Is TrekBBS the last of the great scifi message boards?

[davejames]

I find Facebook's format bizarre and clumsy. It's hard to find a comment more than once, it keeps randomly defaulting to "Top Stories" no matter how many times you set it to "Most Recent," it's a crapshoot whether a comment you post will actually reach everyone to begin with... it's horrible. I don't understand why people like it.

My issue is less with the format than with how incredibly negative and cynical most of the commenters on FB seem to be, trashing just about everything in sight.

It's not quite as ugly and nasty as the Youtube comment section just yet, but it's definitely getting there.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

TrekBBS is our last best hope.

 

[1001001]

TrekBBS really is pretty great. It's definitely been my internet home for a long time.

I don't have a Facebook page.

 

[Avro Arrow]

One of the non-scifi boards that I frequently visit just switched their forum softwater to a Question/answer-type board. Some sort of an panic-solution to prevent leaking of users to FB.

Maybe if they didn't use softwater, the board wouldn't leak so much?

 

[Silvercrest]

TrekBBS is our last best hope.

For peace?

 

[Bob The Skutter]

For peace?

For fanboy spats.

 

[Awesome Possum]

For fanboy spats.

Then you've haven't been to reddit. It's a fanboy spat generator. These spats even spawn their own spats when they get discussed on subreddits made to discuss spats. A perfect perpetual drama generating machine.

 

[Tim Walker]

I like forums such as Trek BBS. I hope they don't disappear.

I've occasionally looked at other forums with science fiction themes, and often the latest posts are years old.

 

[auntiehill]

I used to be on several forums that were very "show" specific--and modded them-- but they've all died out. This is really the only one still going. I think that's because it's so much more than just Trek. It's sci-fi oriented but there's also a great deal more going on here.

I hate Facebook and Twitter; it may be fun to read someone's Twitter feed, but you can't get in-depth discussion or really get an idea of the people involved. This place is Nerdvana to me; if it ever disappears, I don't know what I'll do with myself.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Twitter is very useful for getting in touch with a company's customer service department. Many times they'll check their Twitter feeds a lot more often than they'll answer emails. I can usually get a response from a company's Twitter feed a LOT quicker than email.

As for Facebook? Oh hell no. I'm not on that, and never will be. I literally don't know what I would do with it.

And this board...I may have come here originally seeking a Trek knowledge base, but nowadays I find it more useful simply to connect with friends. I have made some good friends here and if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be here. This board means more to me as a place to meet those friends than it does for Trek conversations.

 

[Conan85]

I think gateworld is still pretty active. Which isn't bad for a franchise that hasn't had any new material (aside from the odd novel) for a few years.

 

[bbjeg]

TrekBBS stands above all of the other message boards in my opinion.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

It's a shame these kinds of forums are going away because they allow for more in depth topical discussion. The FB/Twitter style just pushes everything into the same stream. The only ones that are surviving are the ones that have had a strong social community for at least five years and have evolves into kind of general everything discussion for fans of the original topic.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Then you've haven't been to reddit. It's a fanboy spat generator. These spats even spawn their own spats when they get discussed on subreddits made to discuss spats. A perfect perpetual drama generating machine.

We need to figure out how to convert that drama to energy. Goodbye fossil fuel dependency!

 

[Tim Walker]

Not a science fiction forum, but one I have participated in for 15 years is the Fourth Turning web site/forum. Free wheeling intellectual discussions about almost any topic under the sun. That, and a number of regulars have kept that forum going.

Perhaps there is a pattern here? The surviving forums are ones where a group of regulars can discuss a variety of topics?

 

[Garak]

Until it inevitably turns into a porn forum, it will be the best of the best.

 

[RoJoHen]

My issue is less with the format than with how incredibly negative and cynical most of the commenters on FB seem to be, trashing just about everything in sight.

It's not quite as ugly and nasty as the Youtube comment section just yet, but it's definitely getting there.

Facebook is not a good forum to discuss issues. It was originally designed to keep in touch with your friends, and that is how it should still be used.

Privacy settings are a wonderful thing.

 

[tomalak301]

Facebook is not a good forum to discuss issues. It was originally designed to keep in touch with your friends, and that is how it should still be used.

Privacy settings are a wonderful thing.

I've found groups to be pretty good though. That's really the only thing I use Facebook for these days. I barely put in statuses anymore.

 

[cultcross]

Once I was active on a number of boards, most prominently here, Buffy-Boards in its original incarnation, and Gateworld.
Now it's down to just here. Most others either emptied out to the point the traffic couldn't sustain discussion, ran out of things to discuss as their central topic franchise died away, or descended into a pit of over-moderated death-by-enormous-image-signatures.

 

[John Clark]

Yeah, that all sounds like one of the forums I used to visit