i started using the internet in the late 2000’s and still remember when you search for something most of the times it would return with a forum post … now its just random websites … if you ever need real and concise answer you have to add site:reddit.com at every search and since discord or twitter are not crawlable by these search crawlers they are not mentioned . Where did all those forums went…are there still active forums ?

  • BudFactory@feddit.deEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Discord is pretty much the worst thing that happened to readily available information on the internet (when it comes to games and tech in general at least). No, I don’t wanna join your very specific niche server and use a search function worse than any forum back in the days had in hope to find the information I want.

    Also Google got way worse, but that‘s no secret.

    • SkyNTP@lemmy.mlEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      “Join our discord”.

      No I don’t think I will. I don’t want to chat. I want to RTFM.

      • BudFactory@feddit.deEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        That‘s not even all. The process now is something like:

        Search on Google: no answer -> search on Google with Reddit.com appended: no answer -> search on Google with Reddit and Discord Server appended: click through 3 expired invitation links -> finally find a working one: scroll through pages and pages of memes and rule34 content to find the answer you wanted

        I want my searchable forums and bulletin boards back ffs.

  • Hubi@feddit.deEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Just to give another perspective, the German part of the internet is still full of extremely niche bulletin board-style forums for every hobby/technology imaginable. Many have millions of posts and have been online for 20+ years. Seems to me like it’s mostly the English-speaking web that’s been affected by these large content aggregators and closed platforms like Discord.