Are FB Groups Taking Traffic Away From WWW Forums?

[Hatta]

Heh, back in the late 1990's I was similarly lamenting how web forums were taking all the users/discussion away from my beloved USENET groups... (However, the SPAM problem got so bad on USENET by 2000 it was dying anyway.)

Damned right. The internet would be a better place if we all went back to USENET and IRC.

[fdurso224]

Facebook, the ultimate surveillance site!

 

Anthony...

[+adamchevy]

I haven't used forums besides AtariAge for a long time. The last forums I remember being on were on AOL over dialup in the early nintenties.

[BassGuitari]

Atari Age is literally the only site/forum i've ever seen that doesn't devolved into bickering on a daily basis.

Clearly you're reading the wrong threads.

[Andromeda Stardust]

All web forums I've ever participated in had some amounts of bickering going on. Some of it is highly entertaining, others not so much. I remember one gaming forum that had a "graveyard" forum which all locked topics got moved to. Some of it was quite fascinating.

[Austin]

I've been thinking about this question for a bit, and I have to say I don't think Facebook is taking away much from forums. I run a FB group page for my YouTube channel and I've also been the admin of a Retro Gaming themed group as well, and it doesn't seem like legitimate conversation happens that often. Well, no conversations that aren't lost to time within a day anyway. So that said, no, I don't think it's taking away from forums directly.

 

Maybe other things are taking people away? Or maybe some of your typical forum goers are just getting tired of it. There are a lot of jaded folks (even around these parts) and some of the wiser individuals may have just said, "You know, life is too short. I've had enough."

 

AtariAge, the shmups forum and PinSide are really the only ones I frequent nowadays. That would probably change (or at least, the frequency I visit these forums would) if I didn't have a job where I sit at a computer for 40 hours out of my week.

 

The internet would be a better place if we all went back to IRC.

 

Well, maybe.. that is, if everyone wanted a greater chance of being hacked, then sure.

Edited February 12, 2015 by Austin

[VectorGamer]

Heh, back in the late 1990's I was similarly lamenting how web forums were taking all the users/discussion away from my beloved USENET groups... (However, the SPAM problem got so bad on USENET by 2000 it was dying anyway.)

 

Usenet was cool. Then SPAM happened.

 

AtariAge, the shmups forum and PinSide are really the only ones I frequent nowadays. That would probably change (or at least, the frequency I visit these forums would) if I didn't have a job where I sit at a computer for 40 hours out of my week.

 

 

Me too - sitting at my desk 8 hours a day not doing much work. I don't use AA on the weekends just so I have something to do Monday morning getting caught up on threads.

[+Atari_Warlord]

I post 1 or 2 times a year on facebook. Besides the anti privacy stance they take, I also don't like the constant whining from every business, podcast, group, etc. to "like" them.

[Bill Loguidice]

I try to be flexible, so I'm active on places where others are active, and that includes Facebook. Particularly for some of the more obscure platforms, it's a convenient place to get/exchange info.

[82-T/A]

The real question is... are www forums taking away from bulletin board systems?

 

Hahah...

[omegadot]

The comment folding and overall structure makes Facebook difficult to use for much more than glorified comments.

Edited February 12, 2015 by omegadot

[Andromeda Stardust]

Also the fact what when someone actually takes the time to post something worth reading besides a one or two word response like "cool" or "that's awesome", everybody's like "TL:DR".

 

What the hell? Sometimes those "wall of text" posts are the most fascinating to read, provided it's not one of the many religious / political / racist motivated diatribes. Another blow to FacePalm, due to the sheer frequency of posts, the bulk of it is almost entirely un-moderated. I don't FacePalm, but I have a friend who does, and sometimes he'll read comments so assinine it makes him want to log off and never come back. But come back he always does...

[MrMaddog]

I don't see FB groups as a threat to web forums because they're no different than someone's profile page. I used to be on one of the Atari related groups but the person running it (won't say who) kept correcting people who didn't agree with their viewpoint. At least you're allowed to have two sided conversations on AA for better or worse...

 

As for FB itself, I only use it to keep touch with close people who I WISH would use some other service. Preferably w/o the constant spamming of social causes and conspiracy theories.

[godslabrat]

If I had my way, we'd all go back to Usenet.

[Pixelboy]

Two weeks ago, I was in a web programming class at my local university, and the teacher said the internet was "progressing", while forums were stuck in their own time bubble of sorts. I wanted to invite him to AtariAge to try to change his opinion but I didn't see the point.

 

I've never had a Facebook account, and as a guy who watches FB distantly from the sidelines, it's funny how it's sometimes like this select club, especially when FB forces you to log on with username and password just to let you see some random piece of content that someone else gave you a link to.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Two weeks ago, I was in a web programming class at my local university, and the teacher said the internet was "progressing", while forums were stuck in their own time bubble of sorts. I wanted to invite him to AtariAge to try to change his opinion but I didn't see the point.

 

I've never had a Facebook account, and as a guy who watches FB distantly from the sidelines, it's funny how it's sometimes like this select club, especially when FB forces you to log on with username and password just to let you see some random piece of content that someone else gave you a link to.

I don't get it. Some links I'm able to view without an account, while others are automatic redirects to login page. Dairy Palace, off I20 in Texas somewhere between Dallas and Shreveport, sells the best burgers I've ever tasted. They had a wifi hotspot that required your Facepalm login in order to access the Internet. It also tags the location on your account I believe. What the hell? It it too hard to comprehend the fact that maybe there are people using the internet who don't use or have a Facepalm login? Not to mention, logging into a rougue wifi hotspot with your Facepalm credentials would be a stupid easy way to get your account hijacked. The location ping could also alert would-be-burgalers that you're travelling out-of-state or abroad. Nearly every damn website now including AtariAge, has an option to login using Facepalm. Some sites even require FP to post comments to. Ever read their privacy policy? I did, and won't touch them with a ten foot pole. See the Southpark episode Human-cent-ipad for a hilareous take on what might happen to you when you sign up for something without reading the fine print!

Edited February 15, 2015 by stardust4ever