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xkeeperIn another loss for the old internet, SRK is closing down its forums. I can't say I was ever a participant there, but they were another staple of the old internet; a holdout of the rampant centralization everywhere. No longer the case, unfortunately.
The post itself doesn't mention anything about archival or exporting — "they cost us money to maintain", though someone in the comments says they're looking into solutions — but it does mention where to go next:
None of these replace a forum, at all. Here is a quick, unscientific breakdown of features:
Forums offer a far better way to discuss, with threads grouping a chronologically-ordered set of responses. A thread that is still getting active replies will continue to float to the top of the forum, staying visible, while idle/dead topics shift to the bottom. Hotly-debated threads stay at the forefront.
Reddit's posts are heavily time-weighted, requiring an ever-larger amount of upvotes to stay near the top, even if it's being commented on heavily. There is nothing that can be done to keep a post active outside of stickying it, making threads very ephemeral. Comments are by-default sorted by upvotes and threaded, so every comment introduces a potential fork in discussion, and you can only view so many comments deep at once. New comments are often completely invisible, buried under the initial discussion, and even then still subjected to the popularity content of upvoting. Seeing comments "hijack" a top comment by replying to it for increased visibility is a thing that happens.
Facebook and Twitter, with ever-increasing heavy focus on ~algorithmic sort~, mean that it's entirely possible a post will flatly not appear, or be buried, without any input from the user, with no easy way to show it. These also fall into the popularity contest problem by displaying "likes", in effect gamifying discussion.
Gamifying discussion like this is bad; it incentivizes writing posts and messages that, rather than being useful, are "quick hits"; jokes, insults, other things designed to garner lots of attention. In some cases, these then float to the top, drowning out actual discussion, all while rewarding the people who do it. (The inverse is true, too; people who write a lot or produce good discussions may not see much out of this popularity contest, decide what they're writing isn't wanted, and leave, even if it's very useful.)
Moving to these platforms also includes a tacit buy-in on whatever asinine changes are hoisted onto the platform; while you can usually control your forum's appearance and behavior, you have zero control over how users sign up to Reddit, or how they view it; your users might suddenly find themselves faced with an awkward behavior-testing A/B run, or constantly be harassed to install apps to "view the content better". Facebook also requires real names, removing anybody who values anonymity or just keeping their personas separate; and trying to have any meaningful discussion on Twitter is all but impossible.
(There's also the problem of opening yourself up to the rampant bullshit and harassment across subreddits by cross-linking. While people can link your forum elsewhere, most people reading it wherever will probably not have an account to readily harass people with.)
I didn't mention Discord, but Discord is primarily a chat application, not a discussion forum; finding resources in it is nearly impossible.
(Technically, new-era forums like Discourse are also bad, because they lean very heavily on the "gamification of social interactions" concept...
...
In SRK's case, the loss of the community also impacts it in other ways:
A town center without any place to gather is just a strip mall... and those already exist everywhere.
The post itself doesn't mention anything about archival or exporting — "they cost us money to maintain", though someone in the comments says they're looking into solutions — but it does mention where to go next:
Reddit, discord, facebook groups, twitter etc.
None of these replace a forum, at all. Here is a quick, unscientific breakdown of features:
| Traditional forum | Facebook/Twitter | |
|---|---|---|
| Chronologically sorted posts | Comments sorted on voting | ~algorithms~ |
| Threads ordered by most recent activity | upvote-sorting, heavily weighted towards "rising" new posts | ~algorithms~ |
| Single thread of posts | Comments create individual 'threads | ~algorithms~ and/or two-level comment threads |
| Generally no pos/neg feedback system | Upvotes/downvotes | Likes/Favorites |
| Thread longivity determined by activity | Old posts quickly die | ~algorithms~ but most-recent OP first |
| New comments as visible as old ones | Sorting methods make it hard to find new comments; "new since last visit" paid-only feature | Deluge of notifications for every comment on a "liked" post |
| Self-hosted and moderated, distinct community | Sub-community of a centralized site, own moderation | Total centralization. Moderation? lol |
| Different sub-forums/categories for organization | "Post flares", but no built-in filtering of them | Hashtags??? |
Forums offer a far better way to discuss, with threads grouping a chronologically-ordered set of responses. A thread that is still getting active replies will continue to float to the top of the forum, staying visible, while idle/dead topics shift to the bottom. Hotly-debated threads stay at the forefront.
