Jeez, I had forgotten about BBS’ too.
Trip
Another no. It’s just a message board. Yesterday there was a notice about a lost dog, with pull-offable phone number tabs on the (cork) message board at the small-town local post office. It that a social medium?
The problem is that you have baldly asserted what social media is not, yet have provided a definition which would include those things. You’re argument is basically that the SDMB is social media, and when pointed out that under that definition X, Y, and Z is also social media, instead of making the distinction, you simply rudely point out that it would be “ridiculous” to say X, Y, and Z are examples of social media without giving a definition as to why that is.
It is social media if you use that term in a dry recitation of the definition of both of those words. Social media is a term of art. Implicit in its understanding is, at minimum, 1) the use of the internet, and 2) a central platform where messages are exchanged.
And I also believe, what is being debated here, that also implicit in the definition is the primarily social nature of the media. For example, there is a Ford F150 message board where people share information about how to fix this or that on their Ford F150. Maybe I get to know a guy off that board and have a beer with him, but that board is in no real definition of the term a “social” board. You go there to figure out how to fix your truck. It is informational primarily.
I put the SDMB in that category. It’s more social than Ford, but not in the same way as Facebook or Twitter. If there is an equal objection that I am not providing a hard definition, at least I am attempting to get to one.
It really depends which “social media”. On Facebook I know all my “friends” in real life. On Twitter I don’t know any of the people I follow, or my followers, in real life.
In fact, I often think those two sites are grouped together when for me, at least, they serve utterly different purposes.
I’m on our local NextDoor.Com network, a souped-up message board. People post lost & found critter pics; others post responses. If your post office corkboard allowed replies to be tacked up, it would be the same. It’s a medium. People socialize there. Q.E.D.
We see various sorts of social media. Back in the day were phone party lines, then radio call-ins, then faxnets for office jokes. Online we find message boards, group blogs, vast networks (visible and hidden), Q&A sites, etc.
Long-dead group blog SensibleErection.Com was sorta self-moderating. A member posted something; others commented as well as voting on the original post; comments were voted upon, too. Every vote gave a reason, like “+5 Hot” or “-5 Stupid”. Get a high score: you can post and comment more. Get a low score: your access is automatically decreased. Flame wars self-stifled. That sounds pretty damn “social” to me.
No.
First, because I do not like the so called social media at all, but I like it here. I do not see it as social media here, and while tis may be a personal opinion, a personal opinion is what was asked for.
I do not like social media because I am convinced that their business plan promotes discord, exclusion, hate and conflict as the best way to maximise clicks. Social media are thus inherently promoting fascism*. And their data gathering backs totalitarian tendencies in every society.
And also no because there is an effective moderation here, which is sorely missed in those wrongly called social media.
- Some oversimplyfication here, of course, but I do not believe those who say that social media may be bad, but they use it well. You may be willing to pay the cost, but there is no right way of living the wrong life.
In a nutshell: Yes!
Twitter lists aren’t public, no? They’re just a tool for people to organize their own twitter feed.
The dope is social media and it has virtual communities: the MMP, the thread gamers, the Death Pool players, some of the Usual Suspects in ATMB and BBQ Pit, there used to be a somewhat sizable mafia playing community, etc.
This is a bunch of I’m Not Like Other Girls malarky.
It’s not. Web forums existed before the term “social media” became a thing, and yet the term was not applied to them when the term was coined. The term was created to define the new Web 2.0-style communities which have friends, follows, likes, algorithmic sorting of content, sharing pictures, videos, etc.
The SDMB has specifically resisted adding actual social media features. There is a useless friends option, but it doesn’t give you any more privileges to view things from that person, nor inform you of everything they post, so it’s toothless. None of the other required features are here at all–not even images.
I could pull the same thing you did, and say that those calling it social media are older people wanting to feel “hip” by using a term the kids use, not realizing it doesn’t apply. But I’ll refrain from such bad faith assumptions.
