I have moderated two RV forums, one of them is huge. (iRV2) Talk about a thankless job. We've met a lot of RVers who participate in that forum. Years ago I was active on a Cadillac forum and met a lot of those car enthusiasts, too.
I was (and still am to a degree) on a gun enthusiasts forum. They have state-level forums, so there are always "meet up" activities going on...at least there were in Northern VA. I've not been on it much because my rural 51 acres would gain too much attention and "new friends." A bunch of us "adopted a highway" just outside of Tysons Corner VA in the name of the gun forum. You would get all sorts of nuisance posters on gun forums. You ban when possible.
With the uptick in millenials buying RVs for full time living and to "hit the road" with some cheesy Youtube channel, the RV forum changed from mostly retirees with laid-back attitudes and manners to the wild west of entitled idiots. Moderating was too time consuming with nearly 300,000 members and about 5,000 active at a time. (Plus there were a couple of moderators who thought they were all-powerful and were real asshats. I seldom agreed with their moderating decisions.)
I can imagine. I have no idea what that gun forum I moderated is like today. I hadn't thought of the new members from all these new gun owners. I think that community tends to be a little more responsible. I liked the mods I worked with there, but we were small enough that there was no need to go scorched earth en masse. You know, so many things contribute to entitlement these days. I've returned stuff to stores and when they apologize, I ask them to not make a narcissist out of me. If it's not life & death, then let's agree that Stuff Happens and move on with our day. It's all so self-destructive.
I also belong to a Model Railroad forum, with my Desert Freight train running on 130 feet of track in my game room.
Presently, 3. This one, a writer’s forum and Quora. I did belong to a Christian forum as well as a military one and an IQ based forum but they all figuratively went south. One got zapped with a DDOS and never came back, one was sold and yet another simply folded.
If we're distinguishing forums from social media like Facebook, I am currently a member only of SO and AARP, though probably won't be long at the latter. I have previously been on 2 forums for psychotherapists. One closed and the other I left when therapists devolved into trashing each other for differences in practice models and therapeutic theories.
I was on reddit and Quora. Didn't care for reddit. And got called "Karen" on Quora so I left on my own. I recently left one of the senior forums I was on because of the massive amount of hostility. I'm in a couple facebook groups for gaming. I left 1 gaming forum and I basically read posts in another game forum. I also went back to another forum for folks over 50. I get the feeling it's mostly UKers cuz they talk funny. I'm on a rather large forum I found that I'm trying to get into more. I'm also on a women's forum that has recently seen a spike in members. I also go to something called MeWe. It's like the uncensored version of Facebook. LOL! Oh yes...I was on several Christian Forums but most of them either fought all the time or weren't doing enough to hold my interest. Some places I've left because they weren't user friendly. I had one Senior forum I was on but they told me if I didn't post a real picture of myself I couldn't stay so I left.
I can’t imagine a forum actually requiring a person to post an actual picture of themselves, @Marci Miller ; that seems like a pretty crazy idea, and one that would discourage a lot of people from joining. And , even if you did post a picture, how would they be able to tell that it was actually YOU, in the first place, and not some picture that you found online of another person ? I tried MeWe , but just never got very involved with that. What i really enjoy are Facebook Groups, which is not exactly like a forum, but it is discussion on topics that interest me. I don’t know why people who disagree can’t be civil with each other ? If I disagree with something that someone else says, all I have to do is politely say what I disagree. There is never a reason to start name-calling and attack the person for their beliefs. as we all know, nothing we say is likely to change someone’s mind about something they firmly believe, so arguing about it doesn’t help either, once both people have stated their side of the issue. In forums, this can be especially bad, because people tend to choose sides and form cliques, so when one person attacks someone else for their post, the whole group jump into the fray, and attack, too.
I have been on several gardening forums in the past, but SO is the only one I am currently involved with, although I think my name is enrolled in a couple tractor forums.
Only active here on SOC, a rancher forum, and a women's fitness forum. Signed up on a couple of other senior forums but left them.
Same here. I had a successful throat cancer operation two years ago and I try not to think about a recurrence.
What do you think of the Quora forum, Bobby? I visit their site for the Q & A stuff and they seem to attract some intelligent people. I wasn't even aware they had a forum you could join.