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Unpopular Opinion: Discord is ruining forums.


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#1 ShadowTiger

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Posted 13 July 2021 - 04:31 AM

.. and that's only half of the title.

 

I don't have a goal in this thread.  I'm just putting thoughts down on paper.  Paper that will persist because it's on a forum thread.

 

So, basically, I think Discord servers are ruining forums.  But it might not quite be why we'd think, completely.

 

The main premise here is that people become victims to instant gratification.  Being able to instantly plop down a message, similar to AIM, IRC, Yahoo Messenger, etc, is a luxury.  Being able to chat with your friends in an instant is a luxury.  Not having to worry about forum formalities and some degree of post permanence is a luxury.

 

It's also dumbing down our minds and messing with some semblance of etiquette that exists.  On Discord, people don't always read up to see what they missed.  On forums, when you click into a thread, it usually dumps you at the top of the page, and you can't help but read every post on the way down to see what people are saying.  That way, you get to learn who people are, how they post, who's present in the community, and what public opinion is like.  On Discord, that sense of interpersonal development happens less. 

 

Plus, people can change their name more often on Discord.  Here, not as much.  On forums, people get a signature.  On Discord, maybe a custom title if you're lucky.  On Discord, you get so many roles that you can have so many different username colors.  On forums, personal username colors are solidified for a certain specific role that means something specific every time.

 

On Forums, there's all kinds of useful BB Codes.  Posts can be prettified.  Links can be turned into specific text, and placed virtually anywhere.  On Discord, you get the barebones basic text formatting with limited emotes, and we're lucky to even get that.  Pinned messages exist, but they're a little bit clumsy, and not immediately obvious to people that they exist unless you know to look for them.  On forums, they're always right there at the top where you're dumped when you click in, even if you're a newbie. 

 

Forums can have AddOns and other interesting things.  PZC has a main site and databases.  Discord is always only what Discord can do, and not a heck of a lot more unless you jump through hoops to simulate something else.

 

-----------

 

So, sometimes I wonder what the cause of a forum's demise is.  It's always going to be true that people just move on.  Real Life is always more important than internet forums.  It does make me wonder how PZC was so active while IRC was active as well.  Those were able to co-exist so beautifully without a problem.  You'd go from the forums to IRC as if stepping from Six Flags to its Water Park and back again.  Now, everyone just sits in Discord and waits for new activity there and doesn't need to use the General forums.  It all seemed to coincide with the existence of Discord.  Everyone rushed to get a Discord server when Discord first came out, and then forum activity everywhere died. 

 

The most active forums I see are the ones without a Discord server.  That's about it.


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#2 FieryBirdyThing

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Posted 13 July 2021 - 05:00 AM

In my experience, most forums died when Facebook, Twitter, and - to a lesser extent - Youtube became popular, so this isn't exactly shocking news (frankly, discovering that there are still active forums in this day and age was the bigger shock). This isn't to knock your point, since I also agree that Discord is contributing to the slow death of forums. You mentioned 'moving on', which, as well as your stated 'moving on in life' definition, can also simply mean 'moving on to the next trendy thing'. That is, most people just flock to the most popular thing going on right now, and when something even trendier comes along, they'll move on to that, instead.

 

I'm not sure if I can say much else that you haven't said already right now, or that would be verging into personal experiences/anecdotes/ramblings. But I am interested in hearing others' thoughts on this; as a generally long-time fan of forums, it has pained me to see them fall by the wayside in favour of the more centralised social media entities.


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#3 Mani Kanina

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Posted 13 July 2021 - 06:21 AM

Social media and similar (like reddit), was already killing forum boards loooooong before discord happened. If anything I feel discord is a step back in the *right* direction of smaller spaced "owned" and ran by people with an invested interest in that space.

