Let's talk about FORUMS!

[WynnDawnstrider]

Not really a forum but excessive DNI lists are why I couldn't stick around spacehey as much as I kinda liked the idea.
It's just a bunch of kids with massive super performative DNI lists and not a whole lot of other posts.
You aren't stopping bad people from interacting with you you're just signaling that you're supposedly a good person while doing nothing to actually be one. And alsongiving bad people a nice big list of things to harass you with.
In terms of actual forums I'm really only just now starting to look into them and so far this is the only one I've found that isn't just a toxic waste pit of arguing.

[myleszey]

There are plenty of lovely forums out there still - or at least, there could be, if they weren't abandoned by moderators and overrun by bots. If you find something that's niche-ish, you may have some luck. An example of this is the Magic Set Editor forum, which has been hosting trading card design contests for over a decade now and still looks very clean - no spam!

An example of a site that fell to disuse and is unusable for all the bots... the Acrid Rose flash game forum, one of many flash game forums whose admins just stepped away for too long.

An aside on the DNI lists - I feel like this is a product of an overall different culture and a much more "engaging with other people" model on the Internet. I'm still cautious about giving out my real name, though I've lightened up a bit about my "general" location, and I don't have to love everyone I see on the internet - even if I wouldn't engage in a relationship with them. If you've got a DNI list though, you're going to head off a lot of people that might otherwise be willing to compromise, and it invites the exact people you don't want to hang out with that might have malicious intent!!! "DNI if you're toxic... Well, I'm toxic, so I better not interact!" Sorry for going on a tangent there.

[georgemoody]

I sadly didn’t get to experience them much as they were phased out by instagram, WhatsApp and the like but I easily prefer them over social media (though most in my country don’t care, of course, so I have both just so I could keep up with the times). I was on reddit for the majority of my forum use but nowadays I’m spread out between a couple independent ones (this forum, [auto redacted] road, LMW forums, etc). Sometimes I’d venture into the empty alleyways of USENET and BBS if I feel like but it’s too barren or uninteresting to have any meaningful discussion in.

[Swiftpaw]

That probably why the chickensmoothie forums ended up banning DNIs list there, which I applaud there for it even though im not that much active there anymore except for the ocasional event. It was a huge source of drama.

That's true! That was a good step for ChickenSmoothie, but I think the issue that that website had was that a lot of the drama occurred off-site with the anonymous Tumblr confession blog and Discord servers, and from what I've heard the site also blew up a bit on TikTok. The system I'm in jumped ship a few years ago, but we've heard from people who still use CS that the forums are unusable. I don't know how much of that is true but I wouldn't be surprised.

Not really a forum but excessive DNI lists are why I couldn't stick around spacehey as much as I kinda liked the idea.
It's just a bunch of kids with massive super performative DNI lists and not a whole lot of other posts.
You aren't stopping bad people from interacting with you you're just signaling that you're supposedly a good person while doing nothing to actually be one. And alsongiving bad people a nice big list of things to harass you with.
In terms of actual forums I'm really only just now starting to look into them and so far this is the only one I've found that isn't just a toxic waste pit of arguing.

That was the same with me. There are a few in my system who have continued to use Spacehey a little, but from what I've seen the site just has a lot of drama to the point the popular blog posts are either DNI or some call out. To me the massive DNI lists can make sites feel a bit clique-y where everyone just copies the most popular user's DNIs and try to use it to fit in if that makes sense.

Honestly I think MelonLand is one of the best forums I've seen. It has a great community, sold discussion, and is very active!

[creaturefeature]

That was the same with me. There are a few in my system who have continued to use Spacehey a little, but from what I've seen the site just has a lot of drama to the point the popular blog posts are either DNI or some call out. To me the massive DNI lists can make sites feel a bit clique-y where everyone just copies the most popular user's DNIs and try to use it to fit in if that makes sense.

Honestly I think MelonLand is one of the best forums I've seen. It has a great community, sold discussion, and is very active!

same here, i went to spacehey not just for the nostalgia but i liked customizing my profile since so little social networks these days even let you do it these days and i liked the bullettins aspect, like its just a private little place for you and your friends where could post random thoughts but without it being premanent.
Sadly the site its not well moderated, i feel its got a very somehow team that is struggling with this new barraged of users.

I joke sometimes that site got even more drama heavy the moment tiktokers found out about it.

But after watching callout posts about something as petty as online discourse, (not even bad people, just online drama) naming users and putting those users at risk, it also lead me to barely touch the site in months.

I think that was part of the issue, the site is growing way too fast for moderation to be feasible, bad actors etc...