I just think some of you have decided to extend the definition beyond how it was originally intended.
Considering I do basically the same thing on both (bullshit and argue with strangers), it’s close enough for me. I consider it a less sophisticated but deeper, long-form social media. A proto-social media, if you will.
Has anyone changed their mind on this now that we are on Discourse? It is web 2.0 (if not beyond) and has inline pictures and videos and has a modicum of a “here’s some curated content for you!” at the right hand side even if it may not be algorithmic.
The only thing it doesn’t do objectively is recommend friends. And for those who still think it is not social media, do you think Reddit is? If so, what does Reddit do that Discourse does not? It can’t merely be the size of the website, because then at some point Reddit became social media when it was not previously. And it seems weird that the difference would be that Reddit’s recommended links feature is more algorithmic.
I’m here on the Dope and a couple of woodworking forums that are also simple message boards. If this isn’t social media then I’m not doing any social media and don’t know what it is.
There’re times I experience it as anti-social media. /s
I’m always proud to tell people that I’m not on any social media.
So stop bugging me to friend you.
And that’s the definition which, for me, defines why the SDMB is not social media.
We Dopers are all anonymous. Social media is the opposite.
I can post here for fun, and not worry about insulting my cousin because I described their wedding as a disaster, or getting fired from my job, because I said something politically incorrect.
To me, social media means your face is prominently displayed, your privacy is non-existent, and everything you post can be tied to you in real life, forever.
I vote of course it’s social media. It’s not one to one communication, me corresponding with my bank, or my Mom via some medium.
It’s me publicly communicating with a community. And THAT is clearly what makes it social.
If you’re posting to initiate a response from a community of people, that is inherently a social interaction to my mind.
Even if my thread amounts to just me and another poster going back and forth, it’s a public forum. On view to an entire community, and that makes this social media, I think.
Those resisting just want the imaginary moral high ground of saying, ‘But I don’t DO social media, Dahlings!’
The mental acrobatics people are going through to be able to maintain their belief that they don’t do social media is a joy to behold.
Straight Dope Message Board is definitely a social medium. We may not know each others’ meat-space names or faces, but each of us has a unique identity here. We know each other by our SD usernames and the things we have posted here over the years under those names. In this medium we share our personal successes, foibles, complaints, amusements, and tragedies with each other, and share in the joys and sufferings of others. IOW, we socialize.
This. It’s like saying “I don’t consider this to be a car because it doesn’t have a stick shift.”
All this hinges on what we mean by the highly elastic and fairly new term “social media.”
Before Facebook, Myspace, etc., existed we (SDMB) were an online end-user supported media that was inherently social, but IIRC nobody used the magic term “social media.”
In general use, IMO the term “social media” mostly means the grab bag of what @chappachula says just above plus a bunch more: advertiser supported, non-anonymous, “friends” / followers" vs public at large, narrate / publicize your daily life story vs talk about whatever, short-form vs long form, picture/vid heavy vs light, current event / in-the-moment oriented, strong emphasis for forwarding / rebroadcasting content delivered to you by others, etc.
SDMB lacks most of those indicia. Said another way, the most common 2020 interpretation of “social media” includes vastly more/different than what SDMB was and is. As such we’re a weird, semi-obsolete backwater within the now much broader universe of all social media in 2020 vs that in 1999 when SDMB was pretty much mainstream.
Metaphor: I played golf just once back about 2001. Am I a “golfer”? Technically yes. Practically no.
When we discuss “social media” as a political or economic phenomenon, e.g., as a conduit for fake news or fraudulent advertising, we’re mostly talking about the other forms of SM, not about places like here.
The ‘/s’ means sarcasm. Oh, you weren’t being sarcastic? Then you aren’t very observant 
It’s social media. People use this, and other social media, in different ways. You can use twitter in a “minimally social, just debating important things in my professional life” way, just as you can lean heavily into SDMB as a community.