Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with forums

Help me find an intelligent soccer forum

deern the headlice — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:17:15 -0800

What comes the closest to being "the Metafilter of football/soccer"? You might remember I asked awhile back about about keeping up with games - thanks again for the answers. I've got a good list of news sources, but nowadays I mainly want to find decent interactive discussions...

I've got plenty of the obvious news sources to check for EPL and La Liga games (Guardian, ESPN, Football365, etc), but I'm curious about forums. All the ones I've found seem to be populated with high school kids or just really bad writers. I would love some funny, smart, substantial, balanced dicussions without silly meltdowns.

Thanks in advance!

Would you pay to post?

bryon — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 10:57:01 -0800

I'm starting a web forum. Should I charge users? The forum will focus on a popular topic which should draw many people. I'm thinking hard about charging a nominal fee ($5) for registration. That would prevent spambot signups and discourage the casual troll from ruining everyone's fun. You know, like we all did when we signed up here. There are two potential disadvantages: 1) I would have to spend lots of time dealing with new registrations (I'd get over that), and 2) it might discourage some people who would otherwise register and be productive members. What do you think? Bonus question: if I do go with paid registration, how do I make it happen on phpbb3? Many thanks.

Looking for fellow marketeers

OctopusRex — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 08:46:27 -0800

Intelligent marketing discussions online? I'm looking for a place where intelligent marketeers with a strong academic outlook hang out, where I can discuss topics like "Best practices in B2B-marketing for niche players in the service industry?"

Does my girlfriend spend too much time on online forums?

kleenkat — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 13:25:23 -0800

Am I being unreasonable about how much time my girlfriend spends on online forums and message boards? It's ironic that I am asking this on metafilter, but I really feel like my girlfriend spends way too much time online talking to strangers about every day things, hobbies, etc. What is weird though, is that she doesn't actually participate in many of the hobbies she claims she is on the message boards for. She just talks about them and the stuff she talks about sits and collects dust in our apartment (cameras, guitars, etc.) Hasn't touched them in over a year. She is a moderator on one forum and probably spends 4-5 hours each day, if not more, on these three forums. One being Fluther, where a bunch of people ask questions that can simply be Googled. I understand online community and what not, and when I say something to her she gets pissed off because I'm doing work for school. I am not, however spending nearly as much time doing graduate work as she does online. She is only these forums throughout the work day, and on her computer when I get home from work every day, even when we are cooking dinner she intermittently checks the forums for new posts or to answer ridiculous questions on Fluther.

Am I being picky or unreasonable? I just think it's strange but hey to each their own. I just feel like she is constantly at her computer. Yet, when I try to get her to go out in the "real world" and hang out with friends, she says the general population annoys her. Since I started dating her I really miss REAL social interaction with people, even with strangers. It now makes me reluctant to participate in many social events because I know she will be bored or despise being there. What should I do? I love her very much, and I don't want to come off as insensitive....I just wonder if it is unhealthy. She's a sweet, caring girl.

THanks in advance...

Reviews of employers?

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 09:27:51 -0800

What are best forums/websites where people post about their work experiences and about the pros and cons of various employers? I'm doing short term contract work in the Dallas area (financial and tax compliance stuff), going from job to job every three or four months, being placed by different recruiters. Working in some real dysfunctional places comes with the territory, but I do like to know what I’m walking into.

So I was looking around for forums and discussion groups where people essentially review their employers. I’ve come across several, but I figured somebody here has already found the good ones. And I do realize that most of these sites would attract disgruntled and negative types, but I can read between the lines.

Thanks for your help!

Where do the insiders hang out?

Diddly — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 10:08:00 -0800

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

Where can I come out of my shell with other Turtles fans?

shelayna — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 08:25:13 -0800

I'm looking for online forums where I can discuss my favorite groups from the late 1960s, especially The Turtles, with other fans. I've looked around but haven't really found any forums that are active.

finding a forum

canoehead — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 10:46:38 -0800

How to find the best internet forum for a particular subject? Is there a quality site that ranks forums on all topics?

