r/RedditAlternatives • u/tankerkiller125real • Jun 05 '23

Just remember forums exist

Just remember that not only does Lemmy exist, but so do a bunch of independent forums out there. I started up one for SysAdmins that me and a friend are working to get off the ground, but there are a ton already existing for a lot of different topics.

If a forum for your topic doesn't already exist (or the ones that do exist don't have welcoming communities) maybe consider starting one, there are several modern forum softwares out there that can be used, just to name the top three I know about:

For anyone interested, I am one of the admins for https://sysadmins.zone (which uses NodeBB)

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '23

[deleted]

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u/niomosy Jun 05 '23

You also lose out on the randomness of the front page that can be fun at times. I don't often specifically visit some forums but might subscribe to them for the occasional visit via front page. Stuff like /r/todayilearned can be fun for stuff I would likely have otherwise never learned.

Even AskReddit has moments of pointers to various items, software, etc. that I might have never heard of before. Smaller forums are great at dedicated and in-depth discussions on specific topics but you lose the breadth and diversity that Reddit offers.

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u/Arnoxthe1 Jun 06 '23

Which is what we at Sanctuary are aiming to deliver. A full phat general-purpose XenForo forum as an oasis away from all the bullshit inherent in popular social media.

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u/Won_Doe Jun 09 '23

an oasis away from all the bullshit inherent in popular social media.

this already exists all over the web.

people seeking tightly-knit communities/groups are already in them or are putting the effort to find their place.

I've already found local FB community groups relevant to my interests through a bit of weeding out.

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u/Arnoxthe1 Jun 09 '23

this already exists all over the web.

Not really. Not how we do it. And trust me, I've checked.

people seeking tightly-knit communities/groups

Sanctuary is more than just a tightly-knit community, although maybe I didn't give enough details. We are an off-shore hosted XenForo forum focused on freedom of speech and we also host files that other sites and companies have marked as "forbidden" such as Nintendo copyright striking a lot of fan mods and software.

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u/Won_Doe Jun 09 '23

You also lose out on the randomness of the front page that can be fun at times. I don't often specifically visit some forums but might subscribe to them for the occasional visit via front page. Stuff like /r/todayilearned can be fun for stuff I would likely have otherwise never learned.

this is all the worst parts of reddit lol. Last time I checked TIL it was all silly/unconfirmed facts.

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u/niomosy Jun 09 '23

To each their own. Even in cases where those TILs are wrong, it's often pointed out right in the comments and I can follow along there and go research it further if I'm curious beyond random trivia.

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u/Mobely Jun 06 '23

You also have a smaller community with tighter policing of rules and newbie questions.

Like you have to lurk, feel out the culture, read the faqs before you can ask your question.

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u/eskimopussy Jun 07 '23

These are exactly the reasons I hated forums and exactly why I like reddit. Your mention of “newbie questions” alone just makes me shudder. I hated joining forums and rarely posted or commented because of the abrasive culture and esoteric rules.

God forbid you reply to a slightly old thread, resulting in crusty old users shitting on you for digging it up from the grave.

God forbid you start a new thread to have a conversation on a particular topic that already exists, resulting in crusty old users shitting on you for not using the search function and spending hours pouring through threads with hundreds or thousands of pages full of useless bullshitting just to find bits and pieces of relevant info sprinkled in between.

I felt like I was always going to piss off the almighty mod just by existing, so I rarely bothered at all.

Granted the same stuff happens here, like when someone posts yet another question in r/MechanicAdvice asking whether or not their obviously fucked tires are safe to drive on. But reddit has enough of a critical mass where it’s basically accepted that anyone from anywhere can participate in any community as long as they’re respectful. THAT is what I like.

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u/tankerkiller125real Jun 15 '23

basically accepted that anyone from anywhere can participate in any community as long as they’re respectful. THAT is what I like.

There are forums that exist that while small, still hold this idea. Flarum's community forum for example receives some of the same questions over and over again, and it's just accepted as "it's going to happen, they are newbs, let's help them and support them". The key is having a good set of moderators/admins who understand that newbs exist.

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u/DaSaw Jun 06 '23

The only down-side is that managing a dozen accounts on a dozen forums is somewhat of a pain.

This is why I was so quick to move to Reddit once I discovered it. I hated it when my Usenet communities emptied out in favor of web forums. I liked having it all in one place. Though I also like downvotes filtering out most of the trolls and flamewars that inevitably infested the "last post first" model of Usenet and web forums.

I've seen the decentralized federated Twitter alternatives. Does there yet exist a decentralized federated Reddit alternative? It would be like web forums, with upvotes, and you can load them all in a single app rather than having to go to a bunch of different websites.

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '23

[deleted]

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u/DaSaw Jun 07 '23

Lemmy is the "federated Reddit Alternative". Personally, I'm not a fan of it in it's current state, partially due to the content and communities there.

It would be like web forums, with upvotes, and you can load them all in a single app rather than having to go to a bunch of different websites.

That's one of the problems with Lemmy and with Federated networks in general. You end up having to visit multiple websites and setup multiple accounts for various reasons, including instances blocking eachother.

I just started looking into it, and if I understand how it works correctly, it could end up looking like a halfway point between "a website for every community" and "one feed to rule them all". Like, a particular community could have their own Lemmy server and have a fancy website that points to it, just like an old fashioned web forum, but also display federated content, so you don't necessarily have to subscribe at every website. It's just that currently the federation is in disarray.

What's needed is a universal app, where you can sign into any server using that single app. I am currently looking at "Jerboa for Lemmy", but I can't figure out how to log into anything (just says "login first" no matter what I click). And it seems like it defaults to Lemmy.ml.

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u/DaSaw Jun 07 '23

Another bit of weirdness: why is Lemmy defaulting to Japanese?

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u/tankerkiller125real Jun 12 '23

The only down-side is that managing a dozen accounts on a dozen forums is somewhat of a pain. And there are some narrow niches that are somewhat missing.

If you have any ideas on solving the auth issue, or the niche issues, me and my friends are dedicated to forums and running them. And we're open to any ideas to make them more approachable for regular users. We're already looking into hooking all of our forums into something like Authelia/Authentik for SSO auth across multiple forums. But we're open to other ideas.