Looking for a Home Online

Hi lain. I was the poster from >>>/hum/2366 and I wanted to discuss about the state of the Internet for a long time, and I've written a looooong draft, but I find it was verbose enough to be a conversation stopper. So long words short. I also decided to post in /tech/ instead of /hum/ because it's more about technology. It's all went to this: >In 2017, is there still a place to have actual, interesting talks and conversations on the Internet? The state of Internet communities nowadays: >WWW Internet forums: almost dead. no fresh info. >blogosphere: everyone has a not-updated blog today, the "community" ~2007 is dead. >imageboards: 95% brewing soykaf (used to be 90%?), spitted to multiple sites, (since 2013) full of discord, nationalist movement ongoing. >social media: most people migrated, can have good conversations from time to time. but too short, informal and temporary for real discussions. Also the walled garden and mass surveillance. I've spent a year or two looking for a "home" online community without success, still a nomadic refugee now. Now, look at those Usenet posts from 1987! really makes you think ha? We had people actually knowing what they were doing and fairly interesting discussions and relatively good community. What are /Ω/'s opinions? For me, I was about to conclude that the main "hub" of online information exchange (used to be Usenet, mailing list, blogs, etc) became the social media and it's the most inferior form of platform in many aspects and led to the current state of the Internet.

more Usenet posts.

I sympathize strongly with your view, but I often wonder if my disappointment in all the things you listed is simply the result of me aging and no longer having the motivation to integrate myself into the new communities, a longing for a past I wasn't a part of (usenet, BBSes), and disliking the change in culture that the people growing up in are going to love, and someday mourn when the culture changes on them. Internet forums are almost dead to my eyes, too, but maybe that's just because I'm not motivated to join any anymore. Several of the ones I used to frequent are still around and I come across new ones frequently, I just don't log in. I'd rather get my discussion done without the hassle of registering or dealing with e-peen nonsense, and so I stick to imageboards. It does seem like many forums have since moves to facebook groups, which I dislike for the reasons you'd except any user of this site to dislike it for. The blogosphere I disagree with you on. I think blogs are still going strong, they've just moved from 2007's livejournal days to tumblr and wordpress. >>5693 >double des and from this usenet post, eventually triple des was born. That's very interesting to see. Thank you for sharing.

I think that forums and non-major imageboards to an extent have gone out of style. This can be evidenced by the decline of traffic. Some forums are still alive but it's clear the party's winding down. IRC is still alive for programming discussion. Popular imageboards are difficult since anyone could be a corporate advertizer or a wumao, but there is a lot of info to be gleamed like extremely fast live updates of breaking news or hobby info (ck cgl trv/int k out mu lit, etc.). But never underestimate the easy of influence on anonymous sites since it levels the playing field. Also most people there on popular boards are young (18-23) which has the pros of giving a glimpse into '''youth culture''' at the expense of a lack of reasonable discussion. Places like mu, lit, tv, and other media boards are good starting points for media discovery, but not discussion. Reddit isn't so bad on certain subreddits for specialized info, but once they get a certain amount of subscribers it moves in a predictable pattern and advertisers invade. As a whole it represents the "reader's digest" of the internet, but is invaluable for semi-anonymous local discussion. Facebook is good if you want to connect with non-techies on specialized topics or local discussion, but it comes with the same problems of fake accounts. If you are in certain local scenes (DIY, punk, other hobbiest stuff) it can be a real benefit if you chat with some people and form relationships. It definitely skews older compared to others, but is the internet for a lot of non-tech-adjacent people. Twitter is alright but reaching critical mass. There's still so much content on here. I'd put my bets on mastodon being the future though, you should check that out. Tumblr is neat if you're an artist or artistic/edgy 14-23 y/o. Places like Discord, slack/mattermost/rocketchat, or IRC are usually for specialized, identity-based discussion and can have some great conversations if you're looking for that. Blogs are always around and are referred to by HN/lobsters/reddit/facebook/twitter. Medium is where a lot of them are hosted nowadays, but it's not the sole aggregation space by any means. For your purposes, you'd need to tell us what sort of discussion you are looking for. I lean towards business programming so my experiences and biases lean there. Since you talk about general discussion, all I'd recommend is searching around for IRC rooms. There's great discussion to be found there, but it's like walking into a room where people may have already been friends for years. It takes a long time to get acquainted. Overall, just treat social media as a collection of people. Find people you like to chat with and you can form a platform-independent relationship with them. If you really want good discussions, you need to get to know somebody first.

I agree with you, discussion on the internet is declining and it's not just the case of 'getting older'. Back in the days of OPs usenet posts, the internet wasn't accesible, it required some knowledge in computers, setting it up, knowing the places to go etc. so only people who cared abou it joined. Since the internet is omnipresent nowadays, there is no skill involved to get in. While I believe that's a good thing and will ultimately lead to a more open and spoken society, discussion will get worse simply because a huge percentage doesn't care about it. They would rather have instant laughs and funny memes than something hard to think about. It potrays society very well. But like society, there's still intelligent people having interesting discussion, somewhere on the fringe of the net and these groups are probably small as hell too. TLDR: If you're into lowbrow stuff, the internet is great.

IMO, this is why I often think of starting my own imageboard. I would probably never get traction, but I would control the topics and the quality of the discussion if it went off the ground.

>>5701 >IMO, this is why I often think of starting my own imageboard This has been done to death. There's thousands and all they do is fragment the "community" of nomads and old users that for some reason still bother with the internet.

>>5704 >that for some reason still bother with the internet anonymous exchanges like these don't go anywhere, but underground where everyone know you by the pseudonym there is a lot of specialized info sharing... that is if you're in the right chatrooms

>>5705 >>that is if you're in the right chatrooms >neurosuggesting they exist

>>5706 >neurosuggesting they don't

>>5704 I do not think that independent image boards 'fragment' the community. Every day, the big sites, facebook, 4chan, 8chan, etc. spin off users who are looking for something else, usually something small, these people might find themselves on something like Lainchan or one of our other affiliates. These people tell their friends when they find somewhere cool and sfw to lurk. I do not think we are 'fighting' over a diminishing share of the pie.

IRC channels still seem like a decent bastion - what servers/channels do lains frequent?

You all might be interested in the Tox thread >>4082 I don't think I can say much. I too am not sure if the Internet has changed so much or if it's just me. I will share my experience. I'm Brazilian. Here we used to have a very big social network called Orkut. Everyone had an Orkut profile, young normal people, old normal people and outsiders of almost all ages. Orkut communities pages were basically forums. You could create threads like in a forum, you would have moderation like in a forum. Yet people would post with their more or less "Social" profiles. Even with all those disadvantages it wasn't hard to find quality discussion (usually in smaller and slower communities). Then facebook became popular in ~2011. Almost instantly all conventional web forums in the country died. Admins frequently said they were trying to transfer the communities to facebook. You could think that this "death" was temporary, while people tried to establish their new virtual home. But since then it has been much harder to find good communities. There is also the fact that we can still find decent communities in smallers subreddits, smallers chans and some generals. This leads me to think that this "death" of the Internet might have, indeed, something to do with the format that discussions take in facebook. Maybe the fact that anything you say gets so much exposure makes people fear reprehension from their peers? Maybe the fact that all content on facebook is shaped to sell you stuff? And critical consumers are bad consumers? Now elaborating on the fact that it is still possible to find good content on small communities and that in the past, at least in my experience, smaller communities tended to be better. I think that maybe the "secret" to a good discussion is tight moderation, assuming it's form isn't as disastrous as in facebook. And that a small amount of the social element is only good as long as it is just enough to allow self moderation of the community.

