With Tildes going officially maintenance mode there's been a lot of talk about alternatives, successors, etc. I realize Tildes is going to continue on as-is for the foreseeable future, but I thought I'd drop this list here anyway for people who are interested in exploring other parts of the slower social web. Forums are still out there, and while in general they're past their heyday they're still imo the best way to socialize online.
Disclosure: I maintain this list myself, and I also run the platform that hosts it.
I summoned up some courage to ask this: what's the criteria to be listed on your list? Do you accept new forums at all or there has to be a certain amount of activity. I've been building a Reddit-like forum for a while now but haven't done enough to get a steady pace of users.
If you do accept new ones, happy to send you a link to evaluate. If not, all is good. I'm glad more forums are out there. I'm of the value that instead of 1 or 2 platforms, people should frequent a few that way there's always healthy competition and pushes each forum to be better.
How did you find all these? Almost all of these I’ve never heard of before, and they have active communities. Must have taken some serious web spelunking
rcgroups - radio-controlled vehicles of all kinds (primary focus on aircraft)
discuit has been a good replacement for the mindlessness of reddit; it's still small enough that I can browse the new stuff daily without wasting hours, and relevant enough to keep me checking in on a daily basis.
Lots more that won't come to mind at the moment; many niche topics have thriving forums still. It is diminishing rapidly though; when my older bookmarks lead to a site-wide 404 I die a little inside.
For some reason I've always been blocked from the site on my Linux desktop, whereas I can access it just fine on my emergency 10-year old Macbook Air. This has persisted through multiple IP addresses and different VPN connections (including no VPN connection at all). Given the highly tech-oriented focus of the forum, blocking Linux connections is... A choice.
But from the little I've seen of it, it seems pretty good; basically the same vibe as ~comp here on Tildes, though somewhat more opinionated (a very common vibe in tech forums).
Given the highly tech-oriented focus of the forum, blocking Linux connections is... A choice.
FYI: I use Linux and can access the site just fine (with KDE & Firefox on Opensuse Tumbleweed). It would be very unusual for a website to try to block Linux as an OS.
I figure there's probably something with my setup that's triggering an antispam response, but I can't figure out what it is. I'm using Arch, SwayWM, Firefox with default ublockorigin. I normally use a (paid) VPN via wireguard for general browsing but not exclusively.
It's not common for me to get blocked by sites but it happens every now and then, hence the emergency Macbook Air for when I need to do something really important - The worst offender in my experience is airline booking, they basically all block Linux connections in some way (at least the airlines in my area), normally letting you get halfway through the booking process before throwing a generic error. In terms of forums and 'less important' websites though, lobste.rs is basically the only one I can't get onto at all, which is a bit bizarre. I'll occasionally get gated by Cloudflare or anti-DDOS protections on sites like xcancel but normally that's a VPN thing, and I can understand that; when the issue persists without a VPN active then I really don't know what the problem is. Probably I could contact the site admins and see what's up but it's not worth the hassle, it's just an internet forum. It's all par for the course with Linux these days, but hopefully that's changing as it gets more popular.
Im on there, but its a distinctly different purpose than tildes. I can post cool technical stuff I have done on both of them, as well as interesting technical articles I found, but I cant really post about my personal life there. I didnt post this article over there, for example, because it was more about dealing with loss than it was about the technical aspect. I dont post anything about mental health, with the possible future exception of workplace burnout. Lobsters is for technical discussion and more recently discussion around the culture of tech. Its not a place to build a support network or talk about our personal lives and problems, really.
[OP] Ganymede | 2 days ago
With Tildes going officially maintenance mode there's been a lot of talk about alternatives, successors, etc. I realize Tildes is going to continue on as-is for the foreseeable future, but I thought I'd drop this list here anyway for people who are interested in exploring other parts of the slower social web. Forums are still out there, and while in general they're past their heyday they're still imo the best way to socialize online.
Disclosure: I maintain this list myself, and I also run the platform that hosts it.
IndieGamesCafe | a day ago
I summoned up some courage to ask this: what's the criteria to be listed on your list? Do you accept new forums at all or there has to be a certain amount of activity. I've been building a Reddit-like forum for a while now but haven't done enough to get a steady pace of users.
If you do accept new ones, happy to send you a link to evaluate. If not, all is good. I'm glad more forums are out there. I'm of the value that instead of 1 or 2 platforms, people should frequent a few that way there's always healthy competition and pushes each forum to be better.
ogre | 16 hours ago
How did you find all these? Almost all of these I’ve never heard of before, and they have active communities. Must have taken some serious web spelunking
pseudolobster | a day ago
I can think of a few off the top of my head that are still active and are missing from this list.
just_my_imagination | 20 hours ago
hackernews - mostly tech-centric discussion board
rcgroups - radio-controlled vehicles of all kinds (primary focus on aircraft)
discuit has been a good replacement for the mindlessness of reddit; it's still small enough that I can browse the new stuff daily without wasting hours, and relevant enough to keep me checking in on a daily basis.
Lots more that won't come to mind at the moment; many niche topics have thriving forums still. It is diminishing rapidly though; when my older bookmarks lead to a site-wide 404 I die a little inside.
moonwalker | a day ago
Anyone on Lobste.rs? Good or bad experiences?
secretfire | a day ago
For some reason I've always been blocked from the site on my Linux desktop, whereas I can access it just fine on my emergency 10-year old Macbook Air. This has persisted through multiple IP addresses and different VPN connections (including no VPN connection at all). Given the highly tech-oriented focus of the forum, blocking Linux connections is... A choice.
But from the little I've seen of it, it seems pretty good; basically the same vibe as ~comp here on Tildes, though somewhat more opinionated (a very common vibe in tech forums).
shu | a day ago
FYI: I use Linux and can access the site just fine (with KDE & Firefox on Opensuse Tumbleweed). It would be very unusual for a website to try to block Linux as an OS.
secretfire | a day ago
I figure there's probably something with my setup that's triggering an antispam response, but I can't figure out what it is. I'm using Arch, SwayWM, Firefox with default ublockorigin. I normally use a (paid) VPN via wireguard for general browsing but not exclusively.
It's not common for me to get blocked by sites but it happens every now and then, hence the emergency Macbook Air for when I need to do something really important - The worst offender in my experience is airline booking, they basically all block Linux connections in some way (at least the airlines in my area), normally letting you get halfway through the booking process before throwing a generic error. In terms of forums and 'less important' websites though, lobste.rs is basically the only one I can't get onto at all, which is a bit bizarre. I'll occasionally get gated by Cloudflare or anti-DDOS protections on sites like xcancel but normally that's a VPN thing, and I can understand that; when the issue persists without a VPN active then I really don't know what the problem is. Probably I could contact the site admins and see what's up but it's not worth the hassle, it's just an internet forum. It's all par for the course with Linux these days, but hopefully that's changing as it gets more popular.
Toric | a day ago
Im on there, but its a distinctly different purpose than tildes. I can post cool technical stuff I have done on both of them, as well as interesting technical articles I found, but I cant really post about my personal life there. I didnt post this article over there, for example, because it was more about dealing with loss than it was about the technical aspect. I dont post anything about mental health, with the possible future exception of workplace burnout. Lobsters is for technical discussion and more recently discussion around the culture of tech. Its not a place to build a support network or talk about our personal lives and problems, really.
drivick | a day ago
Not forums but blog pages: https://bearblog.dev/discover/
Also I've had this bookmarked some might be still active: https://aftermath.site/best-active-forums-internet-today
lostwax | a day ago
I don't use it anymore but metafilter is missing