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For some reason I remember everyone's behavior on old school message boards as much better than modern social media. Sure, you have your degenerate boards, but

by dexwiz 5y ago

For some reason I remember everyone's behavior on old school message boards as much better than modern social media. Sure, you have your degenerate boards, but just don't go there. Moderation and censor ship will always exist, but they seem to work better when they are more locally applied.

petermcneeley 5y ago
Echoing the same sentiment Counter Strike was exactly the same. There was an insane diversity of servers. Some were literally labeled Adult Content and way on the other extreme some were 'christian' where saying the word "shit" would get you banned.
- doublerabbit 5y ago
  True sense of authority keeps everyone at bay; if one a mod goes rogue it all collapses. But when a mod can be countable for their actions, everyone acts as a community and holds the peace. A transparent modlog could really make a community. Clan's were more than just a bunch of mates playing a game. It was a free-open community where everyone was treated with respect regardless of who you were. Q3Arena was my first FPS at 13 and I fell in love for just the community spirit. Organized clan-wars between X and Y, joining rival clan-servers just to poke and have fun are days which are now lost. It's the same experience of inserting a VHS cassette and hitting play knowing you were going to receive a real-feel of an experience. I may of hit the tequila a bit too stiff tonight and this really hits hard but I do wonder if the same experience will ever make a come back.
gmmeyer 5y ago
I remember it being a huge mix! It really depended on what boards you were on. There were boards I was a member of in 2003 that had very strong moderation and they were great! I was also on some basically unmoderated boards and saw some stuff I wish I didn't see. I think this is more indicative of the communities you were a part of than the actual behavioral norms of people at the time.
sroussey 5y ago
Having run a platform of a million or so of those, this is somewhat true. But there were spammers posting across many communities and those where the mods left got littered. We had to set forums to automatically move to require moderator approval to post which at least saved the board in history, but was a pain for a moderator if they returned.
fragmede 5y ago
Gosh, imagine how the users of the Internet from before us felt when we all joined! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
s-lambert 5y ago
I think this is because old school message boards had a sense of community between existing users and there wasn't a large influx of users at any single point. If one person comes in and starts running amok it's easy to just ignore them, tell them off or ban them. But now there's less persistent forums that people are a part of, so there's a lack of community standards that people just naturally gravitate towards. There's no overall community between, for example, people who comment on youtube, so any youtube comment section is just whoever happens to stumble across it.

by dexwiz 5y ago

petermcneeley 5y ago

Echoing the same sentiment Counter Strike was exactly the same. There was an insane diversity of servers. Some were literally labeled Adult Content and way on the other extreme some were 'christian' where saying the word "shit" would get you banned.

doublerabbit 5y ago
True sense of authority keeps everyone at bay; if one a mod goes rogue it all collapses. But when a mod can be countable for their actions, everyone acts as a community and holds the peace. A transparent modlog could really make a community. Clan's were more than just a bunch of mates playing a game. It was a free-open community where everyone was treated with respect regardless of who you were. Q3Arena was my first FPS at 13 and I fell in love for just the community spirit. Organized clan-wars between X and Y, joining rival clan-servers just to poke and have fun are days which are now lost. It's the same experience of inserting a VHS cassette and hitting play knowing you were going to receive a real-feel of an experience. I may of hit the tequila a bit too stiff tonight and this really hits hard but I do wonder if the same experience will ever make a come back.

gmmeyer 5y ago

I remember it being a huge mix! It really depended on what boards you were on. There were boards I was a member of in 2003 that had very strong moderation and they were great! I was also on some basically unmoderated boards and saw some stuff I wish I didn't see. I think this is more indicative of the communities you were a part of than the actual behavioral norms of people at the time.

sroussey 5y ago

Having run a platform of a million or so of those, this is somewhat true. But there were spammers posting across many communities and those where the mods left got littered. We had to set forums to automatically move to require moderator approval to post which at least saved the board in history, but was a pain for a moderator if they returned.

fragmede 5y ago

Gosh, imagine how the users of the Internet from before us felt when we all joined! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

s-lambert 5y ago

I think this is because old school message boards had a sense of community between existing users and there wasn't a large influx of users at any single point. If one person comes in and starts running amok it's easy to just ignore them, tell them off or ban them. But now there's less persistent forums that people are a part of, so there's a lack of community standards that people just naturally gravitate towards. There's no overall community between, for example, people who comment on youtube, so any youtube comment section is just whoever happens to stumble across it.