Hey all~

This is an appreciation thread for the general concept of forums! I'm curious to hear what forums you guys frequented back in the day, and equally interested to hear what active forums you frequent now. I'll start-

I got my start posting on the internet back in 2003, on a LEGO Bionicle forum called BZPower, which is still around today actually, though a fragment of its former size. It was huge back then, with a devoted community and a very strange, specific culture. They had a relationship with the main writer of the toyline, who would answer fan questions, but he was only allowed there by LEGO if they didn't allow any links to social websites outside BZPower-- nothing with so much as a comments section under an article. So it was a strange, insular place, but with an incredible flourishing of art, LEGO models, and long-form fiction. A lot of incredibly deep, abstract nerd conversations about whether free will existed in the universe of the story, or whether destiny predetermined everything. We were daily bugging the writer with questions like that, which I'm sure he never expected from his toy-writing gig.

As the userbase began to hit their teenage years, people started forming "illegal" secret forums and handing the URLs out to friends, so they could form their own private little free speech hangouts. (A few of them tried to stage cyber-attacks against the mother site, which I always thought was a dick move-- though it was exciting to watch the drama unfold.)

Some online friends and I formed our own little invisionfree forum called The Horrors of Bionicle, or HoB, based initially around our shared HP Lovecraft fandom. That became my online hangout all through middle school, trading memes and roleplaying with the other HoBos. Good times...

Over the years I also spent time on a homestarrunner fan forum, the forum for a webcomic called "Hello Cthulhu" that parodied Hello Kitty, and the forum for a website called Bogleech, which is still around, though the community got swallowed up by tumblr around 2010/11. (Naturally, once they migrated to tumblr, everyone started fighting all the time.)

~~~

These days I'm just rediscovering webforums after a long absence. I've recently started posting on Dream Views, a site dedicated to lucid dreaming skills. What other active communities are you guys aware of?

Hey all!

I'm an artist looking to develop some basic HTML skills for future creative projects. I used to roam all over the world of forums back in the 2000s, and I miss the hell out of that version of the internet, so I'm excited to find little corners where the BBcode still reigns supreme.

As much as I'm trying to escape social media, here's my instagram where I post all my art. It's a necessary evil for work reasons, but once I've gotten some coding ability I plan to make myself a neocities site with rooms and music and all that. Should be more flavorful!

Hey everybody! I'm a total beginner at HTML and web design. Does anyone have any advice on building a narrow sidebar on the left side of the screen, with the main content to its right?

My first site attempt is gonna be a fake facebook account, where I have lots of cool friends (and everyone loves me). I'm trying to replicate a basic version of this sort of layout:



I attempted some stuff using table formatting but it left a lot to be desired.

Thanks!