>>5716 You make some good observations. If I had to point to one thing for the decline of forums/imageboards/self hosted blogs it would probably be "web 2.0" style social media in general, with facebook as the primary example. Their design creates a specific dynamic that is less about communal discussion space (i.e. a public "forum") and more about mass media on top of individual connections. There is not really a sense of "instagram culture" or "facebook culture" other than some broad generalizations. They aren't communities any more than the phone book is a community. I think the best way of explaining what we are looking at here is "the rise of mass culture on the internet". And no surprises here: mass culture is bullsoykaf like always. So accepting this inevitability, I think all any of us can do is seek out homes for ourselves on the fringes. Experiment with new communications platforms that fall in line with your ideals and you'll find like-minded people there. Personally, I'd like to see self-hosted personal sites make a comeback. Static blogs with hyperlinks to other blogs and forums that you like. Also sorry for all the dumbass buzzwords in this post. But it's kind of hard to talk about this kind of thing without using them.

>>5719 Not buzzwords. In Brazil Philosophy and Sociology used to be obligatory high school disciplines. I think your hypothesis of mass media on top of individual connections is very interesting.

>>5709 lainchan IRC regular here. #lainchan is a fuarrrkin' happenin' place, you can have a really engaging conversation there. The downside is that it's 70% soykafposts. The other channels are slightly less happenin' but way higher quality. irc.pdgn.co is a great place hosted by a friend of mine, it's mostly academic types talking academic things. Usually dead during the school year. If you soykaf it up you will be derezzed. Aside from that, if you're looking for specialized info the rizon or freenode channels for/about that info are almost always stocked with experts. >>5719 agree. I wish neocities.org became a bigger thing.

>>5721 >I wish neocities.org became a bigger thing. be the change! vofs.neocities.org

>>5723 king-radical.neocities.org I haven't updated it in aaaages ;_;

>>5724 i'm gonna link you (have to actually make a links page first -_- ). maybe we should have a thread for this.

My homebase online for a decade or so is an old school forum that is currently socially imploding. Most of the users already left for facetwitter, and the drama between stragglers (and the org that legally owns the site but hasn't laid a finger on it except to fvck it up occasionally) is too stupid to go into. Some of the longterm users are vehemently anti-FB, either for /sec/ reasons or just because they think it's dumb but none of us are very tech savvy either. We're trying to start a cluster of blogs using a fairly outdated platform that is modeled after livejournal of all things but so far, the posts there are like a return to what the old community was supposed to be without all the bull isht. The thing is, this is a group of people that have come to know and respect each other so the format is almost secondary... but the "outdated" format and simply not being FB will weed out certain people we don't want to deal with, without having to actively bar anyone. Just my scene report, for what it's worth. I've got a good feeling about it so far.

Thanks for the follow-ups, lainons! >>5695 >simply the result of me aging and no longer having the motivation to integrate I'm not that old... Actually I wasn't alive yet when this Usenet thread was posted. More background, I'm not a native English speaker and the only reason I started to browse English imageboards, was memes. The meme + anime subculture is essential in the Internet culture of my native language, and I was interested in meme culture so I decided to also look the English-equivalent, and it was the point of no return... >underestimate the influence on anonymous sites >youth culture Never. I always appreciate the existence of imageboards, there is no similar thing in my native language and how the collective mind of imageboard behaving like an organic structure was really surprising (only Usenet can be comparable I think?), and I wanted to identify imageboard as my "home" site. But since 2007 the general climate of the hilarious imageboard culture started to change, first there was Anonymous "Chanology" hacktivism, later becoming IRL "movement", praised by the mainstream as "we the people" movement at first, and it turned out how harmful the act was to imageboards. Then we've seen Ron "It's happening" Paul (still good at this point), and after 2013, gamergate, and the imageboard and Internet culture seemed to be inseparable from the current nationalistic movement (I wasn't here when all of these was happening, but I read), too much political discord, at the same time the amount of soykafposts seemed to have increased from 80% (still okay) to 90%. Is this why we can't have nice things? And I started to be more and more alienated by all the imageboard culture things. I pretty sure this is why how everyone agreed to reject politics here, well done! At this point I suddenly realized on the entire Internet, there are no other places to talk beside Facebook/Twitter social media, Reddit, and imageboards, I was shocked... Anyway, this is how I became more interested in Internet subculture and its social, political and cultural aspects in general. And I start to dig the past, read Usenet, archive.org from ~2001, etc. >Popular imageboards are difficult since anyone could be a corporate advertizer or a wumao I don't believe the major downfall of imageboards can simply be attributed as "wumao" posters, it's more about the social phenomenon (and yes it can be influenced by corporate forces, e.g. Facebook), the "wage slave" witch-hunting on /p0l/ was also ridiculous. >As a whole Reddit represents the "reader's digest" of the internet. Agree. Never on Reddit, earlier in this year I start to use Reddit's cyberpunk board as a newsfeed to read (but not for discussions), sometimes there are interesting items. >Facebook is good skipped. >Places like Discord, slack/mattermost/rocketchat, or IRC are usually for specialized This is another thing I recently noticed. After the era of mailing lists, imageboards and forums, "Web 2.0", social media, now we have a new era of online chat community it was pretty active. Some types of repetitive human history pattern? >For your purposes, you'd need to tell us what sort of discussion you are looking for. It was able some examples of different communities, I wasn't asking for a specific place to go, but more about a discussion of the general tendency of the Internet. Recently I have seen a lot of similar posts (just ignore the political theme inside). Chans being so political >https://archive.fo/r75Bf What do you think of the year 2007? It's said on virtually every board to be the year things started really going downhill. >https://archive.fo/CP9k3 Did the Internet go downhill over the past 10 years? >https://archive.fo/qQg2H (I'm the name user at the bottom of the post for a general introduction of Usenet, strongly recommend you because I spend two days to made these up, just ignore the politics). >the internet wasn't accesible, it required some knowledge in computers Yes, this can be one of the major reasons why Usenet had a higher discussion quality in general, even after the Eternal September. But I still don't think it explains everything. >>5697 >somewhere on the fringe of the net and these groups are probably small as hell too. Not "as small as hell". In the 80s we had Usenet and it was almost the people from the whole Internet, in the 90s we had Cypherpunk mailing list for Internet privacy, security and social discussions and it had more than 1000 people at peak, actually at that time one way for a script kiddie to bomb someone's email was to subscribe the email to the Cypherpunk list. Why modern mailing list software requires verification and password? All came from this (now you see how someone who obsessed in Internet culture with no life can know something trivial like this)... After 2000 we had moot's imageboard and it's still here, but after 2010... Some general thoughts. On the Internet, there is always a community where talented people establish a relatively big community to talk things, Usenet, mailing list, imageboard for their respective era, at the same time, this "medium" or "format" of discussion is also the "central hub" of the Internet where most information and opinions were exchanged, e.g. the mailing lists were active and had good community because it was "how" and "where" people get all the things and talk. Nowadays after 2010, the "central hub" of the exchange "medium" of information became the social media like Facebook or Twitter, but unfortunately, social media is based on "speakers" and "followers", not on a topic-based forum, and because they were designed for short messages but not actual discussions, and this is why it gives us an impression of no place to talk anymore. The last question was how could we change it. I have some high hopes for Tor and i2p. Maybe the next active Internet-native community can be somewhere on Tor or i2p. Any thoughts?

>>5729 >social media is based on "speakers" and "followers", not on a topic-based forum this is part of what i was trying to say in >>5719 but i couldn't figure out how to word it. it's sort of what i was getting at when i said "the rise of mass culture". the dynamics of public performance vs the dynamics of public forum. it seems like the big social media sites are geared towards passive consumption instead of active communication. this might just be something we have to accept. doesn't mean we have to participate though. >Maybe the next active Internet-native community can be somewhere on Tor or i2p. i've been hoping for this as well. the freedomhosting takedown really hurt a lot of darknet communities. personally, i don't know of any good ones any more (but that's probably just due to not keeping up with things). this may be our only hope for a communication-centered decentralized network. that being said, i don't mind being on the fringe that much. as long as these kinds of sites exist, i don't care what percentage of internet users are on them.