Reddit's posts are heavily time-weighted, requiring an ever-larger amount of upvotes to stay near the top, even if it's being commented on heavily. There is nothing that can be done to keep a post active outside of stickying it, making threads very ephemeral. Comments are by-default sorted by upvotes and threaded, so every comment introduces a potential fork in discussion, and you can only view so many comments deep at once. New comments are often completely invisible, buried under the initial discussion, and even then still subjected to the popularity content of upvoting. Seeing comments "hijack" a top comment by replying to it for increased visibility is a thing that happens.
Facebook and Twitter, with ever-increasing heavy focus on ~algorithmic sort~, mean that it's entirely possible a post will flatly not appear, or be buried, without any input from the user, with no easy way to show it. These also fall into the popularity contest problem by displaying "likes", in effect gamifying discussion.
Gamifying discussion like this is bad; it incentivizes writing posts and messages that, rather than being useful, are "quick hits"; jokes, insults, other things designed to garner lots of attention. In some cases, these then float to the top, drowning out actual discussion, all while rewarding the people who do it. (The inverse is true, too; people who write a lot or produce good discussions may not see much out of this popularity contest, decide what they're writing isn't wanted, and leave, even if it's very useful.)
Moving to these platforms also includes a tacit buy-in on whatever asinine changes are hoisted onto the platform; while you can usually control your forum's appearance and behavior, you have zero control over how users sign up to Reddit, or how they view it; your users might suddenly find themselves faced with an awkward behavior-testing A/B run, or constantly be harassed to install apps to "view the content better". Facebook also requires real names, removing anybody who values anonymity or just keeping their personas separate; and trying to have any meaningful discussion on Twitter is all but impossible.
(There's also the problem of opening yourself up to the rampant bullshit and harassment across subreddits by cross-linking. While people can link your forum elsewhere, most people reading it wherever will probably not have an account to readily harass people with.)
I didn't mention Discord, but Discord is primarily a chat application, not a discussion forum; finding resources in it is nearly impossible.
(Technically, new-era forums like Discourse are also bad, because they lean very heavily on the "gamification of social interactions" concept...
...
In SRK's case, the loss of the community also impacts it in other ways:
The rest of the site is pretty replaceable though.
Its just a fighting game news blog. You as editor do a good job, but as someone who created and administrated a good couple of websites I am very sure that it is the forum that is reponsible for many of the visitors that read the blog.
80%+ of the news you share here can also be found on all the big gaming sites, even on the not so good ones like Kotaku etc on the same days.
Its the forum that made SRK still special for us. And I say that as someone who was rarely active there but visited it for info or just the many many theories in the Street Fighter Story thread while logged off.
A town center without any place to gather is just a strip mall... and those already exist everywhere.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-01-09 01:39 (UTC)That's one heck of a good line to end on.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-01-09 04:30 (UTC)And yes, while I am fine with more modern forum platforms like Discourse -- and heck, I think Reddit is okay - although it's more of a timewaster/entertainment device than a discussion platform - internet forums are probably the oldest and most efficient way to have a discussion online.
Heck, the Roblox forums were recently completely gutted last year as well - and while I kind of do see the point of doing so (since that site is more aimed at kids and those forums are mostly filled with prepubescent teenagers), it's still just terabytes of data down the drain.
So, uh, yeah. Praise forums. (And Discord servers, too.)
(no subject)
Date: 2018-01-09 05:32 (UTC)in a dumpsterin the world, but not as a place for meaningful, nuanced discussion. It's good for memes and maybe links, but beyond that it's terrible.I have no doubts that SA would cease to exist if not for the forums, and even then at the rate things have been going...