For example, right now I am looking for info & opinions on netbooks (and if anyone knows of one that comes with a built in analog modem let me know). A search reveals dozens of sites with forums that have to be checked out. Most have low activity. It seems every topic has a site where the knowlegeable people hang out (like usenet in the old days) , how do you find these sites easily?

Quant Forums?

Spurious — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:08:55 -0800

Popular Forums on Statistics and Quantitative Research? In undergrad I got interested in web development, but I did not know anything. I learned web development by hanging around forums such as WebmasterWorld. I asked and answered hundreds of questions over two or three years and now am actually pretty good at it.

I want to apply the same method to learning (more) quantitative research. What are the most popular internet forums out there on statistics and quantitative research?

Which user forum fills my specific needs?

bingo — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:02:59 -0800

What forum software should I use to accompany my new site? I have some specific features in mind. This forum will live on a subdomain. The primary domain will be a sort of magazine (customized wordpress installation). Comments on the main site will be enabled, but I also want a general forum to open up to users to start their own threads, and to discuss topics that don't come under the heading of any specific post on the main site.

Some important features:

a) Customizable CSS so that it will match the look and feel, more or less, of the main site.

b) Free or cheap.

c) Hosted by me (via Mediatemple).

d) Posts have unique URLs, so that, like on Metafilter, if you want to send someone to a recent conversation, you can just paste them a link.

e) Certain threads can be made private, i.e. only certain designated members can read or participate in them.

nice but not vital:

f) sign-in through pre-existing identity with some kind of semi-universal login, e.g. facebook, wordpress, etc.

g) voting

h) Ability for users to subscribe to email notifications of new threads, replies, etc.

i) User profiles that allow them to learn more about each other, have links back to their own blogs, etc.

I don't mind having to install and configure it myself.

Thanks for your thoughts...

Please recommend a forum for asking gardening questions

jeb — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 14:40:25 -0800

Please recommend a forum for asking gardening questions I've got a lot of different gardening questions about different things. For instance, I'm growing this three sisters garden in part of my main garden, kind of as an experiment. I planted it super dense with the idea of thinning it, but I'm not sure how thin it should be, as it appears intercropping in this style generally supports much higher density than normal row planting.

My gardens are generally small, I have a lot of container plantings and a big raised bed area, I'm mostly interested in kitchen gardening, and specifically I'm growing a lot of heirloom or esoteric varieties of plants, and I'm growing more or less organic.

What are the best forums for discussing questions about this kind of stuff?

How do they expect to know my "real" name?

flummox — Tue, 05 May 2009 17:11:42 -0800

When attempting to register at an online forum I was repeatedly blocked when attempting to pick a username. My choices included random strings of letters and numbers. I sent a email asking what was up. The answer was that one had to register using ones "real" name... How the heck can a web admin make that determination? The only question asked previous to picking a username and pw was DOB. (Which seems a bit weird too.) Since that time I have attempted to pick a username with several plausable "real" names including my real real one and have been blocked Does this make any sense?

How do we politely approach a Blog or Blogger and ask if they would be so kind as to review our e-commerce store....thus essentially promoting it?

orehek — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:00:10 -0800

How do we politely approach a Blog or Blogger and ask if they would be so kind as to review our e-commerce store....thus essentially promoting it? We own and operate an e-commerce store and we are trying very hard to achieve national visibility and accessibility by doing the right things with the hopes that it will help drive the right kind of consumer traffic to our site and therefore result in increased sales. We are in the midst of trying to identify Blogs which cater to the same customer base as us or at least similar ones. Once, we do that, how do we handle the next steps?
We are an authorized dealer for about a dozen major brands (several hundred products). Our e-commerce store specializes in stand-alone "air purification" units mostly for residential needs and to a lesser degree, commercial needs. High-end air purifiers are our primary business but we are in the middle of significantly expanding our offerings to also provide quality "water filtration" units and several eco-friendly "Green" product lines as well, which will compliment our existing products.

