Part 2 of 3 ... Warning: This one is a bit long ...
The time for traditional discussion fora may simply be past. At least the party moved on to other internet platforms. What would it take to move it back? And would people then find these old sited or simply build new sites?
If that's truly the case (and it might be) then warhammer (40k, AoS, WFB & the coming OW) are going to be the worse off for it.
Cesspools like FB are not going to be that helpful in the long run (short term maybe). GP is right about that. YT could be (very) good if more knowledgeable folks started up channels.
Intellectual dead zones like Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter or TikTok are going to do more harm than good.
Discord is kinda the wild card here. Could indeed be helpful or soul crushing for newbies (especially over stressed younger ones), depending on who is participating.
Nah, the time for traditional forums isn’t past, it just isn’t what it once was because people are allowing their time to be sucked away into garbage that is appealing to the lesser, yet no less powerful emotions of anger, fear, greed, and even sadness. This instead of not being lazy, making conscious and healthy choices, which requires the expenditure of intelligent analysis, thought, and actual creative behavior and interaction which can bring far more joy, peace and comfort as a result, than anything that things like facebum provide. I'm sure facebum has some redeeming value, and if a person can weed through the rest and find enjoyment, that is a good thing. However, I am skeptical due to the way they are running their company, and how people are tracked and advertised to accordingly.
At the same time, since GW hasn’t supported the Olde World in years, some folks have gone to the newer W:AoS rules, or just stopped altogether. GW has done this after every revision. Except this time it wasn’t just a revised set of rules, it was a complete moving away from the Olde World, and constructing a new world out of its ashes.
The problem with facebum is that it is set up as a place to advertise. Regular users post pictures and wee bits of info, sometimes respond quickly to another post or picture, and folks share about their lives while others get to keep up with what is going on in other’s lives, and there is the business aspect of it, as well for those advertising their services. However, it really doesn’t have conversations of any quality from what I’ve seen. After all it is just a form of media, and the primary producers of the site are doing whatever they can to hold people’s attention so they can sell more advertising because of it.
Let’s be honest, if politicians are using facebum as a way to reach people, and candidates are advertising their campaigns, and other folks are attempting to influence folks to vote for certain campaigns, this by itself clearly shows it is a media site. And I’m at a point with the way it is all going where it some how needs to be legislated so that it can’t continue to act against the better course of human events.
And by the way, the use of the word “social” in front of media is pure spin, and frankly not worth even typing except to call it spin. It’s all a crock of crud.
And I echo Dwi on the following … with the exception of youtube, the rest of are exactly as Dwi has stated, intellectual dead zones. And ... facebum isn’t much of an improvement over such either. Facebum has already demonstrated that they’re willing to put money and power over the interests of average people, and that is just flat out inhumanity to the rest of us.
In essence, it is up to regular folks to create forums, or help keep forums running, including participating in them, to help keep real community moving forward, and not give something like facebum much time during the day.
