i started using the internet in the late 2000’s and still remember when you search for something most of the times it would return with a forum post … now its just random websites … if you ever need real and concise answer you have to add site:reddit.com at every search and since discord or twitter are not crawlable by these search crawlers they are not mentioned . Where did all those forums went…are there still active forums ?
Not dead but definitely on life support. I really do miss old forums. Reddit / Discord / Fediverse don’t come close to the old community feel. Facebook groups aren’t so bad sometimes for that but then the content is organised terribly. Say what you will about forum search engines but I could always rely on being able to enter a keyword or two and get what I was looking for.
A lot of forums I frequented were actually pretty well organised with subforums. It just isn’t the same these days.
Also web forums were the absolute best for petty drama. I do miss that in a weird way. Always that one angry gatekeeper flaming everyone.
I too hate how much information is on discord now.
It’s more that search engines kind of suck now.
Forums still exist. They’re just buried in search results behind SEO garbage sites and video clips because ad revenue. I really despise the direction revenue has pushed the internet…I mean, I get it, sites cost money and people want to make money, I’m getting this stuff for “free”, but the monetization has absolutely destroyed the quality and availability of many things. The brief and concise informative text post has been buried in favor of lengthy videos filled with pointless blather and 5 minutes of actual content because length = ad space, and ad space gets pushed to the top.
That said, some bash places like reddit…but honestly reddit is a forum despite the social media moniker. It’s forums condensed under one roof. No, it’s not as easily searched…but forum searches have generally sucked since the beginning.
They’re out there. Searching [thing im looking for information about]+[forum] will often get you what you want, if it exists.
Similar reason why people take photos with their phone rather than a point and shoot camera, anyone can do it and it doesn’t require extra work to setup.
