I miss traditional message boards. No karma, no sorting algorithms, you just get new topics on top and replies are sorted oldest to newest.

You can have forum threads that go on for decades, but Lemmy’s default sorting system quickly sweeps older content away. I’m aware you can mimic the forum format by selecting the “chat” option in a thread and sorting by old, and you can sort posts by “latest comment” which replicates the old-school forum experience pretty well, but nobody does it that way, so the community behaves in the manner facilitated by the default sorting algorithm that prioritizes new content over old but still relevant content.

I also notice that I don’t pay attention to usernames on Lemmy (or Reddit back when I was on it). They’re just disembodied thoughts floating through the ether. On message boards, I get to know specific users, their personalities and preferences and ups and downs. I notice when certain users don’t post for a while and miss them if they’re gone for too long.

EDIT: given this is my most upvoted post on here to date I’d say the answer is yes.

  • Flamekebab@piefed.socialEnglish
    3·
    1 day ago

    Tremendously. Forums give me a social boost, social media and Reddit-alikes don’t. As you say - disembodied voices.

    I detest the deliberately ephemeral nature of modern platforms.

      • Flamekebab@piefed.socialEnglish
        1·
        16 hours ago

        Yeah, I get a bit of it through Mastodon and I’ve been to a meetup there which was delightful (Jeff Minter bought me fish & chips!). I think a bit more emphasis on user profiles (bigger avatars, signatures, stuff like that) would help a lot.

        I’ve run forums and been part of them. At the moment I don’t really have time but I expect I will again in future. I keep using stuff like Lemmy but it just doesn’t make my brain happy like forums did.

        The asynchronous nature of them helped a great deal. Here I feel like threads have a lifespan of a day or two at most. I don’t want to have to engage immediately in order to take part.

        I also don’t like the whole upvote/downvote thing. I’m good at it but it colours every interaction in a way I find deeply problematic.