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I loathe forums. Absolutely hate them. I've used them since I was a kid, even to the point of being an SA-Goon and every year on my birthday I'm reminded of the

by swozey 8y ago

I loathe forums. Absolutely hate them. I've used them since I was a kid, even to the point of being an SA-Goon and every year on my birthday I'm reminded of the several hundred I've joined over the past 20+ years and they feel like this archaic thing I have to dust off when I dive in. I'm in a lot of Jeep communities and there are a LOT of forums. Local, regional, national, drama-splintered, etc. I want a system that aggregates things I care about to me, not to dig through page after page looking for something interesting, tracking things via email notifications or staying logged in constantly. Kind of like a quasi Reddit/Forum/Twitter mix. Longer form, a great search, the ability to follow tags. The rare time I sign up for a forum nowadays, if my first try username is taken I just don't even join it. I deleted FB last year and this is one of the only real pains I have from doing so. It wasn't amazing for groups anymore but it was better than having to log in to 20 different forums to find out if any of the Jeep groups were going to XYZ event next weekend.

jolmg 8y ago
> I want a system that aggregates things I care about to me, not to dig through page after page looking for something interesting, tracking things via email notifications What's the problem with email notifications? I would think that's the ideal decentralized system that aggregates the things you care about. Is the problem that all notifications end up mixed in your inbox? One should be able put up an automated filter that moves incoming mail that matches arbitrary criteria and organizes these mails in folders. In fact, such a filter I believe is created automatically if you use `+` addresses in gmail and probably other email providers.
- mostlysimilar 8y ago
  I agree, it's strange that this complaint is so prevalent. Forums almost always have a subscribe feature that allows you to subscribe to individual subforums or even individual threads/topics, and they email you directly (even in digest form so you aren't spammed by tons of emails) when there's new content. People often complain that forums are archaic, but they've been around so long they've solved so many problems in really usable ways. I often feel the fetishization of the new blinds people to existing, older solutions that work perfectly well.
- swozey 8y ago
  I dislike email more than I dislike forums. :) I mostly blame that on the fact that my ~13yo gmail account is basically a graveyard of receipts and tracking numbers, the odd password recovery here and there, forum digests, thread replies, etc.
asdff 8y ago
Have you tried shifting to RSS? It takes setup getting things situated but it's excellent. I get everything on the web into my RSS reader now: youtube, twitter, reddit, hn, news, blogs, pubmed alerts, journal tables of content, just about everything can be had via RSS. Even email newsletters can be turned into an RSS feed. It's all right there, and instead of checking a dozen sites I can skim through my feeds in no time at all, from my desktop or my phone.

by swozey 8y ago

jolmg 8y ago

> I want a system that aggregates things I care about to me, not to dig through page after page looking for something interesting, tracking things via email notifications What's the problem with email notifications? I would think that's the ideal decentralized system that aggregates the things you care about. Is the problem that all notifications end up mixed in your inbox? One should be able put up an automated filter that moves incoming mail that matches arbitrary criteria and organizes these mails in folders. In fact, such a filter I believe is created automatically if you use `+` addresses in gmail and probably other email providers.

mostlysimilar 8y ago
I agree, it's strange that this complaint is so prevalent. Forums almost always have a subscribe feature that allows you to subscribe to individual subforums or even individual threads/topics, and they email you directly (even in digest form so you aren't spammed by tons of emails) when there's new content. People often complain that forums are archaic, but they've been around so long they've solved so many problems in really usable ways. I often feel the fetishization of the new blinds people to existing, older solutions that work perfectly well.
swozey 8y ago
I dislike email more than I dislike forums. :) I mostly blame that on the fact that my ~13yo gmail account is basically a graveyard of receipts and tracking numbers, the odd password recovery here and there, forum digests, thread replies, etc.

asdff 8y ago

Have you tried shifting to RSS? It takes setup getting things situated but it's excellent. I get everything on the web into my RSS reader now: youtube, twitter, reddit, hn, news, blogs, pubmed alerts, journal tables of content, just about everything can be had via RSS. Even email newsletters can be turned into an RSS feed. It's all right there, and instead of checking a dozen sites I can skim through my feeds in no time at all, from my desktop or my phone.