>>5729 >What do you think of the year 2007? People always put times on things when "everything really started going to soykaf" The eternal summer started over 20 years ago. To some people, the internet has been soykaf since then. It's all just rose-tinted glasses. We remember things as better when they're novel.

>>5721 >pdgn.co Nice, thanks.

>>5719 >There is not really a sense of "instagram culture" or "facebook culture" other than some broad generalizations. Some facebook groups do have their own cultures, similar to how forums have their own culture. inb4 "facebook users? in my lainchan?" >>5728 I've been a part of a few forums that went that way. New membership declines, people leave for facebook, and only the people who particularly cared about the forum's community/culture stayed behind. It's nice for a while, but in my experiences, activity dwindles. I hope the case is different for you.

I basically hang out on http://afternoon.dynu.com/letterbox.html http://secretareaofvipquality.org/saovq/ http://4-ch.net/4ch https://lainchan.org/ http://www.operatorchan.org/ And then I hang out in #/g/punk on Rizon, their mumble, a Tox group for me and my friends, and the /g/ Diaspora sever, podricing.pw, I don't use much else.

>>5739 Also here is something novel. https://postbox.garden/post.html

>>5708 You're pretty delusional or just haven't found enough of the other imageboards/chans then.

>>5729 >/leftypol/ fuarrrking disgusting.(Please argue in good faith and back up your opinion. )

>>5716 Fellow Brazilian here, I remember that fake accounts were a common thing on Orkut. Many people would have a real and a fake account, enabling anonymous posting on specific forums and keeping in contact with irl friends on the same platform. Those forum-like communities with specific subjects were something that was left forgotten when everyone and their dog migrated to Facebook.

>>5747 >everyone and their dog My cat had an Orkut profile. He didn't migrate to facebook thou.

>>5742 > You're pretty delusional or just haven't found enough of the other imageboards/chans then. What does he mean by this?

I mostly go to >8ch >Lainchan >GNU Social That's it. It does not matter that these sites are not very active since I don't have an internet addiction and can just visit them once or twice a day for updates, maybe leave interesting threads on a tab and check later for replies.

>>5692 Social media is optimized to keep people addicted and monetize eyeballs. Not for hosting meaningful discussions or fostering communities. If anything it encourages the opposite of both those things. I think an important requirement for meaningful discussions is anonymity. The reason Reddit is such a circle-jerk dumpsterfire echochamber is because everyone is fighting for internet points and status and approval. When there is no accountability from post to post everything becomes about the content and not what people think about you.

>>5758 I understand the value of the second point. But it's possible nowadays also to have conversation-only based relationships with people you've never met in person. When people have recognizable names, you can follow the posts of people you find interesting. Also you can avoid having to start every topic with an explanation of your interests and intents. There is a place for using names and a place for not using them. Although anonymous communities do have a particular and unique atmosphere of fun that name based ones never do.

I've been thinking about this for some time (as someone who has already spent far too much of it on the web in the first place), and I think that the web doesn't really suit its name any more. Less like an interconnected sequence of lines and strings that lead to anywhere it now resembles something more like a bicycle wheel, where there is a rim, but all paths lead to the centre. Sometimes I think this is a natural outcome of the nature of the web as it is now, always connected, delivered in an endless stream of 'content' that is meant to be consumed fast. What would solves this? I have no idea, though I think this explains a lot of problems I have with it. When being online was temporary and sporadic you'd have to conduct yourself in a way that would mean you wouldn't need to be there to reply to follow it up, and because of software that could push and pull BBS (MultiMail (`mm`) is still available in the Debian/Ubuntu repos) and Usenet, you could compose your reply with some thought, because you'd be able to push it up next time you connect. The media itself is something that I'm starting to get concerned about. Any old sod can make a BBS if they have a line and a SoC laying around, or an NNTP node--or even an IRC server I'm sure--that could serve as the hub of a small community of sorts, because even 4chan ran on a few Mac Minis at one point, saving to a USB stick. Video, however? Only a gigantic corporation, or an individual with a large amount of money, could possibly host (or 'broadcast', as it now seems to be) so much heavy data. Ten years of UseNet is about 2GB, which is about the size of a single HD video someone records just speaking into the camera. And if that site goes down then what can someone do with that were they to have downloaded it? I suppose the point I'm trying to make is that by either losing or giving up (doesn't matter too much at this point) our sense of independence and attitude we're entrapping ourselves into a situation where only those shadowy central authorities (who runs all those routing centres?) hold any way. I remember reading a FidoNews where an articles warned of this aspect of the web in comparison to the more anarchistic and free BBS environment where all anyone (system or user) needed was any old computer and a modem. I can't see a system like FidoNet being even allowed these days... This has a knock-on effect to the entire nature of online discussion and gathering, which I believe we're seeing now.

I feel comfortable with imageboards, I know they're soykaf fill with austists of every flavor but I'm a creep and I don't try to pretend I'm better than anyone else so I may not like all of it but what I like really pleases me. There may be a place better suited for me but it may not be on the internet as we know it now. I really want to try a BBS

And yet here I sit, apparently having found the holy land of a forum that has existed longer than the goons and is still incredibly active and probably hits 5k at peak. How hard did you look again OP?

>>5692 >pic Which app is that?

>>5818 Looks like `slrn` to me.

>>5818 Yes. It's slrn, one of the few readers that still has a maintainer and can be directly installed from your package manager. Setting up and key bindings are tricky in today's standard (even for a mutt user) , but it does a okay job after you get used to it. If you are interested in Usenet, I recommend you to read ALL the Wikipedia articles about Usenet (general introduction, technical terms, different newsgroup communities, memes, people, etc) and some archived FAQs from major computer groups, to get a little bit familiar to its culture, then starts with nntp.olduse.net. It is a NNTP server that replays every single Usenet article from 30 years ago from an archive in real time, provided by ex-Debian hacker Joey Hess. You can read more from its homepage, http://olduse.net/. It's 1987 now, and many important groups are (were) still not created until 6-8 years later. Perhaps I can spend some spare time writing a script, allowing one to load a Usenet archive and select the current time, then connect to the local server from their favorite client.

>>5872 Also `slrnpull` so you can read everything offline. I just wish that telnet/SSH BBSs were as well documented as UseNet, but considering their different backgrounds a lack of formal information for BBSs makes sense.

