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Why forums died (and what makes them thrive) – 3.st3.st/2025/09/06/why-forums-died-and-what-makes-them-thrive/
1496 sats \ 9 comments \ @Scoresby 6 Sep meta
This is a very long article about the things that ruin forums.
  • Poor-quality mods and admins
  • Censorship and gatekeeping
  • The forum software is now garbage
  • Spam attacks
  • Increasing Centralization of the Internet
  • Chatrooms deprecating the forum
I think the only one of these that really affects SN is the increasing centralization of the Internet. I don't think SN falls prey to any of the others.
After extensively explaining all these various causes of forum death, the other concludes on this positive note:
Basically, a forum with good staff and a niche that draws in people leads to a forum with a good community, and when you combine that with forum software that doesn’t suck (like Discourse does) you have a winning combination.
I think SN has this winning combination. Yet we also have a lot of friction when it comes to new users (need a lightning wallet, need to be familiar with bitcoin, need to pay to post). But I'm also curious what stackers think:

Does SN suffer from any of the problems in the list above?

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265 sats \ 0 replies \ @NovaRift 6 Sep
Poor-quality mods and admins
I can tell you that as a former Reddit user, Stacker News is far far far better than I imagined. I think territories can be moderated here, but users have the power to downzap a post or comment which they find is not suitable for the community. Territory owners are just a mention away if you think something is not going well.
Censorship and gatekeeping
Didn't see it.
The forum software is now garbage
The UI and the whole way this site works is slick and modern.
Spam attacks
Could happen, but as I said, we all can downzap the shit out of them, mute them.
Chatrooms deprecating the forum
Do we have one? The only closest thing is @saloon, and we can see how well the concept works there.
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133 sats \ 1 reply \ @optimism 6 Sep
Does SN suffer from any of the problems in the list above?
No. But then, which forum in the history of the internet has been pay-to-post?
As long as stackers have something to talk about and are willing to part with sats for that, there isn't much risk, I think.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Fenix 8 Sep
I agree. Even spam can't be a problem here, since they have to pay and downvotes bury it.
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105 sats \ 2 replies \ @realBitcoinDog 6 Sep
The problem SN has is it hasn’t scaled to growth yet. That’s the real test
It’s too small niche to have spam yet, but I’m trying with my abs!
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10 sats \ 1 reply \ @Scoresby OP 6 Sep
Do you put the spam on your abs, or how does that work?
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102 sats \ 0 replies \ @realBitcoinDog 6 Sep
I make em shiny for @Undisciplined
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102 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 6 Sep
Does increasing centralization of the internet even affect us negatively?
It seems like there's a certain personality type that doesn't respond well to that and we are (or can be) an attractor for them.
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102 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 6 Sep
I'm surprised he didn't mention integration with mobile. As more and more people moved their primary engagement with the internet to mobile, sites that were built for desktop got left behind. I guess you could file that under the "software sucks" category?
The chat box stuff is interesting. Never thought about it. Couldn't a chat thread simply be preserved as a regular thread on the forum though? While maintaining its fast paced and real time quality
I think another aspect to consider, relevant to SN, is just declining literacy in the population. I think young people people are less attracted to text based mediums
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102 sats \ 0 replies \ @Akg10s3 6 Sep
No! I enjoy being here and being able to say what I think!
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