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<blockquote data-quote="Fisty McB" data-source="post: 1123215" data-attributes="member: 389824"><p>I think this is a problem with most if not almost all internet forums in general these days. Back when I was a teenager & into my early 20's in the late 90's and much of the 00's, if you wanted to communicate with like-minded people on a certain topic or interest then aside from chatrooms, internet forums were the place to go to (whom by that time had largely replaced newsgroup participation that had its peak in the 90's). Since this was an era where internet access was opening up to more people on a constant basis (especially among children & young adults), it was also a time when most people suddenly had a voice to be able to speak to an audience in a topic that they wouldn't have had the opportunity to have had before, even if they couldn't see or even hear the "audience" in question, with a level of intimacy that wasn't previously available in many cases. Certainly in earlier years there was a general assumption that if you were on the internet and you wanted to talk or get info on a technical topic that you had at least a basic level of IT competence so that you weren't a complete idiot, and that mods, admins and other general forum members welcomed you into their community as any other offline group would - many good, some bad. The good ones dealt with trolls effectively while trying to keep as open a door as possible for newbies to join up, which became important to helping develop a thriving virtual community.</p><p></p><p>As time has gone on however, a lot of forum participation has dropped off in many places for several reasons. One is the rise of social media which, for good and bad, has made personally joining interest groups within a confined sub-level of the internet (i.e. the social website bubble itself) easier and more instant to do than most forums - even if actually signing up to join a forum even back in the 90's wasn't exactly hard to do. This had led to fewer internet users joining up what forums remain meaning that rightly or wrongly, admins on some forums now regard many new signups to their forums as potentially being troll accounts until proven otherwise. This has made it more difficult for genuine new forum members to not be treated with suspicion by the mods & long time regular posters especially when new posters post something that makes them suspiciously look like a troll/gimmick account, but they actually aren't e.g. posting a rather naive message or something with an incorrect assumption. Secondly, and sadly somewhat related, ever since broadband internet became mass market that almost any household to use/afford (and later extended on to mobile phones), any high functioning idiot can now type something out to sPakE TehIr BraNes which has flooded some once respectable online communities with a tsunami of sh*te & banality, and the presumptions that once existed among online communities that I mentioned above where most contributors had a modicum of intelligence in them soon went out the window, many website/forum owners soon giving up and shutting down as they became tired with such crap. Most of this has now diverted towards social media but it still exists in the wider WWW. This in turn has led to many forums that have existed for some time with many members having been there for years (if not at least two decades by today) becoming a little "paranoid" about those that now enter their "space" - it explains how some forums have became "repetitive" with a small group of regular contributors making up most of the posts. The problem with this is that in ignoring & turning off new contributors effectively seals the forums' death warrant as nobody is there to replace those "elders" whom eventually leave or die off, it's not a case of "if" but "when". In the "offline" world this can be seen with some DXing & amateur radio clubs folding because of the dearth of younger people taking up these hobbies.</p><p></p><p>I think I've spouted enough <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite81" alt=":-toilet" title="Toilet :-toilet" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":-toilet" /> for now. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite76" alt=":ph34r:" title="Ninja :ph34r:" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":ph34r:" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Fisty McB, post: 1123215, member: 389824"] I think this is a problem with most if not almost all internet forums in general these days. Back when I was a teenager & into my early 20's in the late 90's and much of the 00's, if you wanted to communicate with like-minded people on a certain topic or interest then aside from chatrooms, internet forums were the place to go to (whom by that time had largely replaced newsgroup participation that had its peak in the 90's). Since this was an era where internet access was opening up to more people on a constant basis (especially among children & young adults), it was also a time when most people suddenly had a voice to be able to speak to an audience in a topic that they wouldn't have had the opportunity to have had before, even if they couldn't see or even hear the "audience" in question, with a level of intimacy that wasn't previously available in many cases. Certainly in earlier years there was a general assumption that if you were on the internet and you wanted to talk or get info on a technical topic that you had at least a basic level of IT competence so that you weren't a complete idiot, and that mods, admins and other general forum members welcomed you into their community as any other offline group would - many good, some bad. The good ones dealt with trolls effectively while trying to keep as open a door as possible for newbies to join up, which became important to helping develop a thriving virtual community. As time has gone on however, a lot of forum participation has dropped off in many places for several reasons. One is the rise of social media which, for good and bad, has made personally joining interest groups within a confined sub-level of the internet (i.e. the social website bubble itself) easier and more instant to do than most forums - even if actually signing up to join a forum even back in the 90's wasn't exactly hard to do. This had led to fewer internet users joining up what forums remain meaning that rightly or wrongly, admins on some forums now regard many new signups to their forums as potentially being troll accounts until proven otherwise. This has made it more difficult for genuine new forum members to not be treated with suspicion by the mods & long time regular posters especially when new posters post something that makes them suspiciously look like a troll/gimmick account, but they actually aren't e.g. posting a rather naive message or something with an incorrect assumption. Secondly, and sadly somewhat related, ever since broadband internet became mass market that almost any household to use/afford (and later extended on to mobile phones), any high functioning idiot can now type something out to sPakE TehIr BraNes which has flooded some once respectable online communities with a tsunami of sh*te & banality, and the presumptions that once existed among online communities that I mentioned above where most contributors had a modicum of intelligence in them soon went out the window, many website/forum owners soon giving up and shutting down as they became tired with such crap. Most of this has now diverted towards social media but it still exists in the wider WWW. This in turn has led to many forums that have existed for some time with many members having been there for years (if not at least two decades by today) becoming a little "paranoid" about those that now enter their "space" - it explains how some forums have became "repetitive" with a small group of regular contributors making up most of the posts. The problem with this is that in ignoring & turning off new contributors effectively seals the forums' death warrant as nobody is there to replace those "elders" whom eventually leave or die off, it's not a case of "if" but "when". In the "offline" world this can be seen with some DXing & amateur radio clubs folding because of the dearth of younger people taking up these hobbies. I think I've spouted enough :-toilet for now. :ph34r: [/QUOTE]
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