ISO: a social forum with entertaining personalities.
August 31, 2010 1:18 PM Subscribe
Help me find a decent online social community. Details inside.
For about 10 years, I belonged to a message board which happened to be based on a subculture and city where I lived.
Even though I moved out of state throughout the years, I still posted on it because 80% of the threads weren't based on the city.
Overtime, as everyone grew older and started having children, everyone became more boring and easily offended. In any case, I was banned from the board for a little bit (for saying that someone's artwork was generic) but I decided not to come back after my "time out" was served.
I also chatted on Yelp when I lived in a bigger city.
And I do belong to some blogs/forums but a few are strict with rules and more specific to a certain topic (ie: Webslueths, Ebay communities, etc)
Where I live now, there aren't any active online communities because it's a smaller city and even my friends don't use the internet that much.
Are there any forums that are out there that meet the following "qualifications" that I want? These would include:
-Not heavily censored
-Not a "u r so cool" type of crowd
-Has very funny people
-Has entertaining arguments
-Would prefer that most of the members were between the ages of 21-45
-Active (20+ threads/comments a day)
I hesitate at anything "hobby" related, as I don't really have any.
Like I mentioned, I belong to a few blogs and am familiar with fellow commenters, but would like a more off-topic and something more social driven.
For about 10 years, I belonged to a message board which happened to be based on a subculture and city where I lived.
Even though I moved out of state throughout the years, I still posted on it because 80% of the threads weren't based on the city.
Overtime, as everyone grew older and started having children, everyone became more boring and easily offended. In any case, I was banned from the board for a little bit (for saying that someone's artwork was generic) but I decided not to come back after my "time out" was served.
I also chatted on Yelp when I lived in a bigger city.
And I do belong to some blogs/forums but a few are strict with rules and more specific to a certain topic (ie: Webslueths, Ebay communities, etc)
Where I live now, there aren't any active online communities because it's a smaller city and even my friends don't use the internet that much.
Are there any forums that are out there that meet the following "qualifications" that I want? These would include:
-Not heavily censored
-Not a "u r so cool" type of crowd
-Has very funny people
-Has entertaining arguments
-Would prefer that most of the members were between the ages of 21-45
-Active (20+ threads/comments a day)
I hesitate at anything "hobby" related, as I don't really have any.
Like I mentioned, I belong to a few blogs and am familiar with fellow commenters, but would like a more off-topic and something more social driven.
Aside from metafilter, I am also fond of treesandthings.com; it probably meets your requirements (or at any rate comes close). It is an offshoot of plastic.com which is a bit too crazy for me, although you might look at that one too.
posted by grizzled at 1:29 PM on August 31, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by grizzled at 1:29 PM on August 31, 2010 [1 favorite]
Pandalous.
Of course, you could also do this with Facebook or Twitter. Even if you're already on these sites (I know you're on Twitter), that doesn't mean you're getting the most you could out of them.
Someone like Robert Wiblin has a Facebook profile devoted to generating good-natured, rational arguments every day through the comments on his status updates. (He has around 1,500 friends and pretty much treats it as a public forum -- to the point where he's done a radio interview about his Facebook feed! You could go ahead and friend him with no awkwardness.) This could also be a model for your Facebook profile (whether or not you already have one): post links to thought-provoking articles, or just make thought-provoking observations, and see if you can get a discussion going.
posted by John Cohen at 1:38 PM on August 31, 2010 [2 favorites]
Of course, you could also do this with Facebook or Twitter. Even if you're already on these sites (I know you're on Twitter), that doesn't mean you're getting the most you could out of them.
Someone like Robert Wiblin has a Facebook profile devoted to generating good-natured, rational arguments every day through the comments on his status updates. (He has around 1,500 friends and pretty much treats it as a public forum -- to the point where he's done a radio interview about his Facebook feed! You could go ahead and friend him with no awkwardness.) This could also be a model for your Facebook profile (whether or not you already have one): post links to thought-provoking articles, or just make thought-provoking observations, and see if you can get a discussion going.
posted by John Cohen at 1:38 PM on August 31, 2010 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Nice suggestions so far, I'll be bookmarking them when I get home. I'm especially interested in Pandalous.
Re: my own Facebook - I post and read posts daily on FB. I'd like something a little more anonymous. People seem to be afraid to be themselves on Facebook. Maybe because they have their relatives and co-workers added as friends. Or they're using their real names.
I always post links about stuff, but everyone is too busy updating their own statuses to read anyone elses. I guess.
posted by KogeLiz at 1:45 PM on August 31, 2010
Re: my own Facebook - I post and read posts daily on FB. I'd like something a little more anonymous. People seem to be afraid to be themselves on Facebook. Maybe because they have their relatives and co-workers added as friends. Or they're using their real names.
I always post links about stuff, but everyone is too busy updating their own statuses to read anyone elses. I guess.
posted by KogeLiz at 1:45 PM on August 31, 2010
I've heard the Penny Arcade forums are pretty solid, even if you don't like video games much.
posted by cirrostratus at 2:12 PM on August 31, 2010
posted by cirrostratus at 2:12 PM on August 31, 2010
Something Awful Forums. It's basically a lot of full-sized forums (with their own communities) grouped together.
There are forums inside SA that are full of trolls (FYAD among others) and they tend to be what people think about when Something Awful is mentioned. In general, however, they don't appear as much anywhere else. Probably because the moderation is strict as hell and trolls tend to get shunned outside their forums.
posted by Memo at 3:26 PM on August 31, 2010 [1 favorite]
There are forums inside SA that are full of trolls (FYAD among others) and they tend to be what people think about when Something Awful is mentioned. In general, however, they don't appear as much anywhere else. Probably because the moderation is strict as hell and trolls tend to get shunned outside their forums.
posted by Memo at 3:26 PM on August 31, 2010 [1 favorite]
I am probably going to catch words for this, but the Something Awful forums UNDER THE PAYLINE are very good. You do have a one-time fee to pay and optional upgrades available, but I've been very happy with my membership. I'm a member there under another name and I know I've seen a few other mefites there (eg, a television show's thread) It is heavily divided into subforums and has some rules; the debate forum pretty much doesn't exist anymore, but discussion within groups has always seemed healthy to me.
posted by cobaltnine at 3:29 PM on August 31, 2010
posted by cobaltnine at 3:29 PM on August 31, 2010
Grah, lack of preview fail.
posted by cobaltnine at 3:29 PM on August 31, 2010
posted by cobaltnine at 3:29 PM on August 31, 2010
...Just checked out Pandalous -- fair warning that it's giving my browser a DEVIL of a time, sheerly because of the size of some of the threads.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:51 PM on August 31, 2010
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:51 PM on August 31, 2010
Response by poster: Thanks all.
Yeah, I was thinking about Something Awful. I know its been around for 5 million years so if I sign up, I'll probably do some lurking at first.
Looks like I'll be busy today!
posted by KogeLiz at 7:25 AM on September 1, 2010
Yeah, I was thinking about Something Awful. I know its been around for 5 million years so if I sign up, I'll probably do some lurking at first.
Looks like I'll be busy today!
posted by KogeLiz at 7:25 AM on September 1, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Wossname at 1:29 PM on August 31, 2010 [1 favorite]