What type of online discussion platform do you prefer?

[Prowler]

The internet is full of communities for everything: from cartoon discussion to gardening discussion. The thing is, there gave been several different platforms for people all over the world to gather and enter in contact with each other since the earliest days of the internet. Remember how chat rooms were huge back in the late 90s/early 2000s? And then message boards/forums began taking off around the early 21st century? And ofc there were also IM services such as Messenger(Yahoo and MSN).Then Skype showed up and then social networks, which made it even easier for people all over the world to get in touch with their friends and other people.

Where do you prefer to go when it comes to discussing stuff? I'd say nothing beats an internet forum as far as lengthy discussions go. It's just easier to post and read long posts on a message board than it is on a damn facebook wall or reddit. Plus, inf forums you can have avatars and sigs. It kinda saddens me that message boards are a dying breed and that none of the most popular online forums are as active as they used to be.

As far as chatting with people goes, Discord is a rather new and pretty nice service. It's like they took elements from TeamSpeak, Messenger IRC and Skype to make the ultimate IM service.

What about you?

[CyberCubed]

I only use message boards, never used chatrooms even 15 years ago. I don't use skype or this new "discord" thing the young kids of today are using.

I occasionally check twitter/tumblr for fandom stuff but don't post there myself, but I'm forced to check over there for certain shows I follow just to see what people talk about. People don't post on traditional forums anymore like they used to so I'm forced to check out social media even though most of the time I ordinarily wouldn't.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Originally Posted by Prowler

The internet is full of communities for everything: from cartoon discussion to gardening discussion. The thing is, there gave been several different platforms for people all over the world to gather and enter in contact with each other since the earliest days of the internet. Remember how chat rooms were huge back in the late 90s/early 2000s? And then message boards/forums began taking off around the early 21st century? And ofc there were also IM services such as Messenger(Yahoo and MSN).Then Skype showed up and then social networks, which made it even easier for people all over the world to get in touch with their friends and other people.

Where do you prefer to go when it comes to discussing stuff? I'd say nothing beats an internet forum as far as lengthy discussions go. It's just easier to post and read long posts on a message board than it is on a damn facebook wall or reddit. Plus, inf forums you can have avatars and sigs. It kinda saddens me that message boards are a dying breed and that none of the most popular online forums are as active as they used to be.

As far as chatting with people goes, Discord is a rather new and pretty nice service. It's like they took elements from TeamSpeak, Messenger IRC and Skype to make the ultimate IM service.

What about you?

Comparing discussion communities to social media is a joke.

It's here we can discuss topics the best. Why? Because it's unknown who's behind an account.

At Facebook, focus will soon move from the topic to who's behind and who knows who. Sure you can create a Facebook account without telling who you are and just join discussions, but that's not what circa 99 % of the users do.

[plastroncafe]

With friends, I prefer Slack.
With a wider audience, I still prefer something like LJ/DW.
Nested comments, no keyword maximums.

And people are more likely to know how to start a new paragraph, so the writing is easier to read.

While I like tumblr for casual fandom engagements, for example fan art or new fic chapters, I don't like the format for actual conversation.

[sdp]

I loved chatrooms when I was a kid but I changed to forums and I still love forums but as we've discussed in different threads here they are dying and it's hard to find a good community which was easy in the early 00's.

I really like twitter and have been using it since it launched so ten years or so. I like slack but no one I like uses it, that's more of a work communication tool though. If I had time I would enjoy periscope more, but I was all over streaming years ago. Discord is indeed the latest thing, I think I may like it but I haven't really had time to dwell into it and every time I enter I don't know how to use it.

[CyberCubed]

What on earth is slack? This is the first time I'm hearing this. I swear they come out with these new things every week now.

[IndigoErth]

Always forums for larger audience, and used to be IMs for individual friends, but people don't use it much anymore.

Used MSN messenger mainly. Still wish Skype had adopted the 'winks' when it shifted users over to that.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

What on earth is slack? This is the first time I'm hearing this. I swear they come out with these new things every week now.

I have never heard of it either.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by Original TMNT Cartoon Fan

Comparing discussion communities to social media is a joke.

It's here we can discuss topics the best. Why? Because it's unknown who's behind an account.

At Facebook, focus will soon move from the topic to who's behind and who knows who. Sure you can create a Facebook account without telling who you are and just join discussions, but that's not what circa 99 % of the users do.

Ofc that's not the main point of facebook, but that doesn't stop people from commenting news articles and engaging in arguments with others. It's particularly funny when people spew prejudiced vitriol... behind their real name and their profile picture

[plastroncafe]

Originally Posted by Original TMNT Cartoon Fan

It's here we can discuss topics the best. Why? Because it's unknown who's behind an account.

Yeah, don't agree with this at all.
Anonymouses don't make for better discussions.

[Prowler]

Besides, lots of people here have shared their pictures of have links to profiles and websites where you can see their real names. I find people on these forums rather open about their lives and such compared to other places.

[BubblyShell22]

Definitely message boards for me. Easier to discuss stuff though I don't go on many message boards besides here, TMNT-L, and Stealthy Stories.

[FredWolfLeonardo]

The technodrome forums is the best online discussion platform on the planet.

[Cure]

I only hang out around here out of habit and because of the people I've gotten to know, to be honest. Otherwise I wouldn't be part of any fandoms or communities. Most of them are not the kind of people I wanna hang out with. I'd rather just talk about stuff with my friends and family.

[Wesley]

I used chat rooms a bit as a teenager (ones in Sega's Dreamarena service, for example), but I wasn't a big fan of them. I preferred message boards and still do. I don't post on Facebook or Twitter much either, though some of the stuff other people such as friends and celebrities post is interesting every now and then.