So far, we have many different opinions about the apparent "decline" of online discussion communities, a brief summary: Some believed it's just a culture shift (>>5695) and nostalgia (>>5731), "to some people, the internet has been soykaf since then". One pointed out about the barrier of Internet access (>>5697) and the hyper-expansion of the Internet. Some pointed out the declining tendency of imageboards (>>5696), and some issues on community management: tight/light/self-moderation (>>5701, >>5716), effect of anonymity (>>5758, >>5759), fragmentation of the community (>>5704, >>5708), and almost everyone agreed the social media, ("Facebook", "Twitter") has something to do with it. But apparently many people have also looked into this issue, please read this Slashdot comment which has some insights about the "size" problem, and it's what we have overlooked. >https://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2660&cid=1501160 In other words, the size of the community could be another determinant factor of online community. e.g. a local BBS has a small, localized userbase, and it can be a good place to hang out and relax, but the small size and lack of user diversity (not a politically correct buzzword here) also heavily restricts the range of topics and opinions, and the BBS can be kind of boring. One step further, we had Usenet, the ex-central hub of the Internet, and it gave us a broad scope of topics and a global userbase with different interests (one could still point out it's generally middle-class, European/American, university/academic background), and it was exciting for a few years, not until people started to complain about quality, quantity and speed, but at that point it was still bearable for many. Next, if you add more users to Usenet, it's then became impossible to talk in a group where thousand messages are created daily. Ultimately, In my opinion the root cause of these, is hyperexpansion of the Internet (>>5697) like and its information overload. And when we talk about information overload, there is really no information overload, there's only filter failure. You CAN'T have a community about everything, you have to select, include and exclude. There is an "filter mechanism" in every community, (I don't have any sociological knowledge, I just made them up), where the members select their communities and the communities select their members, to decide what are the topics to talk, what is interesting, etc, what kind of people do we have. It can be formal or informal, intentional or unintentional, simple or complex, or a mix of them, and I believe it can be observed from every type of human community. A normal person can't enter a hacker's community easily because the hackers don't like the normal person and the normal person don't understand the hacker. And in a good community, the filter is automatic, just about the right quantity, quality and people get delivered to the community. If the filter is good, then the community is good, if the filter is bad, the community is bad. A boring BBS, a flooded newsgroup, or an imageboard with full of idiots because people pretended to be idiots at first, can be (subjectively) seen as a filter failure. Early BBS uses geolocation and interests as filters. Usenet uses topics, different newsgroup culture, and the barrier of Internet access as its filter. These filters were once simply and effective, but after 2000 it simply stopped working anymore. This is why we had so many Internet forums with repeated topics: we can't be together, so we divide. Blogs enabled people to publish and read commentary in a similar way. Imageboards became popular because of it's unique posting style and short thread life, makes the filter process became automatic, it also developed a obscure underground culture to exclude new users. But it is still not enough, Internet became the sea of information. What can be talked are already be talked, what can be published are already published. You can't just go to the unified central forum, sit here, and wait for information to get on your screen anymore, while you still need/want to get everything you are interested in. So, we have Web 2.0, social media. And they have a perfect filter for you: you just need to follow a bunch of people, no matter what happens, thanks to the power of social network (literally), this is extremely powerful, news gets broadcasted automatically, conversations starts automatically, information you want shows up automatically, communities of different topics automatically show up, etc. In this perspective, one should not see social media as evil, but just a mechanism to filter information and organize communities. (image related: political polarization, this graph is made in a 2004 research about political blogs, but we have seen the same pattern again and again, in Facebook, Twitter, etc. It shows my point that a community itself has a mechanism to select, filter, propagate, and broadcast information) Unfortunately, this filter is not perfect and it has a severe side-effect: echo-chamber and insider trade. And we can't just go back to Usenet because it is not an effective filter anymore. Also, because we don't have an effective filter, discussions that should be together, are divided to different communities because of human's physical limit for handling information, so it also lowers the quality of discussion. It seems to explain everything! I don't know what can we do about it in the future. I believe in the future, advanced artificial intelligence will help us to travel in the sea of the cyberspace like a cyberpunk science fiction, but it must be another, more invasive form of mass surveillance, the AI needs to know everything about you. What can be the next generation of the filter mechanism when we have so much information? Also, Ghost in the Shell S.A.C anyone? I wonder how do people communicate in such networked world, from the anime it looks like there were still forums and online chats for debates and exchanging information, but in a world made of information, they won't work, like I said above, and how can they exist? Perhaps, in Ghost in the Shell, people do not need to get everything they need from scratch, they can simply download basic information, facts and opinions from the Internet, then discuss them at forums and online chats. And it also explains the Stand-alone Complex where everyone acts and thinks in the same pattern.

>>5876 At least we had a documentary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBS:_The_Documentary

>>5724 The last message you left on your blog said you were about to be out on the street. Did you find a place to stay, or did you end up leaving town after all?

>>5880 >Perhaps, in Ghost in the Shell, people do not need to get everything they need from scratch, they can simply download basic information, facts and opinions from the Internet, then discuss them at forums and online chats. If I remember correctly, in either the series or one of the movies there's a scene where the major and someone else are discussing philosophy inside a library; it's mentioned that most people access the contents of books via an 'external brain' as needed during discussions rather than reading a book and making arguments based on their own imperfect recall.

>>5915 >people access the contents of books via an 'external brain' as needed during discussions rather than reading a book seems like google-wikipedia arguments for me

Believe or not, I think actually some of the most worthful and organised communities are that of uncommon fetishes, I had experienced a really community like feeling into this and the content in there is almost fully made by its own members. There is also some interesting conversation about sexual life and other things. This is definitively somewhere where masses would never enter.

I kinda wonder if brewing soykaf and trolling culture had something to do with it. I remember some fandom forums where I had to talk to the admin to make sure I wasn't a troll, and this was a fandom forum that was featured on Dramatica so naturally trolls would be lured to it. I ended up not really posting there but I can see someone not being interested in signing up if they have to go through hurdles just to chat about something they really like. Of course, you have other communities that known for overly sensitive people and that's to be expected. I would love to host my own forum because imageboards and reddit seem to do a horrible job with my niche.

>>5742 I agree

As is said before, Social Media is designed to grab your attention and make you shift from one thing to the next. Many corporations are fighting for your attention. If you really want to escape from it, I'd suggest using facebook and twitter sparingly. BBS boards were designed to an extent for longform discussion. They were made back in the day where people were used to writing long letters to people. What you COULD do is search for active BBS boards. They are slowly making a comeback, and they have the longform feel they used to. If you want to bring that kind of discussion, look for an active BBS, and contribute to it, they wont come back without everyone's help. Of course bringing back an outdated and insecure form of communication isn't how one solves the problem. What we need are new communities that encourage longform communication and ban brewing soykaf. Reddit may have the dreaded hivemind upvote system, but upvotes do have some positive qualities: They sortof help keep people from screwing others over, and on some subreddits, they discourage 100% pure soykafposts. Just stay out of places like /r/the_donald, /r/soykafredditsays, and /r/politics. Imageboards were designed for shortterm and longterm discussion, letting anyone have their say without anyone knowing who they are. Unfortunately this was a mostly failed experiment. brewing soykaf, lies, proud pseudo-intellectualism, and to an extent a hivemind mentality deprive imageboards of real meaningful discussion. Lainchan is one of the few places where imageboards can work to a degree, ironically enough because the staff, at the very least in the past took a heavy stance on brewing soykaf. I do believe that there should be places that allow unmoderated discussion. Imageboards are great in that they allow free discussion, but that brings chaos, which is good for some people, but for me, I'm just bored with it at this point. I honestly got sick of the negativity as well. If you want a healthy productive community, you need a positive one where people are willing to dedicate time to actually contribute and also not screw each other over for jollies. Most social media will never give you that.

>>5729 >nationalistic movement oyy veyyy(Elaborate on your opinions and avoid spilling the soykaf.)

>>6087 >oyy veyyy Not OP, but the person who posted above this. This is the sort of post that makes an imageboard usually not worth going to. Let's analyze it for a second: 1. The post is very short, and doesn't really show the posters full opinion on the matter. It is left up to interpretation on what this person believes. At times this is acceptable, as sometimes short answers are fine, but not in this case. 2. The poster may claim otherwise, but the post feels emotionally charged. Was that really necessary? 3. Instead of constructively responding, this post is dismissive. There are times when one must be dismissive to not engage attention seekers. This is not one of those times. 4. Instead of viewing all the complexities of the world and why we are in the mess we are today, it is implied the poster lazily places a lot of blame on Jewish people. You will never get worthwhile information in communities where people are too lazy to get more proper answers.

>>5693 I'm interested in this setup. Are you somehow fetching old Usenet posts into slrn? Could I get some input on this? I've just installed slrn and I want more of this amazing stuff.

>>6105 All right I figured it out myself. Holy soykaf there's a usenet archive over nntp. This is amazing.

