Now, I really love the SDMB, don’t get me wrong. I’ve also checked out Fark to some extent. My question to you is, what great message boards (besides the abovementioned) have you encountered on the Internet? What things have made them great, and what topics are generally covered?
I’ve made my way around a lot of “lesser” boards where lousy grammar and flame wars presided, and it seems as though the majority of online forums are like this. I’m hoping through polling Dopers to get right to the good message boards, no matter what their flavor or specialty.
I used to go over to th Fabulous Forums Of Fathom quite a bit. Great site and has a lot of ties to the Dope.
I also like Bikeforums, which covers all things bicycle. It also has areas for music and entertainment, kind of like Cafe Society and Foo, which is their version of MPSIMS.
My other main hangout is SickthingsUK, home of the weirdest, wildest and nicest bunch of Alice Cooper fans this side of Dragontown. There are a number of fan areas and also an off-topic forum and a fun and games area. Besides the message boards, the site is a great resource for Sickthings (Alice fans) and covers everything from song lyrics and trivia to links to on-line radio stations that carry his show.
BUT, there is little to no “management.” Posters can do pretty much whatever they want. Depending on your point of view, that can be awesome or a nightmare.
However, there is a very unique and creative group that hangs there, and I enjoyed it immensly for a good while.
tivocommunity.com is a great message board as well. It’s been going downhill to some extent as more and more and more people have just been using it to complain or ask the same questions over and over, but it’s still a large group of technically minded people that have good grammer and know what their talking about. Also, I haven’t looked at all of them, but many of the forums over at dslreports.com are good, specifially Digital Imaging, Digital Imiging/Hardware and a couple of the others I can’t think of off hand. I’m sure alot of the others are as well, but since alot of them are regional I tend not to peruse them.
Any other general interest boards that aren’t just a wriggling mass of OMGWTFROTFLMAO and giant .jpg signature files overandoverandoverandover until you wanna puke?
No, and that’s the problem (and the great, unique thing about the Dope). You may be able to find a good message board that concentrates totally on, say, silent movies or motorcycles or atheism or books by Jane Austen, etc. But a good general-interest message board? This seems to be the cream of the crop.
Hey everybody! Thanks for taking the time to reply!! I will be sure to surf around to your suggested worlds of the Internet. And Eve, I’ve noticed that too! SDMB = Holy Grail of general messageboards, I guess!
ggurl, I hope you don’t mind me butting into your thread here, but I would sure love to find a great parenting-related board. It doesn’t have to be 100% kids, but someplace where I could ask about my daughter’s rash without the influx of “OMG It’s the vaccines!!111!” would be nice.
So as to apologize for my buttinski, I’ll second the recommendation for Television Without Pity. I often have tears rolling down my face when I read that site, I’m laughing so hard. If it wasn’t for TWOP, I think I might not watch TV at all!
As think about it, I realize a board without some focus has no hope of succeeding. Ours, of course, is Cecil, the singularity around which the Millions teem. As he is endlessly diverse – so are we.
And of course, now that we are paying a yearly fee, our mods are all living in 12 room mansions, driving Mercedes, and have winter homes in Hawaii as well as summer cottages in a few major cities in Europe. This makes them a contented bunch which is why they happily moderate the boards and keep the riffraff off.
A REM fansite with a message board that covers a great deal more than the just topics about the band. It’s a community - or at least it use to be.
I met my former boyfriend there and moved to different state because of that. My best friend met her husband there and moved to England, and a good friend of my ex met his fiance there. I’ve met a lot of great people that I would have never met otherwise, and for a long time it was a major part of my life.
I haven’t visited or posted much of anything in about 2 years (member for 5 years), the majority of the core group of friends that made it great don’t post there anymore and I talk to them elsewhere, and the place has been taken over by creepy little teenagers obsessed with Michael Stipe. I have grown to dislike the creator of the site for being a big baby, and for causing a lot of cool people that gave the board life to leave. I think at one point he expressed being sorry in some way, but the damage has been done and the place just isn’t the same. I don’t know…blah.
Well, there’s always snopes. Although the main topic of the boards is the debunking of urban legends (and similar), the non urban legends parts of the boards are great too.
I’m surprised nobody said www.somethingawful.com yet. Although being that the server was in New Orleans, I think it’s been down (don’t know, though, haven’t been there in about 3 weeks).
www.teleboards.com is for a bit of the younger crowd. Say, anywhere from 15 to 26.
www.norom.com/forums is small, but it’s got a lot of members who’ve made a LOT of posts. I’ve never seen a more active board than that.
There are a number of fan areas and also an off-topic forum and a fun and games area. Besides the message boards, the site is a great resource for Sickthings (Alice fans) and covers everything from song lyrics and trivia to links to on-line radio stations that carry his show.