I don't really see discord as a replacement for forum boards, more as a replacement for instant chatting like say IRC, (though I still think IRC has some advantages over discord). There are still forum boards around the net that has communities, but you'll have to go out of your way to find them, and most people just get addicted to the doom scrolling of social media sites. I don't really feel like discord is killing communities like this one, in fact, I'd argue the inverse in Pure's case. The IRC channel was dead before discord launched, I know because I was there in it, the forum board has also had activity decline for a long time. The various discord servers that now exists centered around pure are together massively more active than the state the community was in before (and that is including the few fringe skype groups).


For better or worse a lot of people just aren't attracted to the notion of old style web forums anymore, I think it's a shame since personally I find it the best long form of conversing on the net tried so far.


Edited by Mani Kanina, 13 July 2021 - 06:22 AM.

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#4 Orithan

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Posted 13 July 2021 - 07:13 AM

A major thing that makes platforms like Discord, Telegram and social media favourable to forums and IRC is the basic internet utilities they provide for you even if the limits can be clearly restrictive, and exploitative in the case of Discord. Having to upload images to external imagehosting sites and videos to Youtube can be a major hassle sometimes, especially if those utilities are going downhill like what Photobucket did in the early 2010s and how Imgur recently changed its design to be more like a social networking site.



#5 Hergiswi

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Posted 13 July 2021 - 09:10 AM

interesting, i always attributed the decline in forum culture to social media and comment sections on other platforms (e.g. youtube). i was late to the discord game but was definitely living for irc when it was in its prime. i think i always related the two like mani kanina said, as in discord sort of took the place of irc. if i think about it though, i do almost always opt to use discord vs. the forum if i'm trying to communicate about something.

 

i'm not 100% sure it's that simple for me though. i think there's just something about a live chat that my brain appreciates. even using whatsapp vs. standard sms makes the environment seem more "real-time" to me (even though it's not) and tricks my brain into thinking it's less of a long-term deal. in my head email and sms are not that different, but whatsapp feels more "real," even though it's literally just another texting medium. i think posting on a forum gives me more of that email vibe, where you put a message out there and there's no obligation or expectation to respond any time soon.

 

in one sense i think you're right, because i can form much more cohesive thoughts if i take the time to write something out like this post (i'm also less likely to ironically use the word "yeet"). however, something has always malfunctioned in my brain where if i post a thread and then there are 3-5 responses, i get paralyzed and feel like i can't respond until i actively acknowledge and respond to each post. then more posts happen and i never reply and the thread just dies or falls into the hands of other people. i don't know if this is a universal phenomenon or just me but i actually get uncomfortable replying to a thread with more than 1 post at a time, which is maybe why i've always just preferred the real-time feel of a chatroom.

 

all that said the forum is incredibly inactive so maybe it's a combination of things lol


Edited by Hergiswi, 13 July 2021 - 09:11 AM.

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#6 Ether

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Posted 13 July 2021 - 08:07 PM

I spent years lurking on these forums. From the outside, I had a ton of imposter syndrome; like everyone here was making games and if I couldn't prove myself by also making one, then I had no business being here. Eventually I overcame that by hanging out in a Discord server and making friends with the people there in a context that felt less weighty. (And also drawing a lot of fanart and later moving on to spritework. Really I guess that's the main thing that shut my imposter syndrome up.)
 
The forums and that Discord were both critical to my being here now. I wouldn't have ever joined the Discord if I hadn't lurked on the forums--and been able to see personalities and signs of a community there, which are certainly more visible from the outside on a forum than they are on a Discord server--and I probably wouldn't have joined the forums if I hadn't gotten comfortable in the Discord first. I'm still more talkative there than here, of course.
 
You seem to be arguing not just that Discord has pushed oldschool forums out, but that it's a sign of some kind of intellectual decline. That Discord dumbs people down. That realtime communication fails to create the interpersonal bonds that forums do. That Discord features that forums don't provide make people spoiled or something, and simultaneously that the features of forum software that aren't available on Discord are proof that Discord is worse.
 