>>5719 Agree on the self hosted personal sites comeback i wish for that too Soon I am going to begin hosting my own darknet hidden service which will be a combination of my blog(voice of the young freedom loving technohippy), a journal (I will keep track of the rumblings in the deepweb [mainly the drug markets] and summarize them by week, month, and year), and links to other .onions The journal will be special because some people have noticed things change quickly underground and when you dont pay attention for a week, 3 weeks, 3 months all of a sudden Alphabay is gone and TradeRoute exit scams Still learning how to host a .onion on a qubes-whonix machine

>>6086 Valuable input. >Social Media is designed to grab your attention and make you shift from one thing to the next. >Many corporations are fighting for your attention If we can't get rid of social media immediately, at least we can switch to a less-invasive version of it, like GNU/Social and Mastodon, like >>5696 said. It may be the best short-term solution you can get for a few mouse clicks. >Of course bringing back an outdated and insecure form of communication isn't how one solves the problem. >What we need are new communities that encourage longform communication and ban brewing soykaf. Exactly! I remembered replying a post about Gopher earlier in this year, but I was seen as someone brewing soykaf because of my poor language skill, I stopped to follow. What I wanted to say was the conflict between outdated and insecure technologies, but in a possibly good medium or format such as Usenet or BBS, versus the new-school technologies such as ZeroNet. One goes to Gopher and Usenet, finds the community was actually somehow good, the natural thought would be picking them up again, since the community and technology are all historically widely available and well tested. However, the lack security and privacy makes them unfits the modern Internet unless you don't care. On the other hand, the new technologies are emerging and immature, and some (most) of them don't even include a mailing list or Usenet-like medium of communication. In other words, you can be a classicist, and build a community around a Gopher server, sending everything in cleartext, or a privacy advocate who runs everything on top of i2p, but no medium, no content. You can't be both. My own conclusion is, the old technologies are not coming back in their original forms, never, but reimplement these medium on top of the new platforms can be a viable choice, like you said. For imageboards, NNTPChan can be a step forward, but it has the bootstrap problem, no contents, no posts. And everyone has bootstrap problem, how could we solve it? GNU/Social had the same problem before, the recent Japanese kickstart has made it better. But kickstarting is not always possible if you don't have vocal support from a existing community, like the lone wolf >>6117 who's going to host a personal onion site: how could it get any readers at all? >Imageboards was a mostly failed experiment >Imageboards are great in that they allow free discussion, but that brings chaos For hilarious meme and the Internet culture, for information sharing, resources discovery and for unlimited speech, I believe the imageboard was a success. One of the 8chan post said imageboard went popular because the decline of Usenet and the gap not covered by Reddit, I fully agree with it. Usenet has both "order" newsgroups and "chaos" newsgroups. But clearly imageboards are not so good for indepth discussions. Imageboard as a humor is good, imageboard as a social movement is like kicking dead whales down the beach, no matter it was Wall Street Occupation or Kekistan Independence. But these are broader social phenomena and one should not see imageboards as the cause.

>>6105 Read >>5872, if anyone has missed.

>>6117 >Agree on the self hosted personal sites comeback i wish for that too >Soon I am going to begin hosting my own darknet hidden service I'm glad to hear the start of another personal website as a hidden service, I hope there will even be a hidden service blogosphere and a complete online community in the future. >The journal will be special because some people have noticed things change quickly underground and when you dont pay attention for a week, 3 weeks, 3 months all of a sudden Alphabay is gone and TradeRoute exit scams But I wonder if it's a good idea. So you want to make a personal news website, or its equivalent. It's extremely hard to do and need persistent efforts. You have to do the whole research like a journalist, even a brief one, and you need to write original and insightful commentaries, and you have to keep it updated for years (most people would quit within a year). You also face direct competition from big and well-established websites and communities. Have you ever heard about DeepDotWeb (deepdot35wvmeyd5.onion)? Yes it kinda is like kicking dead whales down the beach, but how could you attracts readers if there's already a big media outlet with paid employees? And there are also many of the hacker's communities, such as SoylentNews. I'm not saying they are bad communities or your enemies, but I'm saying people's attention is limited - I'm spending time today posting on Lainchan so I wouldn't post on Slashdot - you should not waste time on things no one would read about. I think you should reconsider about your theme and focus.

What's with all these nntpchan nodes? only overchan seems to work, are they under some sort of tunnel like i2p or tor? I can't get into any using yukko. I would appreciate some help.

>>5753 not him but there's A LOT of imageboards on life support out there, and most of the attempts to make a new one drain users from the places where it's shi||ed. Usually it ends up with two half dead boards and before you know it everyone is back to 4chan. Here's an autistic list to get an idea https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t10VI-sccy1CfAeMZHwmCS_7agIHFo_B5ipMjzsMtTg/edit you know what fu.ck that place too, soykafs worsening everyday. not gonna police my speech because the mods throw a fit when they read a word. enjoy your dead board

>>6131 Yes, pretty sure only 2hu-ch is open to the clearnet, most are over tor. It doesn't help that the owner of nntpchan.net stopped updating his site.

>>6120 Thank you for the insight I frequent deepdotweb myself. The main difference between my proposed site and deepdotweb is that my content/journals are organized by date, with summaries provided every month and year, mainly geared to drug buyers/dealers, whereas deepdotweb is casting a wide darknet covering pedos, arrests, phishers, etc, with summaries weekly at most I see utility. I would gladly work on this project for years, i dont have a college degree and I would love garnering journalism skills while providing a data source that 1) is needed and 2) i am passionate for As far as getting readers(its not as hard as >>6118 makes it seem- takes time yes but I know my audience), all that takes is doing a friendly plug in irc channels, forums, onions, reddit, and other places that dnm buyers and sellers frequent offering a one stop content shop for up to date aggregated news A simple weekly bulletpointed list with rumblings from the underground (with links/sources), tools to maintain tight Opsec, valuable clearnet or onion sources (maybe other personal blogs/journals like mine), and broader scope summarizations that help the average Joe keep track of how the game is changing

In the early 2000s I was part of several online forums that matched my interests. I had friends, online relationships. It was interesting. Now I'm just a detached lurker. Feels so lonely, like there's something missing.

OP is back. Happy New Year. Today I suddenly went across a post on LessWrong written in 2009 by Eliezer Yudkowsky >Well-Kept Gardens Die By Pacifism >http://lesswrong.com/lw/c1/wellkept_gardens_die_by_pacifism/ The author believed many online communities failed because of their unwillingness to use the moderation power to expel fools and low quality comments from their community, and leading the the eventual decline of a community. And the author believed the problem is that even the moderators themselves are often unwilling the powers. Reasons include * Their intentions to prevent echo-chambers, silence of different opinions, and censorship. * Preexisting political divisions within the community, since the internal politics is more important than a few invading barbarians, moderators often refuse to use their power, fearing they unintentionally abuse their moderation for their own political agenda, or such accusation from the community, or the act of moderation will be seen as a coup attempt, due to beliefs that a sysop can't represent or control the community or people. * The egalitarian instinct of people to prevent the moderation to become more powerful. Therefore, (a) moderators, as rationalists, are always being underconfident, suspecting themselves were on the wrong-side, (b) fears of political consequences, and (c) moderation is usually seen as unneeded because the fools are going to go away sooner or away, the moderators often act when it's already too late to defend a community when the core members already left the community due to low quality and fun-less climate, and the inability to attract new core members because of the low quality, lending to the eventual downfall of a online community. I highly recommended to read the entire article and the comments there (comments also debated about the dangerous of over-moderation rather than lack of moderation, in addition briefly discussed the unique mode of discussions on imageboards like 4chan, stereotypical), I personally found the article is a perfect and accurate description of the psychology of myself, perhaps it's the time to use my moderation power to kick a few idiots out of my private IRC channel of my community? Given today's declining status of online communities, to what extends the phenomena observed by the essay is responsible of? What are the options from lains?

