Internet 'third places'

[Squidiottt]

pony town! which is a chat/rp kind of game in the mlp style with lots, and i do mean LOTS of customization to your avatar XD you might think it would be mostly mlp fans in there but you can find so many different fandoms

unfortunately its not very well moderated and even in the safe server people sometimes talk about mature topics, so beware

[Horsey Chobunso]

don't know if this counts, but i consider mmos to be just precisely that.

habbo hotel, club penguin, toontown rewritten, there.com, city of heroes, animal jam, etc.

...

This made me realize that Virtual Magic Kingdom was absolutely my third place as a kid. It explains just why I was so sad to see it go and why I've spent most of my adult life switching between various online third spaces. I used to be active in some fighting game communities and large discord servers, but I've kind of moved on from those places. Hopefully I find something new, but I gotta make sure I'm not just filling a void.

[wolfkitty42]

pony town! which is a chat/rp kind of game in the mlp style with lots, and i do mean LOTS of customization to your avatar XD you might think it would be mostly mlp fans in there but you can find so many different fandoms

unfortunately its not very well moderated and even in the safe server people sometimes talk about mature topics, so beware

I've had- mixed experiences with ponytown unfortunately.... The customization is GREAT and I love how easy it is to find different fandoms!
I tried it out for a while and felt like I was making friends but at one point a person on ponytown sent me some graphic descriptions of violence and later on I got called a slur by the same group. I'm gonna be real here I have no clue if this is common across the game as a whole or just an issue with the group that hung out for one of my fandoms. :(
I might try it again when I'm older and can access the 18+ server because I'm guessing that the userbase is probably a bit different and. maybe chiller? it would be nice ;w; i'm honestly still really sad about it because i really liked ponytown but i just didnt really feel good about the interactions i was having :(

[IndigoGolem]

I definetly agree with you but I think thats part of my problem. I have so many interests and I dont think a forum even remotely exists for most of them

Same here. There is no one community for everything i'm into. I doubt there's any other person into everything i'm into. So i'm in multiple communities. Here i can talk about webcraft and internet culture. Linguistics and conlangs go places like the CBB (i don't know what it stands for) and Linguifex. I mostly talk about video games on the Terraria forum. But i also mix stuff up a little. Someone on the Terraria forum asks me a question and i get to talk about linguistics or degoogling. I can get people into stuff i'm into by being how they find out it exists.

I dont think a forum even remotely exists for most of them (im into a lot of old shit like Animorphs and The X files that is basically dead nowadays)

I replied to this in the shoutbox because i didn't have enough for a full post, but now i do so i'll say it again here. You should look into forum software and try to gauge if enough people would want a forum for your interests, and then if so consider starting one.

Like idk, its kinda like what you said. if you join a pottery class, you can assume people are going to want to talk about pottery, but what if you wanna start talking about Murder Drones? like its awkward cuz its offtopic. That's kinda my thing. like its kinda like, most forums have a "General" posting place, but it feels like it's there out of obligation cuz the thing people are actually there to talk about is the thing the forum is centered around.

This is a fair point. In my experience off topic areas might have their own subsubculture, and then might be really welcoming of stuff that's harder to talk about in the main threads. I first came here to talk about webcraft, but now many of my conversations are about other stuff. I came to the Terraria forum to report a bug i found, but in recent months i've barely played that game at all and most of my time spent there is in the off-topic areas because they're nice places to be.

And there are internet spaces i'm not very active in because there's no off-topic area, or at least not one that i'm part of. I mentioned the CBB but i've logged into that site maybe thrice ever. There are other forums i interact with even less because the culture and community aren't there.

I wonder if this is why i don't enjoy MMOs. Making gameplay content for one that's actually fun (not just grindy) and making enough to sustain the playerbase is really hard, so these games rely either on grinding (doing the same simple task a million times to increase your level number) or (in theory, i assume,) community, and i've never gotten into the community of one or found one with a community that i really enjoy being part of.

But I do agree on the forum thing, I prefer forums over most modern social media style apps/sites (even over Spacehey or similar things)., it feels slow paced and chill and not like if you dont respond to a post the second it posted you've missed your opportunity for all eternity.

I've noticed this more the past few days on Stoat. Conversation moves so fast that it's hard to tear myself away sometimes. And this stays true whether the conversation is one of my interests or something new and fascinating or inane babbling. Maybe that's just a me-problem, i don't know.

[Pip]

Third places are basically anywhere that people congregate that isn't the home or the workplace, so in the real world that could be anything from a park to a coffee shop to a church basement. Its where relationships are built and people exchange ideas with one another. I think any instance of a live chat, or forum, somewhere where there's two-way communication, would likely count. 

Something like a guestbook, wherein people probably don't check back after leaving their mark wouldn't count by my books. Social games could be considered third places too, as someone else mentioned, though it should be noted that digital third places are not an adequate replacement for in-person support networks, which some people on said games might disagree with, but I digress. Lots of benefits, though. I think one issue with the latter, like another commenter pointed out, is the hostility bred by the semi-anonymity these games create. Its not as collaborative and co-creative as other sites of community.

So these forums would certainly count. There's no shortage of third places on the indie web. The bar to entry is pretty low on what 'qualifies'.