Facebook is easy. It’s a completely different medium. The idea is to get together with your friends. It does have specific places for discussion of media properties and hobbies, but those are specific, not general, and are designed to emphasize your friends. It’s like comparing a library and a fan club. It’s different.
Reddit is not as easy. It is still rather segmented, but it doesn’t have to be. What is largely different is that it specifically deemphasizes that which is not popular and priorities individuals discussing things rather than a group discussion.
I’ve actually thought about how we could transition the board to Reddit, and it would require using the software in a weird way, requiring everyone to reply to the previous poster, in order to keep a time-based discussion with multiple people, without upvotes or downvote interfering.
That would probably help; I’d never recommend this place while those ads are here, and the few times on other boards I’ve seen links posted to here people express horror about them.
I wouldn’t say that the message board format is disappearing, but the overall quality has certainly diminished. My theory is that the general tone, everywhere, has become so relentlessly trolly and snarky that knowledgeable people have decided it’s not worth the hassle. So you’re left with (1) trolls/assholes and (2) people who don’t know anything, but take a stab at replying anyway.
I remember, five or ten years ago, able to ask a question on a computer board and getting very specific, targeted answers, like “your blahblah.dll file is corrupted.” Now, no matter what you ask, you get the following answers (not necessarily in this order):
Reboot your computer.
Scan for viruses and malware.
Roll your computer back to a restore point.
Use your factory restore disk.
Get a Mac.
Fuck off, you stupid noob.
I would say that the general, all-purpose answer is Reddit. There are still some excellent single-topic boards out there, but they’re not easy to find; you either stumble on them, or someone tells you about them. For example, one of the best cellphone-related boards is called “Howard Forums.”
Facebook has Groups, many of which have thousands of members. You post a question to a group and anyone who is a member can answer you. Groups can be open or closed, but they are much more interactive than most message boards. Much of the traffic from subject matter message boards has moved there.
Right. Facebook is the new place to get factual information from general-purpose experts. If they don’t have the answer, Instagram will and there is always 4chan to fall back on.
As antiquated as the SDMB technology is, there is still no real competition. Quora is the closest match but it only highlights a few questions and responses a day.
The admins may want to consider updating the interface but the concept is sound and very difficult for anyone to replace because the SDMB is more of a volunteer network than just a web site. Where else are you going to ask about some obscure 1960’s TV special and have a real person answer within minutes with the name, date, video clips, history of the show and a personal anecdote about the people in it.
The fact is that the SDMB can still do plenty of things that Google can’t do. The general public does read it as well. I have had people question something I said, Google it and declare that I am right. No shit, I am the one that wrote it but I am not telling them that.
And the structure is writ in water, with the permanence of mayflies. Topics have a lifespan of days at most. How many threads here stretch over years and decades, with surprising new entries at long intervals?
Facebook doesn’t have zombies because it doesn’t have any brains to start with.
I’ve tried reading Reddit a bunch of times and I just can’t get into it. I find the upvote system baffling and the zillion different subreddits impossible to figure out.
It would be a damn shame if this and other message boards–though I know of no general interest boards that are as good as this–go extinct. Regardless of how quaint it is, I think the message board concept has its place. Facebook and its ilk are like a party; until you grow at least a small circle of friends you can really only discuss those topics that are already popular and current, because otherwise your posts will sink faster than a lead brick. Here, by contrast, the newest member can start a thread on nearly any topic, and that thread will almost certainly be read and replied to. Questions will be answered and opinions will be offered and debated.
But sadly, just fulfilling a unique requirement doesn’t guarantee survival. I’ve always been struck by the fact that scripted radio withered away with the advent of widespread access to TV. TV is obviously better on its face because it’s clearly better that you can both see the action as well as hear the dialog. But you need your eyes, and you pretty much have to sit in one place while you watch your show. In the days of OTR, you could listen to a drama or comedy show while engaging in other tasks or activities around the home. You could also drive your car without your choices being limited to the same old pop playlist, news or talk. Scripted radio had some obvious advantages which the new medium did not match, but it died anyway.
But today we can listen to all the great old radio shows anytime we want, from almost anywhere on earth, with a magic box smaller than a deck of cards that we can carry wherever we go. Even with no new broadcasts for half a century they are still fairly popular today and far more accessible to everyone than they ever were in their original form.
The SDMB might one day shut her doors but in some form or another these threads will probably outlive everyone reading them today. Because of the unique situation this board is in though, it isn’t going anywhere for years even if there were no new posts at all. Unless TPTB just decide they don’t want to have it anymore despite remaining profitable, it could coast along as a ghost ship for years from google searchers viewing ads on the existing content.
To the eyes of search engines this place is a collective work covering practically every topic under the sun all in one place. It gets Wikipedia-like search engine rankings for practically any topic because of that so with ads it is probably capable of supporting itself with no active posters for many years.
Not everywhere though. The Archers, currently on BBC Radio 4, has been running since 1951, and still pulls in 5 million listeners. Radio 4 also has other slots for radio dramas which continue to do well.
Granted, this may be an exception rather than a rule, but it does at least show there’s still a following for “outmoded” mediums if they’re done well.
Perhaps the SDMB can become The Archers of message boards.
It was not a membership number thing for Epicski – it was an embuggerance thing for Vail. Nor is it a membership number thing for the Dope – it will be an embuggerance thing for the Reader.
The problem with Facebook is that it requires you to post using your real name. (I’m sure there are ways around it, but that’s another story.) On this board we are anonymous if we want to be. I’m on Facebook a lot but I never post anything confidential or controversial there.