>>6232 These days people in general are infected with ADHD, they can't concentrate on a thing for a long time, instead they rely on short meme, postures and somebody else opinion who has more followers, likes, upvotes, etc. This has led us to serious degradation of modern society, morals and beliefs. These days it is easy to persuade a mass number of people towards your agenda, they simply don't want to think hard enough. People are relying on somebody else to do the thinking for them. I think people have taken internet so seriously that it's become a cult.

>>7368 >ADHD, they can't concentrate on a thing for a long time, instead they rely on short meme I wonder. I think there's a research showed most computer users do have ADHD-like symptoms, but from time to time, they also trend to deeply concentrate on one thing. I need to find the citation. This explains why a young script kiddie like me often lost in the random web browsing, but still able to spend three hours to catch a software bug, or write a long response on an imageboard. I think it has something to do with the pace of life, too. In the good old days, you download all the Usenet posts and spent hours reading and responding them offline. Nowadays you spend 30 seconds to read a screen of tweets and refresh it.

>>7370 >30 seconds to read a screen of tweets and refresh it. Modern people(users) prefer quantity over quality and we wonder why internet is going downhill...beats me.

look at it from a historical perspective. Most people using the net at that time were academics in that area. In my opinion, the best places for Interesting discussions like this are IRC and mailing lists.

modern failed experiments: >selfmoderation In a attempt to prevent brewing soykaf, various sites sprung up where via a white list (following, subscribing, etc) or via voting post were filtered out. This ultimately resulted in a filtering to the least common denominator. >imagesboards In order to prevent the socialization of the community into a single mass culture users are made anonymous and with limited moderation. This to some extent succeeded but in the end the out of control soykafposts destroyed any discussion worth having on sufficiently large boards, and a defaulting of discussion to the least common denominator. It's reasonable to assume that a textboard would slightly raise the least common denominator but I doubt by very much. previously failed experiments: >BBS & Usenet Killed by advances in technology. >Forums & IRC Yet to die entirely but userbase has certainly shrunk, why??? Ultimate goal: a platform free from nonfat-soykaf drinkers that doesn't socialize to a single mass culture of the least common denominator. This is achieved on lainchan; however, this is likely do to security in obscurity and specificity more than anything, as others have mentioned. Maybe a number of smaller communities organized under similar principles as lainchan federated together would work I'm not sure.

>>7364 I'm a mod on a major 8ch board and this is something I spoke about with the other mods: being a mod is like being a trustee in a prison, you're not above anyone or anything and no mater what you do you don't actually have control over the place, if you try to control it and shape it towards something you will get in trouble. I don't believe that there is a foreign element that kills communities and if there is mods can't do anything about it. >>7383 I think what has made lainchain good is that people is required to argue in good faith, its a really simple rule but seems it helps a lot, I will like to explain why but I'm sure I'm wrong.

>>7383 Federation is, imo, the correct synthesis of low-moderation and walled gardens. Thinking out loud, you could build an image board of off ostatus and federate in a manner similar to mastodon.

>>7364 >Yet to die entirely but userbase has certainly shrunk, why??? >Well-Kept Gardens Die By Pacifism Sorry I failed to fully understand your argument when I wrote that, so in response to poor moderation users fled sometimes consciously sometimes unaware to a environment where they could moderate themselves. This lead to the rise of self moderation. English Imageboards rose as a response to the mass culture created by self moderation. So perhaps the real question is how do you insure that moderators do there job, and are properly selected, also how do you scale this system. >>7388 I could see that doing it, I think plenty of places have good rules though, just poor enforcement. >>7390 It could be a way to scale, but you'd need a way to insure that the moderators were doing there jobs.

>>7381 > Most people using the net at that time were academics in that area. I second this. My theory is that many internet old agers were educated people. They saw the internet as an opportunity to exchange information on niche topics. At some point such specialists were so accustomed to the net usage that they started to discuss more common topics or even use the net for entertainment purposes. Nowadays it's seems that this entertainment became the main function of the internet. One of the reasons was ofc that many common people started getting a net access, Also, actually looking for information exchange like the old folks became kinda redundant in the current times because there's tons of books available for download now - even on crazy niche topics. Everything that goes beyond books can be easily discussed in the real world. Me, for example, I just go to the university and talk to other students and the professors. Professor on the other hand, they might profit from the internet exchange but they usually do it by email I believe. Also most non-academic people will never get so deep into some topic that they available books wouldn't suffice as a source of information. SO The today's equivalent to old school internet usage imo is as follows: >use email >download books And that's it. Everything else is soykaf and pure entertainment. Online discussion communities don't work anymore because they are not really needed anymore. Just download a book.

>>7394 The solutions to distinctly modern problems is not to return to the past but to evolve a distinctly modern solution. You wouldn't respond to modern economic externalities such environmental concerns by banning the industries which produce them for example, you'd pursue new technology to mitigate them be it carbon catchment or electric cars. Not that I'm opposed to reading or talking in person just as I'm not opposed to walking or cycling despite supporting cars. (In fact I don't have a car, I cycle everywhere or otherwise take a bus) >>7393 Perhaps you could have elections for moderators where each user receives votes relative to their post count with extreme deductions for your posts which have required moderation action. This does risk socialization to some extent because you'd have to know the candidates in order to elect them.

>>7397 Elections based on post history of anonymous users who decide to run?

>>7397 >You wouldn't respond to modern economic externalities such environmental concerns by banning the industries which produce them for example, you'd pursue new technology to mitigate them be it carbon catchment or electric cars. Actually the ultimate goal is to develop technology that has an environmental imprint as few as possible so the aim is obviously to be as "good" as pre-technological times aka returning back but keeping the good stuff. And as I see it, the good stuff on the internet is (scientific) information and communication: emails and books The rest is expendable. And as such I coin my vision of the modernized retro internet: Ecological Internet It's the best performance/time ratio. You wanna save the environment? Stop running your computer for entertainment: Ecological Internet. Similar to driving a car for entertainment. I think you get the idea. >You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like Also note how in this very moment I didn't apply my own theory. We have a conversation on an imageboard - a discussion and thus an information exchange. But we both do it because it's entertaining and we get the kicks out of it. It's like street racing.

>>7399 >Actually the ultimate goal is to develop technology that has an environmental imprint as few as possible so the aim is obviously to be as "good" as pre-technological times aka returning back but keeping the good stuff. By definition a distinctly modern problem is only present in current times and if you define any solution to this problem as a return to the past then so be it, but I see very little similarity between pre-industrial society, and a green technology based future. Your solution to the problems is a regression not a iteration. To some extent the question of this thread is what makes things such as a mailing list, a good medium for discussion, and how can we replicate/revive this in the modern context. To do this we have to learn from the failures of the past and prevent them from occurring again. iterate.

Right now I'm more or less on a similar situation to OP, I decided to leave 4chan after the controversy with the new third party ads and move over to tumblr, the experience has been very hard because I really enjoyed 4chan and I feel it was taken away from me and tumblr feels like walking on an empty store, pretty but soulless, I'm still having fun but I miss the feeling of clash that chans have Right now I feel like I want to promotoe a new chan like the future relaunch of plus4chan or start a new site altogether, i have lots of ideas but dunno who wants to hear them. >>7393 >I could see that doing it, I think plenty of places have good rules though, just poor enforcement. be polite an use commonsense are common rules on most places but they're not harsh enough plus they are hard to enforce since they're so generic That is why arguing in good faith is such a good rule, is very specific and easy to enforce. >>7397 >Perhaps you could have elections for moderators where each user receives votes relative to their post count with extreme deductions for your posts which have required moderation action. This does risk socialization to some extent because you'd have to know the candidates in order to elect them. That a terrible idea, it will reward the most autistic users with too much power I've wondered about this a lot, how do you choose mods that do not have an inflated ego or a hunger for power and it takes me back to a fable I'd read years ago but I can't find online: A sultan was looking for a new tax collector, every one who wanted the job came to the palace, they had to walk across a dark chamber and once on the other side jolly music was playing and the sultan commanded every person who entered to dance and out of many who came only one danced and he became the tax collector, why? because the walls of the dark chamber where covered in gold coins and those who didn't dance did so because the coins will fall of their pockets and the sultan wanted a tax collector that will not take everything he found to his pockets It really makes me ponder and think, how do you test the character of a person? And how do you get to meet the real person behind any mask they put on?

