
Ask HN: What are some more authentic online forums? - keiferski
I grew up in the late 90s on obscure message boards and in many ways it was my real introduction to the Internet. I really miss the community and authenticity of that world, which seems to have been replaced entirely by monocultural mass social media like Reddit.
======
scottlocklin
There's quite a few I can think of, but most of them I'd rather not mention so
the eye of Sauron passes them over.

Larger ones I don't mind mentioning:

I think bodybuilding.com is still what it was back in the day.

Sherdog is probably also still decent though I don't follow it.

The surviving /chans capture a lot of the spirit of old timey Usenet as well
for better and worse.

If you're into nice wristwatches watchuseek is same as ever; amazing the
energy that goes into such a niche thing.

Men's clothing/accessory forums are also quite active and good;
askandyonclothes, styleforum and ... tho I haven't checked lately fedoralounge
used to be good. These are kind of remarkable in that they, like the watch
forums, could be monetized in various scumb bag ways, but somehow remain good
communities oriented around consumer goods.

I think lot of energy still goes into old school email lists for special
interests as well. Though I don't follow it as I should, the J lists are
extremely high bandwidth/quality. IMO these are vastly better than platform
things on discord, reddit, discord, as they're always backed up and
uncensorable. You can get kicked out, but you'll still be able to read most of
them.

~~~
ClintEhrlich
Sherdog has suffered a lot from losing traffic to Reddit. The main forum still
has enough users that it superficially seems similar to how it was 10+ years
ago, but the subforums are dying.

F12, the grappling forum, used to be one of my favorite places on the
internet. It barely has new content anymore. There has, for reasons I don't
fully understand, been a mass exodus to r/BJJ.

I can't overstate the loss of community that occurred as a result. On reddit,
the fact that usernames aren't prominent and there are no avatars makes it
impossible to build "characters" in your mind. People are friendly, but they
are perpetual strangers.

Previously, I thought the upvoting and downvoting structure of Reddit was
great. But, when applied to a hobby I love, the results were soulless and
depressing. Opinions seem to be tailored to the crowd in a way they never were
on the F12 forum.

A lot of that may be that Reddit attracts younger people who are newer to the
sport. Whatever the reason, it's sad to see a great forum whither away.

Don't take online communities for granted. They seem immortal until they die.

~~~
scottlocklin
Thanks for the update; I no longer roll and don't follow the sport very much,
but it makes me sad to hear that all-devouring reddit is eating Sherdog.

I suspect the future of forums is going to be stuff which is kicked off of
platforms. For example: right wing people kicked out of reddit, or nude
enthusiast types formerly of Tumblr or whatever. There's probably a
r/bodybuilding reddit, but I bet it's tame and lame compared to the forum.

~~~
ClintEhrlich
Thanks for giving me an excuse to discuss Sherdog on HN!

They're the two places I hang out most.

Somehow, I suspect the intersection of their user bases is pretty tiny...

~~~
scottlocklin
There've been a few guys discussing judo and jiu jitsu on here ... I dunno
maybe you were one of them. My own BJJ dojo contained very few people over 30
who weren't Ph.D. in math/science types. Someone's probably giggling at this
but they were all 220+lbs and lean; overachievers, goldman trader types - they
all went to the best local dojo. We did have one Brazilian waiter guy (one of
the best in the dojo), but I really felt like an underachiever in general when
I'd enter their doors.

Come to think of it, many of the high ranking dudes in my Karate dojo also had
Ph.D. type education (LBNL Arnis club didn't count). Martial arts seems to
loan itself to personalities who can grind out difficult things.

------
dcchambers

      Mechanical Keyboards - https://geekhack.org
      Watches - https://forums.watchuseek.com/
      Role Playing (Video) Games - https://rpgcodex.net/forums
      Minecraft - https://www.minecraftforum.net/forums
      Linux - https://www.linuxquestions.org/
      Apple/Mac - https://forums.macrumors.com/
      Biking - https://www.bikeforums.net  & 
               https://forum.bikeradar.com/
    

Honestly, just pick one of your hobbies and go down the google rabbit hole.
Many forums still survive today for archival purposes and most hobbies have
very active independent forums.

\--

I'll admit I fell into the Reddit hole in the early 2010s and while I think it
has some value and I have discovered some cool communities I don't think I
ever would have known about otherwise, I do miss the "pre-reddit" internet
with more independent communities.

Lots of small groups seem to be migrating to Facebook as well - which really
sucks because the facebook groups interface sucks as a traditional discussion
forum.

~~~
fiftyacorn
cyclingnews forum is good too - i even like reading the posts in the clinic

------
jvagner
I'm particularly perplexed by [location] sub-reddits. No one uses the FAQs,
search, or Yelp. Everyone wants to post a daily request for a good place for a
drink, and a good hike, for just about every city on the planet.

The annoyances in those threads seem to keep other participants away. It'd be
nice to have a forum, message board, etc for people who are willing to try one
tick more than the masses.

