Comment by eterm
19 hours ago
Much greater than now, given the open discoverability of the original post here, versus the walled-off content we have today, locked away in discord servers and the like.
Furthermore, the act of replying to that post will have bumped it right back to the top for everyone to see.
I agree with this. We are much missing these forums with civil replies and clouded behind "influencer" culture, which is optimized for incentives. Pure discussions as in this example are such a stalwarts of open web.
On the other hand, small websites and forums can disappear but that openness allows platform like archive.org to capture and "fossilize" them.
These forums still exist. Typically with much older and mature discussions, as the users have aged alongside the forums. Nothing is stopping you from joining them now.
My Something Awful forums account is over 25 years old at this point. The software and standards and moderation style is approximately unchanged, complete with 10 dollar sign-up fee to keep out the spam.
Like mosquitos trapped in amber, preserving hidden blocks of knowledge