I don't think I buy any of that. I do like forums, and it's a shame that they've been crowded out. And yeah, other social media and messaging formats including Discord are certainly a huge part of that. (And in ZC's case specifically, it probably doesn't help that the 2D Zelda games that draw in nostalgic people are ooooooooooold. So when the people who actually played them as a kid move on with their lives, who else is going to join? Better game engines are also more widely available these days.) But that doesn't make the people who've made those choices wrong or dumb or a victim of instant gratification in lieu of something deeper.
 
In the end...even if it's quieter here, the community hasn't gone away. And I like the people here, who I know through Discord.

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#7 Rambly

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Posted 15 July 2021 - 11:40 PM

i didn't read any of the posts in this thread because they're all 500 words long lmao


being sincere for a bit, you guys are forgetting how absolutely dumb people were on forums back in the day. it's not like all forums online were bastions of brilliant discussion. most of them were pretty casual and off-the-cuff most of the time, like a typical discord chat would be. the people that were making really insightful and thoughtful posts are usually just as insightful and thoughtful given other mediums. if you want smart discussion, don't fuss about the medium -- make the community attractive to people who are smart


more words does not necessarily equal more ideas


Edited by Rambly, 16 July 2021 - 10:31 AM.

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#8 Valerie

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Posted 16 July 2021 - 08:41 PM

Why is Discord ruining the forums, and why isn't Fluttershy stopping him? Oh wait you didn't mean that Discord..... I never used discord before at least I don't think I have.. I have thought about it before, but never get around to it, or am too lazy and tired and fall asleep....
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#9 Hari

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Posted 16 July 2021 - 09:20 PM

i like discord


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#10 FieryBirdyThing

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Posted 28 July 2021 - 02:46 PM

being sincere for a bit, you guys are forgetting how absolutely dumb people were on forums back in the day. it's not like all forums online were bastions of brilliant discussion. most of them were pretty casual and off-the-cuff most of the time, like a typical discord chat would be. the people that were making really insightful and thoughtful posts are usually just as insightful and thoughtful given other mediums. if you want smart discussion, don't fuss about the medium -- make the community attractive to people who are smart

True, true. I recall some fun and silliness on forums back in the day. Not sure how 'off-the-cuff' I'd say they were, since you were still able to take the time to cultivate jokes and whatnot before posting. But I do not deny some people likely just posted the first things that came to their heads.

 

Ether also added to the 'people moving on with their lives' comment, pointing out the lack of younger people to replace them. This is something that, from my observations at least, ties in with how Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Discord have been taking over from forums; as time's gone by, they've also been taking over websites themselves. That is, it seems people nowadays are more likely to set up social media accounts than build websites. And this goes for all ages; the 'old guard' generally no longer have the time to maintain their sites, while the younger generation don't appear to be in a hurry to replace them. I do know that's a rather broad generalisation, that there are older sites that are still being maintained in some way, and that there are younger users who are, indeed, interested in building and running their own websites. However, I feel this helped kickstart the downward spiral that involved the slow demise of forums. After all, why go through the trouble of building a website from scratch and running a forum to go alongside it, when you can just set up a Youtube channel and use its own built-in comments system, instead?

 

Regarding my own experiences with Internet communication, I unfortunately didn't experience the glory days - or, indeed, any days - of IRC, but I really enjoyed forums back in the day, hence my sadness that most were abandoned for whatever reason. I was part of a Whatsapp group at one point, but among my issues with it was that at busier moments, messages went by so fast that it was almost a race just to get your point across. Worst case scenario was that it made me feel similar to Hergiswi's description of not being able to contribute without reading everything and, thus, ending up not really contributing at all. Discord-wise, I'm currently the member of one tiny server. Honestly, if it weren't for needing to stay in contact with certain friends, I probably wouldn't have a Discord account at all (which seems to be an issue with social media in general. If you don't have an account on X site, then you can't chat with Y friend).

 

Sorry about the rambly post. I'm not sure what kind of point was being made beyond sharing some of my observations and experiences.




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