>>7406 the only solution to the industrial environmental crisis is partial regression with parallel development of new clean tech - not contradicting since development of tech becomes more of a computer simulation thing. clinging to expendable technologies is just a comfortzone thing for humans same thing can be applied to the internet, keep the efficient stuff, drop the suboptimal time and energy wastes, think of new stuff. funny, i forgot to mention how porn is the most efficient form on the internet. tells a lot about iteration and regression of the human race

>>7408 >be polite an use commonsense are common rules on most places but they're not harsh enough plus they are hard to enforce since they're so generic >That is why arguing in good faith is such a good rule, is very specific and easy to enforce. I can agree with this. >That a terrible idea, it will reward the most autistic users with too much power Would you mind explaining? Why would the most active rule abiding users not be good at picking a moderator? It certainly is a dilemma though. Some power a moderator can feel can be mitigated by removing identity, but not nearly enough, and when you do this (without logging moderator activity) you lose transparency. In my eyes your question here is the question of the thread, and at least one key to making a thriving community.

>>7412 You know what lainon, I think we're on the same page now. >drop the suboptimal time and energy wastes, think of new stuff. Sounds good to me, now all we've got to do is think of a resolution to the issues >>7383 >>7393 I think mailing lists ended up declining for the same reasons as BBS/USENET they just didn't scale well with increased users and increased file sizes. Potentially to some extent with some of the issues of Forums/IRC as anon mentioned earlier: >Well-Kept Gardens Die By Pacifism

>>7408 Because big name users choosing moderators will only lead to ciclejerks, like the american electoral college, nothing is stopping people from reuniting off site, buy the big electors trust and get elected to perpetuate the insider trade And those users who got big scores only did because they partook in the ciclejerk that was before them leaving no space for a formal that can break the circle.

>>7421 meant for >>7413 sorry

>>7421 I guess this is another thing anonymous posting would help but not solve. Welp, guess it's time to think a little more.

I think that we should back up and start with a basic premise: As the internet changed, we changed with it, often uncritically and unconscious of how it was changing. We just did what was cool or what felt right at the time--when Facebook got big, we joined Facebook. When Twitter blew up, we started tweeting. When Reddit became the place with the most new content, we started lurking Reddit. This thread seems less about the actual death of an old medium than about a growing consciousness surrounding how online media has changed and what we can do about it. It would be very easy to resuscitate BBS, for instance, and indeed many BBS boards still exist, not to mention the imageboard we're cutting across the grain by posting on right now. So before we start analyzing why the internet has changed to make communal interaction much more difficult (which I want to do in the next few posts) we should think about it in terms of that consciousness, and especially the fact that most of us are older now, with more less time, more refined interests, and a much lower novelty-factor whenever we encounter a new community. Beyond those factors, however, we can still say quite a lot about why it's difficult to get communal interaction like it used to exist online.

>>5728 >>5716 >>5729 >>5747 I'm cherry-picking a little here but the recurrent narrative in this thread, based on our anecdotal accounts, is of our original internet homes (small, dedicated communities) ransacked by migrations to Facebook. Maybe "famine" is a more appropriate metaphor. >>5758 >Social media is optimized to keep people addicted and monetize eyeballs. Not for hosting meaningful discussions or fostering communities. >>6118 >If we can't get rid of social media immediately, at least we can switch to a less-invasive version of it, like GNU/Social and Mastodon Except that we can't--technically, yes, you can use GNU/Social, but what's the point? Facebook isn't selling you its platform, which is really not that powerful or useful, it's selling you the friends in your neighborhood that are already using the service. This is one reason why it isn't geared towards discussion or hobbyist enthusiasm: it's not really about content, it's about gathering recognition (or the illusion of recognition) from your peers. I think that monetization is an absolutely huge factor. The communities that exist now have figured out how to make a profit, and to control the discourse to reinforce capital, and the mechanisms their sites employ are a direct outgrowth of that feature. >>5880 >You CAN'T have a community about everything, you have to select, include and exclude. There is an "filter mechanism" in every community I like this idea of the "filter mechanism;" I'm wondering how we can adapt it to future use in creating better communities without over-filtering and flattening discourse. We have to admit that one of the reasons that nationalist/racist discourse flourishes on imageboards is that the filters are way too tight: for a lot of chan users who don't have robust social lives, they have no way to encounter new data and keep reinforcing their biases. Not that Facebook is much better, but at least it forces you to admit that the disembodied cyber-citizens you interact with possess a racial identity that bears on their lives, or something. >>6088 Bravo.

>>7442 I think that what's changed in the past 10-15 years online is actually very simple. * Forums took over from BBS and organized themselves around a specific topic or interest: games, location, webcomics, science fiction, vintage cars, whatever. * They rewarded a dedicated userbase, but were successful mostly because there just didn't exist any real method for organizing mass discourse. * For a number of different reasons, the internet saw a massive influx of users in the late aughts (FB, smartphones, etc), urging innovators to develop an infrastructure that could actually provide direction to the desires of millions of new users. * That's Web 2.0--We end up with Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, and a few other platforms that dominate all discourse. For most people, those platforms ARE the internet; what used to be thousands (if not millions) of small, dedicated forums is now less than 100 corp-dominated social media platforms. * The forums are still around, but most users have migrated to the new platforms because they produce visual content, while forums only really offer more discussion and text. It sounds like corps have just carved out giant empires where there used to be thousands of content, simple villages, but I don't see this development as being much different from the course of our economic history; we're now in a stage dominated by capitalism, and our internet history is just finally getting up to speed. The communities that exist now reflect our actual social experience. Changes in our social reality will occur online, and maybe even begin to outpace the social reality--maybe the next move that we make, reclaiming our small, democratic online communities from the major platforms, will be a move that has ripples beyond the internet.

>>7447 >The forums are still around, but most users have migrated to the new platforms because they produce visual content, while forums only really offer more discussion and text. Let me elaborate here a little. Imageboards were the innovators in this realm (and are still always a step ahead of the curve), but were too democratic to ever dream about monetizing this ability. Now, Web 2.0 (following the lead of Blog communities) has introduced a new and entirely dominant dynamic in online interaction: the content creator vs. the follower/sharing node. If I'm an illustrator on Twitter, instead of deriving a linear value from pageviews on my early-HTML site, I generate value by getting a small group of followers to re-tweet my art--every node is connected to its own network ad nauseum, which basically games the whole "viral" thing so that anything can "go viral" at any time. In a sort of truncated way, I think this is how a site like Reddit capitalizes on the hyper-accelerated creation of memes. Remember rage comics? f7u12, one of the worst communities of all time, drove the expansion of Reddit almost singlehandedly. You probably found Reddit because of them, not because the discussion was high quality or something. Note how the content created for that community was able to penetrate networks outside of that community--that sort of porous network is what defines content creation now, and what makes visual content so powerful for the new web and discussion-powered communities like small imageboards so old-school in this respect.

>>7447 >>7448 This is something I've wanted to bring up if people wishes to discuss the idea of starting a new site friendliness to multimedia is key. I remember years ago in your average forum posting a picture was a fuarrrking hassle, I remember having to use a third party image hosting service, linking it to the forum and then having issues because the third party service didn't allow new members to embed pictures on other sites. If people can host the content they want on the same site were they want to share it that helps the site grow and those web 2.0 site grew because they were offering a new platform for hosting content and sharing it.

