You know I’ve thought about this before–about whether the quality discussion here was truly almost impossible to find on todays’ web. At first it seems a very self-serving and arrogant notion. There are surely many intelligent and high-minded forums available. But probably not, you know? Because the other “good” ones are going to be niche like a physicists’ forum or a philosophy forum somewhere.
But it’s difficult to find a general, open topic message board where literacy and weightiness are not only appreciated, but sort of a prerequisite.
There’s another aspect about this place that makes us different: our sense of community.
There are forums on reddit with high quality discussion*, equal to us geniuses here at the SDMB. But they seem cold and impersonal.
If you hang around here for a while, you get to know personalities. I recognize maybe a hundred usernames here, and there are a couple dozen who I recognize as experts, each in his own subject. Reading their posts is like talking to a friend…
The SDMB is big enough to have great conversations on any topic, but small
enough to be manageable and friendly.
But reddit threads often stretch to over a thousand posts, which is just too big and impersonal.
We may not be as profound as a 17th century salon, or the Left Bank of Paris…But I’d say that we’re more like a table full of friends at your favorite coffee shop on campus.
Pull up a chair, and join us!.
While I love wolfpup’s evocation, that’s a high bar to live up to…I’m glad you softened it a bit! we are who we are: eager to learn from each other. The occasional bon mot is just icing on the cake.
Does that make me (who changed from lurker to poster less than 2 years ago) the added gag character to a long running sitcom that will be forgotten next season?
-drinks all available beer while part of the cast-
Probably those Reddit communities would seem more personal, if you hung out there long enough and got to know the people. But one thing we have over them is simple age: We’ve been around for, like, 80% of the age of the World Wide Web, and so we’ve had much longer to develop our sense of community. Maybe 20 years hence those Reddit communities will be similar to ours is now. Or maybe, of course, one or both of those communities will be gone then, or maybe we’ll have completely abandoned text-based communication by then and do everything by direct neural connection, who knows.
Reddit threads just don’t encourage that in my experience. The fact that posts aren’t really chronological unless a specific back and forth happens doesn’t really encourage longer lasting threads. Those back and forths rarely last more than a handful of posts. And usernames are so easy to gloss over.
Maybe that’s just me, I do sometimes see users say things like “oh I recognize you from some other sub, can’t believe I’m seeing you here” but that seems pretty rare.
But every different subject is a different reddit with a different group of people. If you’re talking about cars, you’re not going to find out if the person likes cats, or vice versa.
It’s also as @Babale says really hard to follow a conversation of any length there.
we are who we are: eager to learn from each other. The occasional bon mot is just icing on the cake.