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Interesting that you feel older demographics degrade a platform. For me, it’s the opposite: I am really starting to appreciate hobby forums that are dominated b

Interesting that you feel older demographics degrade a platform. For me, it’s the opposite: I am really starting to appreciate hobby forums that are dominated by people a couple of decades older than myself. This tends to happen to independent website forums when now the younger generation eschews them for walled gardens like Reddit. The reason for that is that older people are less likely to be using mobile, and they are more likely to create long-form text content. You can actually have substantial discussions with them and share detailed tips and reports. Compare this to the relevant Reddit subreddits, where each day’s new posts have largely devolved to vacuous uploaded photos or memes, and the discussion thread is often a lot of vacuous one-sentence replies.

read_if_gay_ 6y ago
> Interesting that you feel older demographics degrade a platform. For me, it’s the opposite Agree. More mature users means less bullshit. A corrected statement would probably be something like: if a platform is used mostly by younger demographics, then an influx of older people degrades that platform for the younger people. Which seems pretty obvious.
- Macha 6y ago
  More mature users means different bullshit. The flight sim community is an example of one I'm involved in which has many forums with older users that grew out of 90s forums or even older BBSes and have a large older audience. I wouldn't call those forums as having less bullshit than say the Reddit, which has the younger parts of the community.
fc373745 6y ago
You are right, young people degrade a platform just as much as anyone else. The only platform in which this phenomenon can be applied to is probably Facebook.
JohnBooty 6y ago
Interesting that you feel older demographics degrade a platform. For me, it’s the opposite: I am really starting to appreciate hobby forums that are dominated by people a couple of decades older than myself. Yeah, it's funny. Older demographics "ruin" some platforms and really excel at others. This is all 100% subjective, but I think many people would agree that older demographics are.... not always much fun on "general purpose" social networking platforms like Facebook. Leaving Facebook's substantial ethical concerns aside for a moment, Facebook and Instagram stopped being fun real fast once everybody's parents and aunts and uncles showed up. It's simply too easy for Uncle Bob to repost anti-vax stuff or whatever he's into, and most people would prefer to keep some of the fun/exciting parts of their lives private from their families. But, like you, I've gotten into some hobbies where the older folks have just a freaking amazing online presence - just super generous and talented people; absolute superstars of the community.
- cameronlpmoore 6y ago
  Older intelligent people are the best. Older uneducated+opinionated people...not so much.
  - JohnBooty 6y ago
    Yes. Additionally.... There are a lot of older people who are intelligent and uneducated but have a really tough time distinguishing "fake news" from "real news." My sister is in her 50s, is intelligent and kind-hearted, and winds up linking to fake news sites alllllll the time. A lot of those sites are absolutely insidious. They look like reputable news sites: your same basic layout as any mainstream news site. Frequently updated with multiple news articles per day. Many even sprinkle in a lot of innocuous syndicated stories from the Associated Press or some other press service. But... look a little closer and all of their original content pushes some particular agenda. For example, my sister linked to one that looked pretty legit. Had a bunch of soft news stories. But, look a little closer.... and there were thousands of disturbing articles about how it was harmful to have abortions or be LGBT. If a publisher has an agenda, okay. That's fine. We all have viewpoints and agendas. But masquerading as a neutral mainstream news site, so that you grasp for some unearned credibility from folks who aren't tech-savvy enough to know the difference? Yiiiiiikes. Some folks will point out that this criticism could be applied to Fox News or MSNBC as well. I wouldn't totally disagree, but what I'm saying is that there are fake news sites out that that are waaaaay more extreme and insidious.
ashtonkem 6y ago
In principle, I agree. Theoretically older users should be more emotionally stable, and produce less drama. In practice though we’ve seen FB become basically the conspiracy theory fever swamps during a demographic change. Maybe there is some other factor beyond the age of the user at play here, but I certainly have no idea what that might be.

read_if_gay_ 6y ago

> Interesting that you feel older demographics degrade a platform. For me, it’s the opposite Agree. More mature users means less bullshit. A corrected statement would probably be something like: if a platform is used mostly by younger demographics, then an influx of older people degrades that platform for the younger people. Which seems pretty obvious.

Macha 6y ago
More mature users means different bullshit. The flight sim community is an example of one I'm involved in which has many forums with older users that grew out of 90s forums or even older BBSes and have a large older audience. I wouldn't call those forums as having less bullshit than say the Reddit, which has the younger parts of the community.

fc373745 6y ago

You are right, young people degrade a platform just as much as anyone else. The only platform in which this phenomenon can be applied to is probably Facebook.

JohnBooty 6y ago

Interesting that you feel older demographics degrade a platform. For me, it’s the opposite: I am really starting to appreciate hobby forums that are dominated by people a couple of decades older than myself. Yeah, it's funny. Older demographics "ruin" some platforms and really excel at others. This is all 100% subjective, but I think many people would agree that older demographics are.... not always much fun on "general purpose" social networking platforms like Facebook. Leaving Facebook's substantial ethical concerns aside for a moment, Facebook and Instagram stopped being fun real fast once everybody's parents and aunts and uncles showed up. It's simply too easy for Uncle Bob to repost anti-vax stuff or whatever he's into, and most people would prefer to keep some of the fun/exciting parts of their lives private from their families. But, like you, I've gotten into some hobbies where the older folks have just a freaking amazing online presence - just super generous and talented people; absolute superstars of the community.

cameronlpmoore 6y ago
Older intelligent people are the best. Older uneducated+opinionated people...not so much.
- JohnBooty 6y ago
  Yes. Additionally.... There are a lot of older people who are intelligent and uneducated but have a really tough time distinguishing "fake news" from "real news." My sister is in her 50s, is intelligent and kind-hearted, and winds up linking to fake news sites alllllll the time. A lot of those sites are absolutely insidious. They look like reputable news sites: your same basic layout as any mainstream news site. Frequently updated with multiple news articles per day. Many even sprinkle in a lot of innocuous syndicated stories from the Associated Press or some other press service. But... look a little closer and all of their original content pushes some particular agenda. For example, my sister linked to one that looked pretty legit. Had a bunch of soft news stories. But, look a little closer.... and there were thousands of disturbing articles about how it was harmful to have abortions or be LGBT. If a publisher has an agenda, okay. That's fine. We all have viewpoints and agendas. But masquerading as a neutral mainstream news site, so that you grasp for some unearned credibility from folks who aren't tech-savvy enough to know the difference? Yiiiiiikes. Some folks will point out that this criticism could be applied to Fox News or MSNBC as well. I wouldn't totally disagree, but what I'm saying is that there are fake news sites out that that are waaaaay more extreme and insidious.

ashtonkem 6y ago

In principle, I agree. Theoretically older users should be more emotionally stable, and produce less drama. In practice though we’ve seen FB become basically the conspiracy theory fever swamps during a demographic change. Maybe there is some other factor beyond the age of the user at play here, but I certainly have no idea what that might be.