~~~
tidepod12
It's not just the constant "anyone have good ____ recommendations?" posts. For
whatever reason, there is a tendency for local subreddits seem to be _much_
more vitriolic than most places on reddit (and that's saying something).
Threads about local happenings or even something as simple as posting a
picture of the skyline seems to bring immediate, intense ire from some always-
lurking posters. And God help you if you post an article about local politics.

r/Austin is particularly bad about this, but I've frequented several other
city subreddits and noticed the same.

~~~
hnick
That's probably because most people don't care one way or the other and skip
the whole thing.

Anyone who cares enough to frequent a sub about their home town probably has
fairly intense feelings for better or worse. That will naturally lead to
strong emotions and clashes.

Pretty much Web 2.0 in a nutshell.

------
hprotagonist
1\. find a weird and absurd hobby, nerd out into it hardcore, and then go to
the off-topic board for that hobby's shitty old phpBB forum run out of some
dude's basement.

2\. Freenode is still alive and well.

3\. Fark, SomethingAwful, etc. are still more or less in good health.

~~~
adingus
I came here to recommend somethingawful. Lowtax is a gift to the internet with
his commitment to keep the board going and not sell out... even while he is in
poor health.

------
kgwxd
I got into Atari 2600 homebrew a few years ago. I haven't made anything
playable yet, but the community is my favorite of all time. Even though the
community is pretty small, the AtariAge forums[1] are very active. Also,
there's a twice-weekly, hours-long live show[2] dedicated to playing 2600
homebrew games, and the developers of the featured games are often in the
chat. It's on twitch, which obviously isn't obscure, but the channel itself
is.

[1]
[https://atariage.com/forums/forum/50-atari-2600-programming/](https://atariage.com/forums/forum/50-atari-2600-programming/)

[2]
[https://www.twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew](https://www.twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew)
(will be live an hour from now)

------
vorpalhex
There are some very nice Discord communities. It's obviously more active than
a message board, and some of the better ones are invite-only or you have to
submit an application to join.

------
yread
I really like Professional Pilot rumor network for discussion of aviation
issues or funny stories from pilots and stewardesses. It has its own slang for
example SLF is us passengers (self-loading freight)

[https://pprune.org](https://pprune.org)

------
janeshmane
Longecity.org/forum is one I've been visiting for many years. It has some
pretty knowledgeable regulars and has never gotten popular enough to attract a
ton of corporate interest

------
indenturedsmile
I still think
[https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/](https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/) is
the premier forum for homebrewing (as in alcohol) information. All the various
homebrew subreddits and other forums seem lacking in either content,
organization, or expertise.

------
IronWolve
Australian tech forum that seems to still be going strong.
[https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/](https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/)

~~~
lachmpatterson
I occasionally stumble on their internet/networking threads (my house got
skipped by the NBN) - I'm surprised how popular the site still is.

------
joecool1029
There aren't too many active newsgroups, but Usenet can be pretty authentic if
you do find ones.

I tell people that I visit there to chat with senior citizens bitching at each
other. It's great!

For the unmoderated groups, it's left up to you to filter out trolls. No
shadowbanning/downvoting.

------
AceyMan
A few of my favorites not yet listed:

Knives & such, [https://www.bladeforums.com/](https://www.bladeforums.com/)
[https://forum.spyderco.com/](https://forum.spyderco.com/)

Tennis String, [https://stringforum.net/](https://stringforum.net/)

Perfumery, [http://www.basenotes.net/](http://www.basenotes.net/)

Road bicycle hardware,
[https://weightweenies.starbike.com/forum/](https://weightweenies.starbike.com/forum/)

------
marczellm
[https://what.thedailywtf.com](https://what.thedailywtf.com) is a place for IT
/ software people to rant. If you're into rants. I find it fun.

[https://forums.musicplayer.com](https://forums.musicplayer.com) is a place
for musicians, songwriters, mixing, mastering etc. I only visit the
keyboardist section, Keyboard Corner. It is an exceptionally civil place, the
people are cool, helpful and professional. Some outstanding experts frequent
the forum.

------
InterimNew
I love this question. The information density and longevity of old forums is
hard to replicate on Reddit, Discord, or Facebook groups.

I’ve been spending a lot of time over at
[https://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/index.php](https://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/index.php)
recently. It’s THE forum for modular synthesis in all forms and for me it
really scratches the hacker/musician/tinkerer itch.

------
Mountain_Skies
For urban planning and skyscraper enthusiasts, there are the forums on
skyscraperpage.com and city-data.com.

------
Trixter
Vintage Computing:
[http://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum.php](http://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum.php)

Very pure community around all things vintage computing; has stayed mostly the
same for 12 years (and still very helpful).

------
bilbo0s
I could be wrong, but I'd posit that if there were a good place for high
quality, genuine, and useful online forums out there, HN is one of the last
places they would advertise their presence. There very likely are such forums
out there, but I'm sure they don't want the internet showing up at their door
tomorrow morning. They probably created their little slice of heaven just so
that they do not have to deal with the great unwashed masses and a lot of the
inanity and incivility that comes with them.

A corollary to that, of course, is that most of the answers we'd get to this
question on HN, are likely not the sort of sites for which we are searching.
:(

------
albydarned
If you're a developer interested in Elixir, check out
[https://elixirforum.com](https://elixirforum.com). It is such an inclusive
community and I find most people on there to be quite genuine!

------
CalRobert
I hate saying this because it's the migration from open to closed and
corporate controlled, but there's a fair number of good Slack groups. I'm in
some for Irish cycle infrastructure campaigning, the local tech community,
etc.

