Or, like forums with off-topic sections. Slow paced, the shared interests are obvious, you can private chat if you want and you can join multiple forums to meet your needs.
This is only my opinion, but I think forums do everything necessary really, with the only difficult things to manage being:
- good moderation
- site maintenance
Which Facebook et al really fail at with the former. I also personally dislike how Discourse attempts to make forums more like chat apps.
specific niche forums foster good communities IMO. I've been on a rocketry forum for about 4 years and it's a very close knit healthy community. There's a forum called "the watering hole" for general off-topic discussion, i'm not there often but it looks to be a good place.
It also helps that the only ads/monetization going on are some banner ads from various rocketry store websites. The forum is run just as a service to the hobby and not to make money.
This is only my opinion, but I think forums do everything necessary really, with the only difficult things to manage being:
- good moderation
- site maintenance
Which Facebook et al really fail at with the former. I also personally dislike how Discourse attempts to make forums more like chat apps.