hello everyone,
i’m new here and i’ve havn’t been into internet forums for a long long while. now that reddit and social media exists kind of hard time understanding the staying appeal of this old school forum format. would like ur opinions?..
Extended conversations that don’t run so fast the person you are responding to has already dropped off the page
Newer doesn’t necessarily = better.
Have you been out there in social land? It’s craaaazy
Here’s what you get here:
- A lot better moderation. This isn’t like Reddit where mods will ban you simply for saying something truthful they don’t like to hear.
- The quality of conversation is considerably higher. We have experts here who can talk your ears off with rocket science, medicine, law, physics, etc.
- We don’t use likes or upvotes, which helps avoid turning things into a popularity contest, or an upvote-farming system.
- It’s not an echo chamber. Whatever opinions you have, you’ll find a substantial number of people disagreeing with you on it - which is a good thing.
Small stable community, but not necessarily stable individuals. Fairly well moderated so things don’t go off the rails for long. Older crowd with quite a cross section of knowledge from Doctors and Lawyers to woodworkers and working class Joes, all of who get along for the most part and don’t mind questions.
Its like going to a bar like Cheers. Most every one knows who each other is on some level. Other boards are just too crowded with people who come and go, too many sub topics.
I’ve always been impressed with the depth and breadth of knowledge of the posters on this site. As well as the positive ratio of quality to useless or downright wrong information. There’s a very high signal-to-noise ratio, in other words. It’s especially striking whenever I visit similar sites in which the discourse (small d) is often downright dumb.
A good place to read and learn about a wide variety of topics. Occasionally get your opinion challenged, but that’s part of learning. Smart people here who back up their assertions with data and sources, and the moderation makes a big difference in civility. People who come here to stir things up usually either leave or are shown the door (cornfielded) soon after arriving. Also, the place leans left, but thoughtful conservative views are welcome (if not challenged).
Welcome - enjoy yourself while here!
A lot of us have been internet friends here for a very long time (I’ve been here 20 years myself). We value our friendships. Moving on to newer forums would mean losing a lot of those friendships.
Also what @Czarcasm said.
On this board, if you’re engaging in a debate or discussion, you’d better be ready to back up your assertions with citations and links. Especially in the Politics and Great Debates forums.
The people here are friendly and inviting, but unsupported claims are a sure-fire way to drive everyone crazy.
That said, welcome to the Dope! I’ve been posting here for 20 years, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.
Once upon a time, people congregated on message boards to exchange and discuss ideas. Then came social media, and ideas were replaced with opinions, discussion replaced with agreement. Opinions became sacrosanct and unassailable. Facts became unnecessary.
The appeal is the intelligent and informed discussion.
A minor benefit is that there are posters here from all over the World.
For example, as an English chess player I can explain what these mean:
- Yorkshire Pudding (not a dessert!)
- bowling a maiden over (not an assault on a female!)
- perpetual check (not a continuous inspection!)
I try to like Reddit. I like the idea of specialized sub-forums but my god that place is fast. I don’t I’ve ever seen a thread that wasn’t already a couple of days old. Plus I don’t understand how posts are nested. And if I move off of a thread I can never seemed to find it again.
Re-reading the above makes me think it’s me - not Reddit.
:~(
Generally speaking, you are better off using reddit or a higher quality board. This board has a number of poster cliques, poor moderation practices, terrible corporate / leadership oversight above the moderators etc. It’s a decaying ship that long ago lost any semblance of having a rudder.
And you stick around because…?
Not a bad question, inertia mostly. I have intended to stop several times of late and haven’t stuck to it, I’m sure it’ll take at some point. Whatever real value the board had at one time, in its current state a total new person is definitely better off seeking out a different community.
As I said before, this place is great if you aren’t into trying to follow several thousand fast paced conversations at the same time. It is like the difference between going to a major shindig and a party at a friend’s place. You will get to know folks here, argue with some, agree with others. We do quirky little gift exchanges throughout the year(postcards, shot glasses, books, Christmas gifts etc.). We talk about what we know, what we love, what we hate, what we have gained and what we have lost. It’s just another community.
Welcome.
The biggest plus this forum (and others like it) compared to Reddit (a site I browse way more than I do compared to any other site) IMO is how long a thread/topic stays active for. In fact, a thread/topic can stay active effectively indefinitely here (just have to create a continuation thread when the 10k post limit is reached). On Reddit, when a thread is just a few days old people will generally abandon it and either ignore you or give you shit for responding to it after that time. This is not to say you can resurrect (very) old threads here willy nilly, only if new info or developments have occured and having the old thread as background without having to rehash all the previous discussion is useful.
This means that conversations here can potentially be, and often are, much more in depth compared to Reddit.
I can just see the Onion headline:
Neighborhood poster threatens to flounce
“One day I’ll just flounce, and then you’ll be sorry you were so mean!” said long-term regular poster Martin Hyde. “You see if I don’t,” he added, carefully typing his 28th post in the last 24 hours.
