What Are Some Limitations/negative Things About Forums

So, for my speech I kinda need to know what y'all think are some limitations of forums, or things that negatively impact your forum experience in general. It doesn't have to be about the wynn forums.
It can also be things that are limitations of forums in general as a media platform. How does the message-board nature of forums suffer compared to the more fast pace of Discord, or how does it triumph over discord? stuff like that

For me, it was/is social anxiety. Sometimes criticism, or being corrected hurts my feelings and makes it hard to keep coming back to the forums, and this criticism is not curated into a friendly environment as it sometimes is in real life since the forums are a public place.

This is kinda a child thread of this one

 

I think that one things forums have over discord is the message-board nature; it makes it a lot easier to put down information here for easier access, while on discord anything you post will be drowned out. Plus, sometimes the discord changes to one topic for some reason and you can't discuss anything else. I think that the discord is a more casual environment, forums is far better for discussions about individual topics. However, discord is a lot better if you need immediate answers; ask anything and there will be someone to answer you almost instantly; you can also verify with other people to see if you're being trolled or not. So overall, forums could be said to be more "stable" while discord is a lot "faster".

 

The main downside of the forums for me is that, especially after having been very active in the Discord, is that things I post on forums feel so.. official. Might seem strange, but on Discord it's very quick discussions, banter, helping out and whatnot- while on forums it's much slower, larger messages. That kinda ends up giving me the feeling that forum messages would have to have big effort and quality put in them, while anything else just goes to Discord.

I do recognize the type of anxiety you feel with using the forums, as being corrected here compared to Discord feels more like failing something rather than forgetting something in a discussion. Still, the more solid and slow nature of forums does lend itself better to meaningful discussions, that people can actually read and refer to, while Discord discussions are, at best, remember by the handful of people that participated in it.

I wouldn't say the forums is an unfriendly place, though- it's by far not as disruptive as trying to have a conversation on Discord between two spammers, someone with a question and someone talking about something entirely different, and I haven't noticed much intended rudeness towards other on the forums in a while now, worst is when a suggestion gets shot down badly.

Overall, I wouldn't say either is better than the other in particular, but Discord is better for gauging other people's opinions, having a quick (or lengthy) discussion to flesh out your opinion on a subject, or simply having a quick chat (which is pretty much impossible on forums considering there's no shoutbox or something similar). Forums, however, excel in having your opinion made clear and help others form one, as well as generally have more lasting and impactful discussions. It's up to what you want to talk about and in what form which platform you use, really.

 

In 90% of the other forums (wynn is the best forums I've ever seen in terms of personalization and features tbh) there are A LOT OF drawbacks that doesn't really want me to use them.

- Pace. I see people prefer discord over forums is because, for example, when you want to ask others whether they got time to play, it is a lot easier to get response in discord than in forums. In other words, discord or other instant message apps has a way faster pace. You rarely see forums DM just to ask you out for a game or something. In forums you are typing essays or paragraphs (uhh yea) to respond others' post, instead of just typing "No". However in discord you will do that, people will give a yes/no or short response to others.

- Contents. I talked about that in above paragraph, but anyway. Wynncraft has relatively good places for you to actually shitpost, I mean posting useless sentences or what are you doing IRL, but pretty much 90% of forums banned shitposts and IRL stuff strictly. That means, if you are posting random shit in somewhere like General Discussions (or Nemract's bar in wynncraft's words) section, most likely your thread is going to get locked and your account is being warned. But in most games' discord they got an off-topic channel (or something equivalent) which makes it looks like, discord is more content-free than in forums.

- Personalization. In many forums in games they don't really allow personalization. Take warframe's one as an example, some of the forums only allows you to write your bio, and not allowing you to change your display name or your profile pictures. Or take you as an example, I really bet that you can't write "Degenerate spell warrior" under your name in most of the forums. And for all that mentioned above, discord or other apps offers all of them usually, and this makes people use other stuff instead of forums.

I am NOT saying that discord > forums though, forums allows you to talk about a certain topic without sinking by other content easily. And since people are giving response in large paragraphs, the thing people say in forums may be more constructive as well. But if you want quick response then Discord is a better place for you.

Good luck on your speech :))

 

it.. exists

 

Bump10char

 

I probably have social anxiety and i use forums, which means i dont have social anxiety

 

You can have social anxiety but be really sociable online, or the other way around
I believe it helps for a lot of people that they don't have to look anyone in the eye when they're online, just as an example

 

Can confirm, as an autie not having to look people in the eye helps a fuckton, hence why I have so many messages on here
Being able to separate myself from my online ‘persona’ helps as well

In fact I think that most prolific members in any online community are probably on the introverted side offline; it’s a lot easier for less socially adept people to communicate in a purely textual medium rather than needing to focus on things like body language and voice tone, especially on forums where the time it takes to articulate an answer isn’t an issue since any post automatically bumps the discussion up to the top of the list, making time gaps less of a conversation killer (hence why I can write out all of this as 4:30 in the morning without it coming out as a jumbled mess, while IRL I always sound at least a little drunk). However more extroverted people, and especially those who rely on body language and expression to communicate with others, aren’t able to online and are thus less likely to use the internet to talk to people.

Speaking more personally it also helps that the forums, being centered around Wynncraft, will generally always have active discussions I’m personally interested in and can contribute to; there’s no small talk necessary, you can just jump right into any conversations you want to, and have the ability to pick and choose who you reply to.

Also, I can dump info (like this post) without accidentally alienating the audience; people who don’t want to go through all of this will just ignore it, which means that, unlike real life, I’m not holding up a captive audience as I monologue, and the discussion participants naturally filters down to those who hold similar interests

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Man, where are you debating people, because over here debates always turn to vitriol

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I feel like my post might belong better in the other thread, tbh, but whatever

 

An explanation of what I meant:

In real life criticism and debates can take place in a more private setting. I can pick the people I surround myself with and who I interact with.

(not always of course. It’s just that on the forums everything I say is public and open to criticism by anyone, who could say anything. Perhaps I’ve just been lucky with how I’ve been predominately criticizes in real life)

 

@Moss
the shoutbox is gone


the shoutbox is gone