i started using the internet in the late 2000’s and still remember when you search for something most of the times it would return with a forum post … now its just random websites … if you ever need real and concise answer you have to add site:reddit.com at every search and since discord or twitter are not crawlable by these search crawlers they are not mentioned . Where did all those forums went…are there still active forums ?
I agree. I don’t use Discord at all. Chat rooms always suck for questions/support.
That‘s not even all. The process now is something like:
Search on Google: no answer -> search on Google with Reddit.com appended: no answer -> search on Google with Reddit and Discord Server appended: click through 3 expired invitation links -> finally find a working one: scroll through pages and pages of memes and rule34 content to find the answer you wanted
I want my searchable forums and bulletin boards back ffs.
People falling back behind closed or private barriers for guaranteed human to human interaction and information as AI rises is more and more likely in the future … IMO.
Search Google-> 5 YouTube videos pinned to the top
Search Google with Reddit appended -> deleted comments in a thread 5 years old not even about my specific problem
Search duck duck go -> numerous highly detailed websites that may or may not be related to my specific problem
The number of those comments that are deleted sure went up a couple of months ago. I wonder what happened 🤔
you can search specific channels on discord. if you’re seeing memes and r34 while searching for something in a hub server for a game or something then you’re not searching correctly. or the thing you’re trying to find info on is so niche and poorly organized they have 1 channel.
They got better with threads but not that popular. Still, I prefer forums over Discord.