums in
<current year>, and the spam is ridiculous. I went through 5 or 6 different anti-spam methods with no success. Honeypots, heuristic services, custom quizzes and other techniques just didn't work.I eventually found a plugin for integrating reCaptcha and that finally, finally solved the problem. I get why users hate captchas but I can find no suitable replacement. Plus it's only during signups, so it's a one-time solve.
Spam is a real problem for forums. It's not a big surprise they're going away, really.
Any chance the plugin works on a really ancient, old, V1.0, heavily tailored copy of phpBB?
Probably not. This one was designed for SMF 2.0, which itself is very old now. If you're handy you might be able to integrate it yourself though.
The plugin system in SMF is horrendous, by the way. It works by modifying the source PHP files directly, and adds some
<!-- plugin starts here -->type code to mark their place. No API, no hooks, just raw code injection.I've already hacked the PHP in phpBB, and while I don't know the first thing about PHP, I am not afraid to google. What is the name of the plugin, please?
https://custom.simplemachines.org/index.php?mod=1044
Seriously.
I had a simple math puzzle.
You had to solve the math puzzle to create an account. Plus you had to be an organic visitor, or set the right cookie just right.
I would go months, sometimes years with no spam accounts, then someone tailors a bot to beat my niche sites bot prevention mechanism, and bam!
Spam city.
I have a photography blog that I haven't updated in the past year due to COVID, being busy with other things, lacking inspiration on what to post and still trying to decide what direction to take the blog.
Basically bought webhosting and a .photos domain, installed Wordpress with one click, edited a preinstalled template and started posting. One of my other biggest problems with maintaining the site, aside from the aforementioned rut, is spam.
Even though every comment has to be pre-approved by me before it's published on a post, and my blog barely pulls in enough traffic to be noticed by Google (at most I've had like... 30 visitors a month according to Google Analytics.), holy fuck the amount of spam I get is massive.
I've had to remove over 300 comments posted over the past year alone. Even those small numbers are exhausting for me to deal with, because you have to take time to read each comment and look for hints that it's spam. Sometimes the comment itself seems legit but the actual display name, email address or posting history of the spammer are dodgy as fuck and raise red flags.
Signs I've looked for, from most to least obvious include:
Think I need an automated solution to deal with it that can easily be deployed on a Wordpress blog, because if the blog ever grows in traffic . Mere captchas ain't going to cut it.
It's the same for my site, planning on getting rid of WordPress because of that.
Not even sure if it's a problem with WordPress as a platform. It's just how spammers are. Give them the ability to post comments and they will utterly deface a site.
If I can't find a WordPress plugin that provides advanced spam filtering options, I've thought about just outright removing the ability to comment on the blog, and maybe drawing my traffic from running separate Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr accounts to share content and interact with the community, along with trying to optimize my posts for SEO (I use Yoast SEO as a plugin) as much as possible to organically get traffic from Google.
Long-term goal is to grow the blog to the point where I can eventually run ads on it for some upkeep/drinking money. Don't really give a fuck about affiliate marketing or all the other things bloggers get themselves into.
If I don't use comments, then the need to keep using WordPress diminishes.
Probably for the better that Tildes is a closed garden with a selective invite-only community. When a site either becomes mainstream or starts to attract the wrong crowd, it becomes a nightmare to police.
Such a great point.
That's exactly why I don't want to self host.
I'm guessing Disqus's business is 95% spam management, much like Paypal is 95% fraud detection built around a light payments management system.
I'm wondering why you think federation is important? It seems like "don't cross the streams" is a better policy.
Tildes is open source, but maybe starting a substack would work better?
I also hate the way substack is being pushed lately. It will become the next medium (the blogging platform) an then someone else will come with an idea of how to make money and so on.
Why don't people keep blogs like they used to? It wasn't that hard.
The difference is that they are paying (some) writers. Starting a blog is easy. Getting paid for writing is harder.
I think good writers should make money for doing their thing, so it seems like a positive development.
You can get paid writting for substack?
It’s subscription based. You can post a mix of free content and subscriber-only content, and if people like your writing enough they will subscribe.
They signed contracts with some established bloggers for pretty substantial amounts to switch to their platform and start selling subscriptions. Enough to make a good living.
For most people, though, it’s more like trying to get started with Patreon. You need a way to grow a fan base. They aren’t going to do it for you.
Weird left hook here but: Youtube was the beginning of the end. Much, much easier to monetize, and vlogs are even easier for people to produce than blogs.
Granted, vlogs arent something you can just do anymore by itself and profit off of. But if you ever make it as a youtuber you can basically live of small update posts like that.
Then I believe instagram and Vine (later, tiktok) were the killing blows. Taking pictures? even easier than talking to a camera, especially nowadays.
(PS I am VASTLY oversimplifying how hard it is to be successful in both mediums. But blgs weren't exactly super lucrative either, so it's tit for tat).
Yeah, something embeddable in an iframe with minimal chrome, content tenanted to my site...
I have a slightly unusual use case tho... logic puzzles.
Each logic puzzle generates an inordinate amount of people wanting to explain why the correct answer is incorrect...
Interesting. Care to share your website with us? Or are you keeping anonymous?
(throwaway for semi anonymity)
Folj.com
It's kind of gone quiet over the last year....
I like it!
Reposting your old puzzles somewhere else (perhaps here?) might gain attention, if you care about that.
I thought of an alternate solution for one of them, and would be interested in the source for another.
Sure. Which ones?
I'd be interested in a source on how pricing things at $9.99 started.
For the one about a woman giving birth to two sons, I was thinking it could be using two calendars. But on second thought it won't work. The Julian calendar is only 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar, so it would have to be some other calendar with a small number of years' difference.
That is a good point. It's been twenty years since I created this small collection, and I don't think I vetted that one too carefully. I will have to think about how I can update it.
Oh, also, there is apparently more than one reason why manhole covers are round.
Dang!
I'm not familiar with the word substack. What does it mean in this context?
Substack is a fairly new site for email newsletters and blogging. The main difference from other blogging platforms is good support for paid subscriptions; some writers make good money. But you can also use it for free, and much like other blogging sites there is support for comments, and you can have "open threads."
Not vouching for Ruqqus (the site) here, because until recently it was one of those "free speech havens" with a racist right-wing community to boot. But Ruqqus (the platform) is open-source and technically you could fork it to host your own Reddit clone. Also think the pre-2017 source code of Reddit is probably still laying around somewhere on the web.
The only major website that used Reddit's source code (SaidIt) has shut down, iirc.
Not sure how you'd make it invite-only like Tildes though. Or how expensive it would be to host your own social news aggregator.