What other message boards would you recommend?

In My Humble Opinion
1

DEX™ approved!

I asked in ATMB here whether it’d be OK to ask about other MB’s (particularly since there was a bit of a kerfluffle about the snackpit a ways back) and got the green light, from no less a dignitary than the Right Hand of the Master! I was touched, in a way that left me all warm and fuzzy. Or maybe sticky. Either way, here goes:

The SD, as has been noted many times, generally has a more refined and intelligent level of discourse than any number of other MB’s I’ve taken time to visit. That said, I haven’t visited many, in part because a lot seem to have a low quality feel to them. In particular, I’m trying to find a decent all-purpose computer/technical message board to post questions of general interest such as wifi, modem/router use/set-up, detailed computer questions, software/hardware/browser questions of a more technical nature, and so forth. I’ve tried a few posts here with limited results. I try not to post easily searchable questions, but sometimes even a seemingly simple question like “what router would you recommend for internet streaming to a blue ray player” deserves some detailed discussion. A google search yields too much, and frankly, the results usually drive toward product placement, and I need opinion, not ads.

From the ATMB thread:

I posted a more general title here since I am actually looking for other suggestions of a more general nature as well.

So, apart from that specific request, what other message boards do you like/frequent that have a similar feel to the Dope? Care to plug your own, if it’s worthy? Years ago, I had a lot of fun over at Opal’s Fathom board, but the population plummeted once the SDMB finally stopped crashing a few years back (there was a lot of crossover there from here, particularly when this board went down, which it seemed to do a lot back then).

Any thoughts and suggestions are much appreciated!

Thanks

2

The Forums of Fathom.

3

Has anyone suggested the Forums of Fathom?

4

You should try the Forums of Fathom.

5

Wow.

OK then, back to lurking.

:frowning:

6

Beats me. Most other message boards are just awful.

7

Pretty sure they’re riffing on Bosda, not you. There’s a gag where people repeat someone else’s brainfart as if it’s good advice. And there’s also a gag where people repeat something once it’s been repeated several times by people who obviously didn’t notice it had already been mentioned.

The only computer boards I can recommend are the sevenforums, which have really helped me out finding tweaks for Windows 7. I haven’t seen one that’s more general purpose, sorry.

8

http://www.big-boards.com/kw/computers/

A lot of them are not in english, but there are several popular computer forums listed there. Anandtech might be a good one to try.

9

xkcd’s forums are comprised of an interesting mix. They have a lot of smart people with strangely obscure subject matter knowledge that can be found in their respective forums. There are also a fair number of pompous self-important teenagers who think they’re worldly and superior because they read xkcd unlike all the other sheeple in their age group (not that the SDMB doesn’t have a few people like that, but they’re a much smaller contingent here).

They have really good computer hardware and computer science/software forums, with some near-prodigy computer geniuses. I’m sure that’d be a good place for *any *computer questions you have. It’s definitely worth checking out. But, they’re fairly incestuous at the top, if that’s a turn-off. And that place is much *much *more politically liberal than the SDMB. They don’t ban conservatives or people of differing political opinion, but you’ll definitely feel excluded in political discussions unless you’re *very *far-left.

10

I just registered at xkcd.
It is a pretty board aesthetically.
Personally, I prefer a small top image because I use a wide aspect laptop.
That way I get more text on screen without wastage from a rather large top image.

But, I will obviously stay here because of the content and my new friends here.

11

Reading xkcd.
The avatars show up on the right, which makes sense to me.
Nice design.

12

Really weird. I have been an xkcd fan for years and never noticed the quite obvious link to the forums.
Much like here.
Strange selective blindness.

I certainly hope this is a common affliction.
I mean, come on y’all, I have been reading this comic for years and it wasn’t until now that I realized it had a freaking forum. That is just embarrassing.
:frowning:

13

More on xkcd’s board. I just posted something about Batman, and was informed that a moderator would need to approve my post. I sure am glad that y’all don’t do that here. I certainly understand why, but it is a bit offputting when you spend 15 minutes on a well-considered and (hopefully) funny post.

I like it better here.

14

Kind of special interest sites, but if you like this kind of stuff…

Analog Photography:
APUG.org

Audiophile Stuff:
Audiokarma.org

Great sites, including forums.

15

Gee, you give up easily. Yes, I was mocking the Bosda, because it can’t read OP correctly.

Joe

16

Has anyone mentioned the Forums of Fathom?

17

I don’t know. It’s too hard to work out whether anyone has mentioned the Forums of Fathom. Maybe we should mention it just in case.

18

Probably an anti-spam/troll measure. Most likely once you hit 5 or 10 (or whatever it’s set for) posts, you’ll be cleared to post without moderator approval.

I’m on a couple of boards that don’t allow posting links or images until you reach a certain number. Same reason.

19

The Gardenweb is probably still the best collection of gardening forums out there. It isn’t what it was in years past (new ownership made some bad decisions, moderation is next to nonexistent and spam is a problem) but there are still a number of excellent active forums.

20

I (and at least a couple other Dopers) post over at the Something Awful Forums.

It’s a forum for the comedy site, Something Awful, so do bear in mind going in that, being spun off from a comedy site, as opposed to a newspaper column about fighting ignorance, there are a few key differences.

However, with the exception of a couple sub-forums that I never go in (and I don’t recommend anyone else to go in,) most of the posts are similar to here. It’s expected you use proper grammar, punctuation, capitalization, etc… If a post is too off-topic, you’ll get a warning or a probation, if you do something really stupid, it’s an instant ban in some cases (they are much more extreme with their modding than here…not as many “second chances.”) That being said, some things that don’t fly over here do fly over there…again, because it’s from a comedy site, and partly because the average age is probably a bit lower than here.

They do allow pictures, though I want to say there’s a way to turn them off…same with avatars.

But they have a lot more members, and more sub-forums for specific topics, including a pretty active one for computer hardware and software. That one is going to be very light on pictures, random insults, and overall “shit posting,” as it’s called there.

All that being said, it is “pay-to-post.” $10 gets you basic posting privileges, and you can pay more to get an avatar, get access to private messaging, searching, and archives.