1. How do we find the best blogs which would specifically suit and compliment our needs?

2. How do we respectfully and successful approach them to ask if they would consider reviewing us in the form of an article or post on their Blog?

3. Lastly, if we decided to start our own Blog to help promote our company, should the Blog be designed to be within the website, or should it be independent of the site and simply have it help direct traffic to the site while spreading the word about our site?

Looking for a good writing board

ilike — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 04:59:32 -0800

Anyone knows a friendly forum where writers hang out discussing their craft? I know of the Nanowrimo boards but I never quite liked them. The discussion there seems a little too geared towards fantasy, sci-fi and romance. Also it is so large I find it hard to filter out the useful discussions. All ideas appreciated.

Online communities where people share competitive secrets

wireless — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 16:26:02 -0800

What are some forums/online communities where people share secrets on getting ahead in life? I'm interested in the phenomenon of online communities where people give strangers help on how to get ahead of the competition, and would like to find more examples so I can study the social psychology behind them.

I'm not talking about forums where people share knowledge that makes the world better off (e.g. relationship advice, tech support); I'm referring more to forums where people share competitive secrets. A good example would be a forum where executives discuss how to beat their rivals and get promotions. IOW, these would be forums you wouldn't want your biggest rivals to be reading as well.

Some examples that more or less fit this description:
- College Confidential (college seniors often discuss with others applying to the same schools how to increase their chances by padding their applications)
- Pick Up Artist Forum (men share their secrets/tricks on attracting women)

I'm especially interested in examples of communities focused on things like career success and social and political popularity.

forums

amsterdam63 — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 14:30:00 -0800

Are there any other answer forums similar to, or as good as Ask Metafilter? And what is the best/most reliable C programming forum? I know there is Yahoo Answers, but its not nearly as good. I like how you have to pay for this one, and only can post once a week which obviously makes it work.

Can I legally harvest facts posted in an Internet forum, reformat them, and display them in a more user-friendly format on my web site?

underdetermined — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 15:59:37 -0800

Can I legally harvest facts posted in an Internet forum, reformat them, and display them in a more user-friendly format on my web site? I understand that your are not my attorney. I have also searched the Ask MeFi archives and found posts related to forum postings, but not specifically facts contained within them.

The situation is as follows: There are several forums that display user-contributed data in a very disorganized manner. The data are summarized in a particular format in forum postings.

I have created a template that presents this data in a much more user-friendly format. The template also includes a form so that users can add additional data.

However, in order to incentivize people to visit the site, I will have to have some data already posted. As far as I know, the only sources for this data are the forums I described.

I recognize that data cannot be copyrighted. Am I free to pull this data from the relevant web sites, reformat it, and publish it on my own web site, even if they claim that all of their content is copyrighted? What if the terms of service of the forum prohibit this?

Single word forum comments: Why?

mpls2 — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 08:17:46 -0800

Why do people leave inane comments on forums? I'm specifically talking about comments like "lol", "that's awesome", "that sux", "nice", etc. I understand if people are leaving those comments for people they know (sort of like, "hey, person I know, I'm acknowledging what you wrote because we're friends"), but I suspect that a lot of it is just random people leaving random comments.

What motivates someone to do it? Is it the online form of small talk? Is that how people start building reputations in their favorite online communities?

Yes, I've done it, just because the cool people were doing it.

how was your day at work?

vodkaboots — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 09:21:15 -0800

Funny blogs, forums or websites written about different types of workplaces? I love reading about what really goes on in different workplaces. In particular I've enjoyed stuff like waiterrant and true porn clerk stories, as well as lists of idiotic IT helpdesk questions and ridiculous 911 calls.
Basically anything that that has interesting and funny stories from an insider about what it's like to work day-to-day in a particular industry. Any recommendations?

