Where do the insiders hang out?

September 9, 2009 10:08 AM

Do you know of any industry specific public online forums where insiders discuss common problems or share helpful tips?

I find it facinating to learn about the daily lives of people - what they worry about, how they deal with issues, and stories from the trench. Instead of mindlessly driving through the automatic carwash a few minutes every month, you start to get an appreciation for the work that went into selecting the right detergent, how to capture the waste water, and how often people drive through with bikes on the rack.

Example sites that I've come across:
Residential/commercial construction
Self-Storage
Car wash/Quick lube

posted by Diddly to Society & Culture (12 answers total)

Best answer: Eng-Tips forum for all things engineering. Free registration required. It's supposed to be use for passing advice on technical topics, but there is a lot of shop talk mixed in there as well.
posted by muddgirl at 10:20 AM on September 9, 2009

Best answer: Thi isns't quite what you were asking, but the Good Experience blog recently had an interesting interview with the "brand manager" of Marriot talking about the attention to detail and process they went through to re-brand their hotel lobbies. I'm personally travel-oriented, so I often check out Flyertalk for frequnt flyer stuff and BiddingforTravel to figure out what to bid on Priceline stuff. Escapees is great for learning about RV culture.
posted by jessamyn at 10:36 AM on September 9, 2009 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Professional Pilots Rumor Network. The rest of us are "self-loading freight."
posted by exogenous at 10:42 AM on September 9, 2009

Best answer: The B4 Print Forums, for all things offset print and pre-press related, with the occasional graphic design issue thrown-in. Don't expect any kind words for amateur art-director clients or for designers who never heard of CMYK.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:43 AM on September 9, 2009 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Woodweb.

(Be prepared for some poor spelling and sentence construction)

Also, The Furniture Society
posted by jon1270 at 11:16 AM on September 9, 2009

ProZ.com for all things translation related.
posted by msali at 11:46 AM on September 9, 2009 [1 favorite]

Baristas.
posted by TochterAusElysium at 12:31 PM on September 9, 2009

And tech support.
posted by Tobu at 1:53 PM on September 9, 2009

IT Wise, for corporate application packaging and deployment, get thee to AppDeploy.
posted by Admira at 4:56 PM on September 9, 2009

Howard Forums is pretty much the best place I've found for insider information on how telecom companies work. I endorse this as a telecom employee.
posted by Octoparrot at 8:07 PM on September 9, 2009

Cyburbia (Urban Planning)
Chronicle of Higher Ed. (Academia - Colleges and university professors)

Also,
I don't know if it's just me (and my areas: anthropology, college radio) but some domains may still use LISTSERVs.
posted by fizzix at 8:35 AM on September 12, 2009

Actually fizzix has a good point, most library specific discussion [and this includes best practices for webbish librarians, OPAC development, public librarian talk] happens on listservs, some of which are archived and accessible, some of which aren't. STUMPERS-L was the classic one of these, there's also PUBLIB and web4lib. There are a shitton more at the ALA listserv interface and the a few at Webjunction. Sorry for the crappy interfaces.
posted by jessamyn at 1:54 PM on September 12, 2009