What community message boards and forums did you frequent?

[div]

Something Awful. I migrated away from the site in the late 2000s because I felt like it was a pretty toxic place a lot of the times. I forgot about forums for years and then when I got into oldweb revival stuff, I wandered around like a vagabond, feeling like no where on the Internet was quite the same as SA. But I kept telling myself, "You can't go back there, that place is a dumpster fire." I finally went back and it feels like the only people left on the forums are people who've decided to grow up. I frequent the forums there again pretty regularly and it feels good.

[cybherspace]

Something Awful. I migrated away from the site in the late 2000s because I felt like it was a pretty toxic place a lot of the times. I forgot about forums for years and then when I got into oldweb revival stuff, I wandered around like a vagabond, feeling like no where on the Internet was quite the same as SA. But I kept telling myself, "You can't go back there, that place is a dumpster fire." I finally went back and it feels like the only people left on the forums are people who've decided to grow up. I frequent the forums there again pretty regularly and it feels good.

That's really good to hear. I was thinking about going there myself to check it out. I'd heard about it a lot back in the day, but it did have a reputation for being pretty toxic, so I never really went there. I took a quick look around and I'm honestly pretty lost.  but that's fine. I might spend more time there and check it out some more.
I was just thinking about this thread, too! I just started up on Flight Rising (like Neopets but with dragons) the other day. Their forums are top notch at least for reference content as a newbie, and there's lots of beautiful dragon art. What's not to love!

[bees]

I used to mostly hang out in smaller forums, which had a more tight-knit vibe and where people could be more thoughtful. I spent years on a sadly gone punk/DIY forum and some band forums. I don't remember the url for half of them, most shut down over time. I'm still in touch with some people I met that way! Fun times.

Something Awful. I migrated away from the site in the late 2000s because I felt like it was a pretty toxic place a lot of the times. I forgot about forums for years and then when I got into oldweb revival stuff, I wandered around like a vagabond, feeling like no where on the Internet was quite the same as SA. But I kept telling myself, "You can't go back there, that place is a dumpster fire." I finally went back and it feels like the only people left on the forums are people who've decided to grow up. I frequent the forums there again pretty regularly and it feels good.

Oh yeah. I never joined SA because of its awful reputation way back when, but I've had some threads come up in search results in the last few years and it looks surprisingly fine. My impression is that it used to be made up of edgelord teenagers/young adults back then, so long time users are probably 30+ now and likely have better stuff to do than harass people online  I've considered joining it because active forums are so few and far between these days but it's still kind of intimidating.

[Misanthropic Monster™]

I used to frequent SO many forums back in the day - E-Groups, EZBoards, etc.

[Badgersaurus]

I don't have an account on any of these (maybe that'll change soon?) but here are some I know about:

Skullbrain is a forum ran by some San-Fran sofubi toy-shop dudes, for discussion of sofubi kaiju and other toys. It's got a pretty insular userbase I think but it's worth browsing every now and again if you like toys.
(Sometimes modern designer toys have sometimes-stylized sometimes-graphic NSFW/gore elements so I dunno if this link is kosher for this forum…)

Birdforum is a forum for birdwatchers (duh!). Very active and it's been around since forever. Seems to be mostly oriented torwards UK birding, but lots of more general discussions about adjacent things (nature photography, documentaries, books, equipment...) It also has an attached bird encyclopedia and some other neat things.

Pinside is a forum (attached to a general purpose website/database/market) all about pinball! Discussion about repairs, history, new releases, events, bizarre pinball-related scams (seriously, go to the Boutique Pinball section's pinned threads, they're incredible)... very active, though you have to filter out the sales and classifieds, and of course it's heavy on the pinball slang and abbreviations.

It's neat how a lot of older forums have extra features attached--databases, marketplaces, virtual pets... Or at least the ones that've stuck around do! I imagine it probably helps their longevity a bit, giving people something else to do on the site. I know the most active forums I lurked around back in the day were the ones attached to virtual pet games, maybe for that same reason?

My favourite forum back in the day was the Scratch forum! I used to be obsessed with the Scratch programming site (it's actually where I came up with my on-line alias!) and so I loved frequenting the forums---I remember fondly the running joke about evil kumquats eating your siggy. :) I checked up recently, and was somewhat surprised, though happily, to find that it still exists! Although I don't imagine that it's active now like it used to be---it seems to be hidden away and not on the main site.

Oh man I remember the Scratch forums too. Was a fun place back in the day.

[lunarrose]

Way way back in the day, I used to be very active on the Chao BBS, which was a bulletin board system on the official Sonic Team website, it closed sometime in 2005 or 2006. I'm still very sad about what that loss meant to me as a child.
Alongside that, I was super super active on SEGA Forums.. probably got banned a few times because I was very into getting into flame wars back then...    There's another forum that's still around that is truly collecting dust, but I'll keep it discreet. It definitely falls along my SEGA fandom interests though.

[prismatic]

my forum experience almost consisted entirely of pokemon forums, one of which i'm still active on. it's rather sad, because you'd think such a popular gaming medium would have lot of popular (or at the very least, activeish) forums to them, but it's definitely not what it used to be. older pokemon forums are dead or feel like a wasteland, or are approaching that post. it's unfortunate, really.

the same for general gaming boards. while they're not a significant part of my forum experience, i do like lurking them from time to time and even those have taken a big hit. nintendolife, for example, seems to be the biggest/only nintendo board around, but i don't feel exactly comfortable there. everywhere else just has an uncomfortable atmosphere that i'd rather not be a part of and lacks that community/cozy aspect and feels very impersonal.

[zj]

I used to be super active on the now-gone The Blockheads forum, centered around the sandbox survival mobile game of the same name. The forum was not just a place to talk about the game, but a place to hang out, play forum games, and discuss anything in the Off Topic section. I have many fond memories of people I used to hang out with there. I wish I could meet someone from there again to reminisce together. I joined in 2013 a couple months before I turned 13, and basically grew up there. That place is what started my love for forums :') . Even now as I look through the wayback machine, seeing the familiar usernames makes me so happy :')

The forum shut down in 2022. Unfortunately it was not archived, so most of the content is lost. At least we have the wayback machine :')

[moonunions]

dang there were some i frequented back in the early 2000s, but i've forgotten the names of a lot of them :S i know there was one sailor moon forum that probably doesn't exist anymore...

the only one i'm sure of is den of angels, which is a ball joint doll forum. unfortunately there's a lot of unnecessary drama surrounding the doll community (i mean, every community has its downsides of course) so i kind of dipped out after a handful of years.

but now that i've mentioned it i think i'm gonna peruse the forum and see what's going on nowadays