So... why a 2000s era forum?

[Briljasan]

You know,

When I was younger, forums were the bees knees. I have fond memories of creating countless signatures, watching my post number grow as I interacted more with communities, & I just overall enjoyed the structure that forums provide. As of recently real-time chat forums have become REALLY popular, sites like Slack, Discord, & more, but frankly, I am not a fan of this format, it just doesn't seem like it incentivizes a personable bonding community. With just about any person that I come in contact with, I am always expressing my discontent with the real-time nature of these new age forums: If there is an interesting conversation happening 5 days ago, but I've just been too busy to engage with it (which I am quite busy these days), I am NOT going to scroll ALL THE WAY UP & read everything to get caught up to speed, & as I've been polling from others as well, this is unlikely that most will either. & if there are a few sprinkled conversations occurring in the middle of that main thread? Forget about it.

But without that you miss out of learning more about people within the community. You miss how some people handle interesting & or challenging scenarios thrown at them, & it makes you less likely to feel like you know what the hell is going on when you see the next conversation. I really enjoy the ability to separate things into categories, & within categories, users make posts with a topic. Therefore I can filter by category, & topic, & say I am busy for 5 days or whatever, it will be much easier to find & contribute to that direct conversation. That added with the ability to multi-quote & reply to everything with elegance, it tells you which categories & topics have new posts you haven't seen, make these old school forums god-tier. & I know I could just promote a subreddit, but frankly I don't know, I like to have full control over everything. Maybe someday I want to grab all the data from this forum & write my own forum backend that plays like a video game instead of a chatboard

On top of all that, I really enjoyed the community nature of old school forums in regards to usership. Everyone gets to write their own signature, with a banner if they choose, you get a custom avatar, username, Admins can award badges & points, you can have a reputation system, I love the dichotomy of this. Sure maybe I am naive & just old when it comes to communities, this might be a step backwards to some of you, but this is what I like, & I hope that you are down with this vision!

Now I know there are a list of things with phpbb3 forums that are just flatout outdated, but in the coming months, I want to get the boards all customize skinned, admin roles all sorted out, emojis that you know & love implemented, & a bunch of other cool features supported as I relearn how to do all that stuff to do my best to modernize the boards. Until then, I will see you around the forums! Unlike discord, a community format like this gets me excited to engage in conversation!

[frecklebars]

It's a great thing imo. I've always lurked forums as a kid but would always be afraid to interact. I'll take this as a second chance and be real active for everything I missed out back then

[Briljasan]

THAT'S THE SPIRIT FRECKLE!

[frecklebars]

:DD

[APillow]

I cannot get enough of the old forums style! Although not nearly as old as some bulletin boards out there, I have spent way too much time on the old old robocraft forums and maybe an embarrassing amount of time on the airraidsirens.net forum too. Also many hours lurking but never posting on the old facepunch forums. It certainly cultivated a more engaged, if sometimes less active community.

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