~~~
viraptor
For infra/ops people there's also hangops.slack.com

------
palehose
[https://www.phantasytour.com](https://www.phantasytour.com) is one of my
favorites. Phish in particular has a very vibrant community, if you enjoy
their music you can find lots of other people who are passionate about them on
just about any social network. For people who are easily offended there is
also a forum on phish.net that prefers to avoid hostile conversations.
Phantasy Tour has a lot of obscene discussions that most people would find
offensive but is tolerated on this forum.

------
dceddia
If you like building TARDISes or have ever thought of building one, there is
[http://tardisbuilders.com/](http://tardisbuilders.com/)

------
ChanningAllen
• [https://www.indiehackers.com](https://www.indiehackers.com): community for
tech bootstrappers with a bit of overlap with the HN community (full
disclosure: I help run this community)

• [https://www.designernews.co](https://www.designernews.co): community for
designers

• [https://www.wattpadwriters.com](https://www.wattpadwriters.com): community
for aspiring storytellers

------
howard941
You should have seen netnews when we had it

~~~
kps
Today is Wednesday, the 9507th of September, 1993.

------
egypturnash
Ugh same. I went out asking if anyone had pointers to a decent comics forum
the other month (I make them and miss having somewhere to hang out with other
people who do) and all I got were offers to people’s Discords, which feel like
the exact opposite of what I want.

~~~
grey-area
What do you hate about discord, too chatty and ephemeral?

~~~
egypturnash
That’s a good start. I like to work offline so I am always following up on
conversations, never having one. BBSs are a ton more friendly to people who
log on occasionally.

Being corporate owned, with lots of obnoxious GAMERZZZ branding doesn’t help
either. Oh and it being a web app that ships with it’s own memory-hungry and
cpu-chewing browser is a nice touch too. Using Ripcord helps all but the
“real-time chats suck” and “corporate owned fora suck” but those are still
some pretty big sources of suck.

------
rcavezza
A lot of people still communicate on messageboards - especially in specific
niche communities. A fantasy football website I frequent has a messageboard
and so does my favorite football team.

------
reilly3000
Does anybody spend a lot of time on a Discourse forum? Our team is working on
building one out, and trying to figure out the magic formula for engagement.

------
waste_monk
Something Awful is great, at least partly because the paywall (if you aren't
logged in you see a very restricted view of the site, with a profanity filter
on top) and $10 USD joining fee combined with the active moderation team is
very effective at stopping rule breakers - you can rejoin (for another $10) if
you get banned, but if you continue to be odious you will eventually get
permabanned (which I think extends to preventing any credit cards associated
with you from purchasing new accounts). There are a few serial pests who keep
trying regardless, but they number in the single or low tens of people.

------
cjf4
If you're into fantasy football, footballguys is still very active, and tends
to be a mature forum.

------
mrandish
www.RCGroups.com has been around for ~20 years and is stronger than ever with
sub-forums for everything radio-controlled from airplanes, helis and boats to
drones, subs and FPV (first-person view). Interestingly, the Reddit RC forums
get very little traction in comparison.

------
sohodlers
I think it depends on what community you are looking for. For example, if you
are a fishing person, then just google: fisher forum then you’d find some
helpful community. But remember, sometimes people on the internet like to make
joke about almost everything, don’t take it personally & I’m sure you’ll have
some fun on this vast internet world :)

------
busterarm
The Shacktac forum for that Arma 3 community, though you have to be a member
to use it.

Ultimate Metal.

------
wilsonnb3
Talkbass is still the best place on the web to to discuss bass guitar.

------
senorito
shroomery.org is a great forum.

([https://www.shroomery.org/forums/](https://www.shroomery.org/forums/))

------
klanklab
Love it. With the beepers texting on early phones

------
peruvian
Resetera for gaming and off topic discussion.

~~~
finnthehuman
GAF has gotten pretty good now that all the groupthink has moved over to
resetera.

------
kimusan
Forums? naaah IRC is the place to be

------
ndidi
The chans? Something Awful? MeFi?

------
forthispurpose
Anyone knows a good yoga forum?

------
macando
[https://slatestarcodex.com/](https://slatestarcodex.com/)

If you're into long intellectual essays on deeply investigated obscure topics
you won't find a better place. I opened it once or twice. The community is
surprisingly active.

------
ludwigvan
SellerCrowd.

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