I know this #Discord nonsense has a lot of people searching for alternatives (like Matrix, Stoat, etc), and those alternatives have a chance to shine right now.

[myterminal@fosstodon.org]

@killyourfm And again, the scale of the "micro" communities I've built isn't even remotely comparable to yours.

[killyourfm@layer8.space]

@flwwhtrbt Honestly, that's a bummer. There's still a fairly tall barrier to entry for quote/unquote normal users. Also, when I worked at Thunderbird, I can't tell you how many times we all ended up on Slack (our backup) because the Matrix instance was either down or not syncing or otherwise borked.

Not to mention using it on multiple devices can be a serious pain point.

[killyourfm@layer8.space]

@myTerminal 🥺 I've never understood the appeal of WhatsApp groups, not to mention despising the parent company.

[myterminal@fosstodon.org]

@killyourfm And the people who advocate for them use it all wrong! I believe in using the right tool for the job, and man have I seen people use it stuff.

[andrewbriscoe@mastodon.social]

@killyourfm I’ve never used Discord but all this discussion has made me want to start a hiking-related IRC server.

[glitchghost@retro-gaiden.com]

@killyourfm damn right, i only found out about RSS in 2022 or 2023 when i ditched social media for a while and it solved my dilemma of wanting to follow and keep up with stuff on the web without needing to signup for 200+ sites when i just want to follow and read stuff and its been around since 1999 and it never really went away and a ton of sites still use it today and i hope more people redicover it for those who want to be free of algorithms and its nice to see the fedi has RSS support

[glitchghost@retro-gaiden.com]

@killyourfm one thing is they need to add support for images in the RSS becuase i like when sites have full text RSS when you can get everything and read it in full with miages and videos right in the web reader without needing to go to the site itself, thats one thing i want to see if RSS becomes the norm again

[glitchghost@retro-gaiden.com]

@killyourfm another thing is a website needs to be open to where anyone can browse it without them being behind a login screen so thats one thing that might hurt RSS with how locked down the web has been becoming in the past few years at least on the big tech stuff but im sure that wont be an issue on the indie web and blogs and whatever else comes along. RSS is pretty much the subscribe button for the web

[julian@activitypub.space]

@glitchghost@retro-gaiden.com fwiw NodeBB is a federating forum that ships with full text RSS support

[mikeyp@hachyderm.io]

@killyourfm LOL, I posted the same sentiment this morning. I think the real trick is to make it as easy to set up and run a modern forum (secure, spam-free, ddos resistant, etc) as it was to setup phpbb back in the old days. Maybe Discourse is the way?

[jonathan859@someplace.social]

@BorrisInABox @killyourfm And then I need 50 accounts for the 50 Discord servers I'm in, and the forums will be half accessible or even better always differ in accessibility, will for sure not have voice channels and won't replace Discord because Discord is an instant messaging platform and no knowledge base.
I agree with your point, Discord should've never been used as forum replacement, but forums won't replace the main point of Discord.

[susannedoering@zirk.us]

@killyourfm Back to forums? Yes, please!!! I used to write in forums, found friends there, until that damned FB killed them all. I lost so many contacts (I never joined FB) and miss people and discussions about special topics ...

[illdisposed@mastodon.social]

@killyourfm Football fans forums for Premier Lesgue teams are quite active to be honest

[smilingdemon@mastodon.art]

@killyourfm I miss forums.

[borrisinabox@fwoof.space]

@jonathan859 @killyourfm You mean the point that way too many people aren't actually using Discord for?

[bbbhltz@framapiaf.org]

@killyourfm

Regarding forums, a few that I used to use have had to go "members only" or use firewalls like Anubis because of scrapers. It is frustrating for some users because they can't even use a regular search engine to look for things on their own forum. (This even pushed users to Discord!)

I do prefer having things open, and especially prefer not having to make an account. So I hope that forums stay mostly open and not members-only.

[mjj@mstdn.dk]

@killyourfm @myTerminal I have arrived at the conclusion that if someone I know enough for that kind of communication suggests a new *sensible* platform I am not already using, that is fine, I will use it. You have taken up Session or SimpleX: Cool. Let's do that. Even between Signal, Matrix, Delta Chat, Nextcloud Talk and Threema, I have a pretty good idea where people are. Of course, all this is for private communications, so not on a huge scale.

[techunt@mastodon.social]

I wasted so much time on badly moderated forums, I'm burnt out on them.

No, the answer "I don't know what I did, but now it's working" isn't a valid solution.
I'm also not going to find the answer on page 81 of 217, because most forum searches are not that great unfortunately.

There are some ways to make forums more useful, but they all require moderation and effort, which, let's be honest, will probably be handed over to an AI anyway.

[mjj@mstdn.dk]

@myTerminal @killyourfm I feel that discussing larger topics or resolving issues really turns to shit in the Wall-Of-Text era of discussion.
If one had suggested in the time of the forums - with the huge, deeply threaded discussions quoting several people in posts - that maybe we should just do this in IRC, people would have called that out as absurd.
Yes, the forums have a much bigger potential in large groups.

[hj@shigusegubu.club]

@killyourfm fediverse is the forum tho