Ohhhh, yeah.
A lot of the responses do sound totally made up, to me anyway.
My kid tried to get me to “be a Redditor”. I checked a couple of subreddits out, and told him the people here are smarter and nicer.
I also said I waste so much time here that I have no time for anyplace else.
…
Just checked the message board I hung out at before The Dope, in the 90s. They shut down years ago… (dealmac forum)
I was at Snopes for more than a decade, until the door got suddenly slammed in our faces. There are a few of us who made our way here, but most of that group is lost.
Someone created a snopesmessageboard community, but going from vBulletin to reddit didn’t work well, especially as there was no warning. Not sure if they got something up and running, but I wouldn’t go back now, as I like this place.
One of the problems with reddit is not knowing what’s there. I have just joined r/cannedsardines as I love smoked oysters and have problems finding them.
Reddit can be a useful resource, and I really like having the information which is specific to my location. I also use it as a time waster, and for happy thoughts, with lots of pictures of cute creatures and stories of people doing good deeds. I don’t post much, though, so it’s not really interactive.
I am a member of a group for my high school, my home town, my husband’s high school, a band fan group, a whisky fan group and Straight Dope. Plus a group of my mom’s relatives and a group of friends from my husband.
The band fan group is huge, but stays focused because of 3 awesome mods. It is only for band-related stuff, and not for discussing what everyone had for dinner. The whisky group is similarly focused, but the other groups are a mix of memes and reminiscing, not much discussion.
Yeah, I can see the value of FB groups in many of those kinds of instances, especially hometown / community groups, where current matters, message penetration etc. are key. I’m not a member in any of those, though, and within my interests the problems with FB are (too) many.
There are a number of fountain pen enthusiasts on SDMB (Besides @Roderick_Femm and @Ulfreida and @Green_Bean comes to mind.) I occasionally lurk at FPN, but I don’t post much.
I used to spend a lot of time reading the Nonreligious page at Patheos dot com, until I got a bit of malware that blocks the page with an annoying popup ad that can’t be closed. The comment section was usually fun. I’d occasionally comment on an evangelical blog as well, and actually have had had respectful discussions with evangelicals, including one of the bloggers, who could not seem to grasp the difference between “I believe God doesn’t exist” and “I don’t believe God exists”, and was unable to see that the burden of proof in the divinity of Jesus was on believers, not atheists (and this from a professor of theology at Baylor! But it was a fruitful and interesting discussion).
Back in the late 90’s I somehow got on one of those joke-of-the-day email lists. The person that sent the emails created a message board - MadDog or something like that. Mostly general chit chat, the vast majority of the posters were in Texas, iirc.
It eventually died out, but I was gone by then, having found the Darwin Award boards, before it blew up. One of the posters created a board for the DAB rejects, and I followed. He eventually disappeared / pursued new interests and one of the main posters created his own board.
That board is still around, lots of general chit chat based on knowing most people for over 15 years. I check in maybe once a month to see if anything new is going on, who’s still alive, who’s still a twit. It’s a very divided board without any censorship, so threads can get pretty het up.
I read the Giraffeboards, rarely post.
Mostly, if I’m not here, I’m on reddit. I don’t tend to engage in debate or deep conversations (as seen by my history here), so browsing a bunch of subs there is perfect for me. My favorite subs there deal with needlework, cute animals, r/Natureisfuckinglit, history, and UK TV. I’ve become addicted to more than a few UK programs, which kind redditors upload.
That’s actually one I was thinking of when I said there are subreddit communities. Brotheslow and mcarlson’s review videos are too funny.
Count me in on that list.
Tripler
I’m gonna be digging into a new message board, now!
I found this board from a similar thread on early-retirement.org so I will return the favor.
They are the same folks that support firecalc.com. You don’t have to be rich or retired just aspire to be. Lots of hobby threads and travel stories.
Also forum.lowcarber.org is a home for low carb dieters. There is an active journal forum where people meet and chat.
And me. I love fountain pens. Still have my treasured one from high school-an avocado green Parker. It’s age is creeping up on 55 years now and it still is a joy to write with. Not that I hand write much anymore. I collect pens from garage sales and thrift shops just because I love them. My kids think I’m nuts, but then they can’t write in cursive, so how could they know?
I’m still mourning the loss of a leather carrying case that held, among others, a treasured Parker Sonnet. Misplaced at work, and frantically searched for. I’d been carrying it for so long, it had conformed to the curve of my thigh.
Still, I’m a bit of a weirdie for a nib-head - I much prefer modern pens to vintage ones. My EDC, sitting on the desk next to me right now, is a Lamy Studio. Great handfeel, reliable starter - I’d take it over a vintage Vacumatic or 51, any day.
[Off Topic Declaration]
My EDC’s are Lamy pens as well. At home, I have a Platium (made in Japan) which is “iffy” in writing, but also a Cross fountain pen that glides on paper like a hot knife through butter.
[/OTD]
What were we talking about again? Oh, right, message boards. I just signed up for FPN.
Tripler
You might recognize a familiar user name.
My Parker used the first cartridges-so not the potentially messy vacumatic. I cheated and refilled cartridges with an old hypodermic syringe because I couldn’t afford cartridges.
I’ve been on Wrestling Classics since 2000 or so. There was someone from SDMB who had a bit of trouble there recently, but I don’t know if it’s anyone who has caused problems here.
Now I just did also. And again, a familiar username.
That’s exactly what I do. I call the little pen bag where I carry cartridges, ink, and my syringe my “works”.
i remeber back in the day there were pen threads that went for 50 to 60 pages once or twice a year …and i read more tan i needed to know about pens lol
I can’t even use a fountain pen, being left-handed. I just smear as I go.
Not an insurmountable obstacle:
There are also a good number of models out there specifically designed for southpaws.
Yeah, this right here. I posted a auto-repair question where everyone could see it and hopefully give me some help. It got moved to the ‘brand specific’ sub-forum where it sat for months unanswered.
It’s like going into an empty room and shouting at yourself.