List of ranks

[Shrooblord]

Forums are going down? Whatever would make you say that?

[rolesfamily]

Forums are going down? Whatever would make you say that?

Don't you think so? Forums are naturally in decline because of social media. People with a common interest, go to a facebook page. Or follow something on twitter. It's the sad reality, it's only a select few that go on forums now. We're mostly nostalgic dinosaurs

[Adsolution]

I completely disagree. Forums serve a vastly different purpose than Facebook or Twitter, especially those heavily centred on a particular topic such as development. Facebook/Twitter groups are far too primitive and threaded to even come close to acting as a replacement or some logical place to migrate for what many forum communities require. It's like owning your own, fully customised studio to fit all your needs and more, and then for some reason deciding to move onto Facebook's campus residency, where you only get a small room with nothing in it and can only use what they give you. That's like stupid.

[rolesfamily]

I completely disagree. Forums serve a vastly different purpose than Facebook or Twitter, especially those heavily centred on a particular topic such as development. Facebook/Twitter groups are far too primitive and threaded to even come close to acting as a replacement or some logical place to migrate for what many forum communities require. It's like owning your own, fully customised studio to fit all your needs and more, and then for some reason deciding to move onto Facebook's campus residency, where you only get a small room with nothing in it and can only use what they give you. That's like stupid.

Forums aren't as popular with the younger generation IMO. It's more of the older people like us who grew up with them who stick to them. It's the newer generation that won't think twice about forums. Well a lot of them won't. That's just the way I see it anyhow.

[Adsolution]

You're completely forgetting what half the forums in existence are for, what they require and how they function. The forums you're referring to are those along the lines of RaymanPC where we're generally just communities that chat and hang out. Boards that serve a purpose beyond socialising often have a fairly organised structure and workflow where people, in the case of development boards for instance are: delivering and receiving work and feedback, placing themselves up for hire and recruitment, keeping an updated thread on their own work, requesting and providing accommodation, and so on.

Neither Facebook nor Twitter provide the necessary customisation needed to do virtually any of these things properly, and personally, I wouldn't rely on something so closed, low-end and consumer-grade to get done what could be done so much better on an own forum. The people who end up dropping off these to sub for a mass social media solution are usually those who weren't very relevant and barely contributed in the first place.

Community-centric forums will likely exist for as long as more objective-oriented forums do, and given how they function, I don't see them being replaced any time soon by something better. Of course you can always update the efficiency, technology and workflow that's employed on your forum (such as integrating some of the boons of the aforementioned sites, like a live RSS, threads that instantly update, tagging people, etc), but that doesn't by any means comprise literally prostituting yourself to entirely closed-source, mass social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter. Those sites are not built as a platform for professional workflow, they're intended as a way for everyone on a global scale to more easily interact with eachother.

[Shrooblord]

A-meyen, brother.

I don't see a place like Facebook ever being used for questions on the scale of things that can be asked on forums either - on top of the uses Adsol described above, there's also tons of games forums, program editing forums, musical instrument forums; places where people can go and talk and write long dwindling paragraphs (intentionally or not, as is usually the case with me haha) and have normal conversations not limited to "omg lol oh ran out of character limits haha 11!"
Also, try asking a question on a page on Facebook. You'll get flooded by other posts hiding away your attempt at conversation. It's nowhere as organised as a forum is.

[Adsolution]

Additionally, if one were to consider the growth of the internet, I'm pretty sure that there are more people using forums now than five years ago, despite the fact that there are over one billion people on Facebook now. The amount of internet users has increased by forty times over the last ten years.

[Reese Riverson]

I completely disagree. Forums serve a vastly different purpose than Facebook or Twitter, especially those heavily centred on a particular topic such as development. Facebook/Twitter groups are far too primitive and threaded to even come close to acting as a replacement or some logical place to migrate for what many forum communities require. It's like owning your own, fully customised studio to fit all your needs and more, and then for some reason deciding to move onto Facebook's campus residency, where you only get a small room with nothing in it and can only use what they give you. That's like stupid.

^ this.


To add my part, there are plenty of forums that remain fully active with hundreds, and even thousands of active members. They are not a dying breed, and assuming so is quite ridiculous with out basic form of research. I am a member of a few forums that are larger or as large as RaymanPC. Here are a few to name as an example:

http://www.overclock.net

http://www.avsforum.com/f/

http://audiokarma.org

http://tapeheads.net

[rolesfamily]

Well all I can say is I hope you guys are right because forums have a close place in my heart. I grew up with them!! This is a forum I hope that will be around for many years to come. I'm not sure why it wouldn't be. Also a few other forums I'm part of. Well, long live forums. I still think they are under threat by social media and a newer generation, but I can see some communities surviving and even thriving.

[Hunchman801]

Roles still has a point, the younger generations use social networks a lot more than forums. Ten years ago, plenty of kids would create their own websites and forums. That's hardly the case anymore. Of course forums still serve a purpose that social networks cannot be used for and I don't expect them to be die but in their current form their golden days are over.

[Master]

Well, I guess all the cool kids are busy making apps now, eh?

[Reese Riverson]

Well apparently there are a few forums with dedicated apps as well, for optimization. I never used any, so I don't know the details.

[rolesfamily]

Roles still has a point, the younger generations use social networks a lot more than forums. Ten years ago, plenty of kids would create their own websites and forums. That's hardly the case anymore. Of course forums still serve a purpose that social networks cannot be used for and I don't expect them to be die but in their current form their golden days are over.

Agreed.

In other news, I'm getting rather close to leveling up!

[Reese Riverson]

But wasn't MySpace as popular back then as Facebook is today among many kids?

[Master]

Think so, I remember this thing called "Bebo" being a fad in my younger years.

[Serza5]

I believe it was My Space first then Bebo came round when my age group got onto the internet craze, then naturally Facebook. Speaking quickly about Bebo (as this is hardly the topic to talk about such) I believe it got shut down years ago.

[Hunchman801]

Myspace sure was popular but they ever had as many users as Facebook does now.

[OCG]

I once made account on mySpace and never used it
Heck, I just went on mySpace right now and deleted account

[Reese Riverson]

Lol, Myspace still exists?

Yeah I remember that is all people talked about too... now it's all about Facebook and their farmvill games. lol

[PluMGMK]

I believe it was My Space first then Bebo came round when my age group got onto the internet craze, then naturally Facebook. Speaking quickly about Bebo (as this is hardly the topic to talk about such) I believe it got shut down years ago.

Nah, it's still alive. There were just a load of server issues at one point that caused rumours to spread like wildfire that it had been shut down.