>>7442 >a growing consciousness surrounding how online media has changed and what we can do about it. Maybe it's about time we all should accept that the intenet is not what it used to be. Back then there were communities filled with competent users who loved technology and indulge in forums discussing. The time has changed now everyone is here, even dogs and cats...ffs and they see the internet as a medium to relieve stress via social medias(fb, twitter, reddit, youtube, porn, etc). They are not here for meaningful interactions they just want to spend time without being bothered and popular organizations behind these understand this very well and they're exploiting this opportunity splendidly. Sadly, we cannot turn this soykafshow now.

>>7451 But this is the kind of elitist thinking that doesn't work online or in actual social interaction: the internet is like that now because people are like that generally, and the internet is now just an extension of real life. It's no longer a clubhouse. To act like this about the internet is just the same as hating people generally for not being as enthusiastic about a particular hobby as you are.

>>7449 Right, a new community would have to have all of these tools built in. That's necessary, but it might not be totally sufficient, depending on your goals: if you just want to emulate old-school communities, then you can keep everything else the same, but if you want to rival the new communities then you're gong to have to change the entire dynamic of content-producer/follower-node. This is where Web 2.0 has been most successful--it actually managed to turn a theoretical distinction into an actual software design, and we would have to do the same. I have no idea what that would look like or how to implement it, but I think that's what it would take to rival the new web.

I tried asking 8/tech/ a similar question. It went about as poorly as one would expect. Nothing really of value here but I'll link it anyway. https://8ch.net/tech/res/854752.html

>>7456 That could be a topic for a new thread but yes, seems the difference between web 1.0 to web 2.0 is the content-producer/follower-node

>>7455 >the internet is like that now because people are like that generally, and the internet is now just an extension of real life. But it is true no matter what you do general mass will not accept the internet as anything else. Maybe it's about time we should stop taking the internet so seriously and focus on building society which value actual peer interaction.

>>7467 I can definitely get behind that.

>>7467 lets make a better internet for a better society

>>7470 NO! The Internet is already serving its purpose. It's we who are exploiting the Internet for our amusement and we all know what happens when we push something beyond its limits for personal gain.

>>7467 >internet as extension of real life [lain intensifies]

>>7472 I'm sorry but I no longer know where this conversation is going

>>5692 >I've written a looooong draft, but I find it was verbose enough to be a conversation stopper If you have enough material, write up an essay and make a PDF or throw it on a blog, I'm sure people would read it. Essay writing is of course it's own beast though; it's hard to do well, but the only way to learn is practice ;)

>>5692 Semi cross post from 8/tech/ here's what I've managed to some up with so far, critiques are welcome, and, yes, this is extremely flawed but it is the best I could come up with. >law All posts must either present a problem or a solution. All posts which make claims must be backed up. All posts must be related to the board and thread they're posted in. Content must not endanger the imageboards continued operation. (CP) If a existing thread covering the topic you're interested in exists post there. >execution Elections for moderators based on their post history where each user receives votes relative to their post count with extreme deductions for your posts which have required moderation action. Recall elections for moderators, along with a moderator log. This does risk socialization to some extent. >format Imageboard without trips subject and email but with a sage button. In order to reduce bandwidth cost, automatically convert all files to the smallest format available while retaining quality have these files saved in a permanent db where each files name is its perceptual hash, run a perceptual hashing algorithm on every uploaded file and replace the upload with the file existing in the db, or convert it and add it to the db if it doesn't yet exist. Federated using activitypub, nodes can be removed from the peerlist by node operators. In time user created boards would be cool, but for this to happen a culture of quality discussion must be created. >potential problems I or others have seen Socialization and circle jerking as a product of elected moderation. soykafposts using (= 1 0) #t levels of logic but which still follow the remaining laws. Establishing the necessary initial quality to have elected moderation work.

>>7383 >entire userbase has shrunk nigga there is liek over 1000 people in ##crypto rn on freenode

>>7513 >IRC usage has been declining steadily since 2003, losing 60% of its users (from 1 million to about 400,000 in 2012) and half of its channels (from half a million in 2003).

>>7514 yea maybe from like ##cybersex and ##bdsmcastle. most ppl in infosec i know uses irc to some degree. Many bridge from matrix too.

>>7530 I frequently use irc myself, in fact I host my own server and it's the primary means I use to talk with my friends. It's one of very few open standards that has a workable ios client for the tech illiterate. It is undeniable it has declined however.

>>5727 I'd be interested in a thread for this, you should make one, lainon

>>7510 Good, now make it.

>>7565 If I had the skills I would've already. I've been making a lot of progress recently, I'll make this my goal.

>>7573 >>7565 I wouldn't mind a project repository being created. An issue tracker with some TODOs might be useful as well.

>>7662 Here you go lainon: https://gitgud.io/btraven/omegachan.git

>>6232 I feel exactly the same way, I'm constantly looking for better communities. Something changed around 07-08 and I think is very closely related to social media in general. Escaping the echo chambers is very important!

>>7399 I find really interesting that you think that scientific information is not entertaining, you judge information in terms of productivity I gather, that is just a reflection from culture. In a dystopic extrapolation of your vision, who will judge the difference between entertainment and "good stuff" information? See the problem is that while some people find watching videos of cats entertaining, other find reading about the latest scientific research entertainment. Its not the information that is problematic, its culture that changed, technology is still just a tool. Internet takes only two resources, energy (like everything else) and volume. Volume density keeps shrinking and we are now finding how nature deals with this (its awesome! just look at DNA), I agree that energy is THE issue, but we need to keep information flowing. It's our spice.

>>7687 > its culture that changed, technology is still just a tool. And why did culture change? Culture and technology aare inextricably intertwined. Cultures create technology and technologies in turn affect culture. It's an ongoing process.

>>7688 Neil Postman is still alive and hiding in Lain with Elvis and Hitler.

>>7689 Never read him and the idea is a lot older than his writing anyway. You don't have a counter-argument I see.

>>7688 Technology is just a tool. The network is cables and routers and switches and fiber and Ethernet and servers and software, since the 80s. Fundamentally the same. Information, however, is so fluid, and information also contains culture, that is your "inextricably intertwined" property, its because information and culture are the same fuarrrking thing.

>>7690 Nah man I just like posting images in Imageboards but I gotta pretend to be engaged in the conversation or I get derezzed.

>>7691 > information and culture are the same fuarrrking thing. You really are missing it aren't you? Technology affects what information we can share and how fast we can share it, therefore it changes culture. You said culture changed, well that's what changed it. I win, good night.

>>7695 congratulations on your victory. Back to the topic of information value, how would you judge that? would you take memetics and measure it in terms of infectiousness or would your sole criteria be productivity to have this "Ecological Internet". I mean I'm all for teletext resurgence but getting rid of entertainment in the name of Ecology? what about art?

And then there's the Bay 12 Games forums.

I'm dying to start my own discussion community, different from reddit, forums and image boards sadly I'm no web dev, I feel now is the moment for something new to start and grow but I don't think it can challenge the big social networks. Internet has become more concentrated yet it seems people are talking less to each other plus I'm very afraid of the bubbles people vuild thanks to the current social networks.

>>5727 >>7532 the neocities thread is long overdue I'm dying to see it

>>7753 Sounds like you have a specific idea in mind.

Is there a halfway decent forum host? The only old-fashioned forum I used to go to was Ezboards, then we switched to Proboards, then another forum started making complaints about us and Proboards shut us down without listening to our side of the story, so we went back to the Ezboards, which by then was called Yuku, and now it's been taken over by Tapatalk and all the links broke with it...

>>7897 Yes, very specific, I want to write a blue print or a white paper but that'll be pretentious

>>7911 Can you give us a rough sketch?