Where to find niche discussion on the internet

November 7, 2005 7:34 PM

"If you want to discuss [foo] on the Internet, the most popular/active/intelligent place at which to do so is http://[bar]." Is there a website that can fill in the blanks for all types of [foo]?

Various specialty or niche topics are most passionately and intelligently discussed in some of the farthest reaches of the internet. For example, the best place to discuss the Boston Red Sox is the nonintuitively titled sonsofsamhorn.net. And most topics are discussed in more than one place, in parallel communities on the web and Usenet that get varying amounts of traffic and insight. So I'm looking for a repository of links that will tell me where to go for the best discussion on a variety of topics, whether it be TV shows, computer games, gadgets, real estate, whatever.

posted by Saucy Intruder to Computers & Internet (12 answers total)

*snark*

http://www.google.com/

*/snark*

Seriously, DMOZ etc. are usually good for that sort of thing, because they've got a human component in editing and selecting the best sites.
posted by electric_counterpoint at 8:07 PM on November 7, 2005

About.com is not bad. I don't know if there are forums are not, but there will usually be links to sites which contain a forum component.
posted by mr.dan at 8:15 PM on November 7, 2005

fyi: DMOZ is hosted by google at http://www.google.com/dirhp.
posted by ALongDecember at 8:15 PM on November 7, 2005

I think this is pretty hard to do. Especially since for any subject X, there may be a series of sites where people think they know what they're talking about, and then a different series where people really know what they're talking about.

Even for a human, it usually take a fairly deep knowledge of the subject X to figure out which kind of sites are which, and the process still takes probably weeks for a single subject, so I would think it unlikely for you to be able to find a centralized search for this kind of thing.
posted by NucleophilicAttack at 8:50 PM on November 7, 2005

It's weak, but Wikipedia articles often link to forum-type sites. The notability guidelines mean only the good ones are posted.
posted by dhartung at 9:23 PM on November 7, 2005

I think you're looking for Something like this.
posted by Lockeownzj00 at 12:50 AM on November 8, 2005

Maybe I misunderstand the question, but howstuffworks might be related to your desire.
posted by mic stand at 3:49 AM on November 8, 2005

fyi: Google actually just licenses the DMOZ content, it's just the most popular site to do so.
posted by jessamyn at 6:14 AM on November 8, 2005

Google does not host DMOZ. They just repackage its contents, which are freely downloadable - just like there are many sites now that download the entire wikipedia database and host the content verbatim with advertisements added.
posted by Rhomboid at 10:13 AM on November 8, 2005

In the past I've thought about asking a question very much like this. Google is often of little help. Sometimes less well-known places have less noise; for instance, for backpacking (as in budget travel, not in the wilderness) I find the message boards at bootsnall.com more useful than the better-known Lonely Planet Thorn Tree.

You might try googling on the topic with message board search strings in the search, such as 'travel "Powered by Groupee Community"'. Of course you'll have to repeat this for each kind of message board software, and it won't find sites with homebrew software.
posted by komilnefopa at 12:57 PM on November 8, 2005

groups.google.com aka usenet. I can't ensure that all of the threads will be intelligent, but it may lead you to what you are looking for.
posted by jasondigitized at 3:39 PM on November 8, 2005

Compounding the problem: many of these "best" sites aren't entirely open, and it's difficult to get past the gatekeepers. I had an easier time getting into MeFi when memberships were closed than I have had in trying to get into SOSH (I've been trying intermittently since the 03 offseason, with no success to date).
posted by .kobayashi. at 11:55 PM on November 8, 2005