Drupal Help: too much information!

[insert clever name here] — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 13:46:31 -0800

I have been trying to get the hang of Drupal all morning. I am trying to set up a community/info site and I am completely overwhelmed. Help me figure out what I need to know! I'm usually pretty good at figuring this stuff out, but I've been trying to read up on Drupal configuration all morning, and my mind is spinning and I seem to have gotten no farther than when I started. There is too much info! Its too damn flexible! What I'm trying to do is set up a page with forums, articles, wiki, user blogs, gallery and maybe some misc other features. But I can't seem to get past configuring even the index page. I turned on the default the forum module and can't even begin to figure out how that works. I've been trying to reed the help on their site as well as in their forums and well, I just don't know where to begin. I even found this book: http://www.packtpub.com/drupal/book however the reviews on amazon aren't so great.

So, any suggestions at all pointing me where to start with learning how to configure Drupal the intentions of setting up a community site, I think would really be great. I just feel like I need a little bit help sorting through the noise to figure out what I need to do.

Identifying forums on specific subjects

zaebiz — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:48:31 -0800

What is your formula for finding the most active online forums for discussions about very specific subjects? Benchmark subjects to test your formula out are - solar electricity, icecream lovers, driving a taxi, the Weimar Republic, analysing dreams. The forums needn't be dedicated to the particular subject but they should be the sort of forum for which information about the subject is abundant.

Where are the smart dog people?

TochterAusElysium — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 11:40:29 -0800

Where are the better dog forums online? Are there any MeFi-quality (or close) dog-related discussion areas online? Blogs, forums, etc.? I've looked at Dogster.com and a couple of others, but they're more on the YouTube level of discourse. Thanks, MeFiDogs!

Where can people ask and receive personal recollections from old folks online?

quarterframer — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:47:19 -0800

Is there a specific place on the internet where younger people can ask and receive personal recollections from elders? Looking for a central place where someone could ask questions about personal experiences such as "What was it like crossing the San Francisco Bay for the first time on a bridge in 1937?" or "What was it like playing in the orchestra on a Sinatra recording session?" or "Could you get Moxie in a bottle in a supermarket in the UK in the 1950s?".

1) Does such a site exist?

Seems like it must. Many old folks love to tell stories and many young folks are curious about the past. I'm not sure where to look and Googlewise I'm not getting anything.

2) If not, are there any micro examples of this kind of interaction on the web that you can point to?

P.S.
I'm NOT looking for YouTube links or blogs by old folks or Studs Terkel books. These can be all be wonderful in their own ways, but what I hoping for is interactive and current. Like Duplex Planet but with more lucid responses.

Early internet discussions?

vizsla — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:40:20 -0800

Besides Google Groups, where else can I find archives of discussions from the early days of the internet? (on any subject)

Personal Finance with Pounds

Happy Dave — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 10:01:17 -0800

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery." British personal finance blogs, forums and other resources? After several post-university years of lurching from one personal finance crisis to another, I'm finally pulling clear of my personal debt.

I've had a very decent increase in job income, and I'm also about to receive a legacy which will let me pay off my post-universtity loans, and, for the first time in my adult life, leave me in a position to start saving properly, investing fully in retirement funds and give me a stable enough life to create and follow a budget that isn't going to get dashed to pieces on my bank's indifference and yet another overdraft charge.

Since I started working towards fixing my personal finances, I've been following a few personal finance blogs in the US (Get Rich Slowly, The Simple Dollar etc). While these are very useful, and some of the principles are currency independent, they are very US-focused.

I'd like recommendations for personal finance blogs, forums and other online resources that talk about the specifics of the UK financial world, from ISAs to investing to bricks and mortar. My key aims in the next few years are to pay off £12k in student loans as fast as possible, save 6 months of expenses, a deposit for a house and get my retirement funding in order - which websites will help me do this?