Other forums you have abandon in 2020?

MtnMan

Diamond Member
Jul 27, 2004
9,409
8,806
136
How many have abandon other forums you used to visit or post on routinely in 2020? And by 2020 I mean COVID and the politics of 2020?

I was active on several as they were and I emphasis "were" geared toward interests I had, with some banter about current events, politics. Haven't posted on several for many months. And I was probably one of the last holdouts. Reasonable, rational people that could actually express independent thought, sometime that were 180 degrees from my views, sometimes more closely aligned, have also abandoned these forums.

One in particular, with gun laws, self defense, concealed carry as the basis has gone from a very active board to a once-was with basically two posters providing 90%+ of all traffic. One is a retired Navy chief, whose god is a orange stained fucktard, and the other is a fundamental christian fucktard, also career Army, who boasts he never votes because god controls everything, andthe "end of the world" is coming and everything from Katrina on, is his gods retribution due to homosexuals, and other moral debauchee.

I used to enjoy the posters, who have all moved on, save for these two wingnuts, but morbid courisity I do look from time to time, without loggin in. It has gone from 100's of new posts a week, to maybe 10 or 20, primarily from these two dolts.

The religious nutjob hasn't changed, the Trump worshiper has virtually nothing to say about what Trump is doing or saying. I reviewed his posts over the past week. There are only two people he targets in them. Hillary and Obama... He never mentioned Trump having COVID, or in the hospital, or the Rose Garden super-spreader event. It's really humorous, but sad when you realize there are millions more just like him, and they vote.

I'm sure the ad revenue of that forum has tanked as has the traffic, and yet the owner/moderator allows these two nut jobs to dominate 90% of the content.
 

pete6032

Diamond Member
Dec 3, 2010
8,142
3,580
136
I only post here on a regular basis, but I have noticed a lot of sports websites have become extremely political with COVID happening.
 

pauldun170

Diamond Member
Sep 26, 2011
9,492
5,707
136
This is the only forum I still frequent (with a healthy dose of the ignore button). Once Trumptardism took hold of the internet and every fool felt their bullshit was worth spreading I slowly abandoned forums and social media in general.
 

MrSquished

Lifer
Jan 14, 2013
26,067
24,396
136
The two main other forums I browse are kind of tech related (audio tech and Android phones and OS) and they don't have political forums. But I started reading the ArsTechnica forums because I enjoy the website's tech content and reviews. Unfortunately it requires a subscription to post in the Off Topic and Political forums but I still read them. Surprise suprise, most people are anti-Trump in general there as well. Anyone a member of other higher-level tech forums and can speak to the political leanings of the posters on the political forums there?
 

Bitek

Lifer
Aug 2, 2001
10,676
5,239
136
Yeah, you guys are enough, and after almost 20 years, feels a bit like a marriage. Little worn and familiar, but always there when I want to stick the tip in.

Might read some other forums (cars/trucks) but this is only one I really bother with on politics
 

WelshBloke

Lifer
Jan 12, 2005
33,090
11,271
136
Yeah, you guys are enough, and after almost 20 years, feels a bit like a marriage. Little worn and familiar, but always there when I want to stick the tip in.

Ewwwww.....

I feel used and dirty now! :oops:
 
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pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
15,142
10,040
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Truth is, I started posting in the non-tech subforums mainly because The Guardian hugely cut down on how much reader-comment it allowed. Previously I only used the forums here when it was time for a PC upgrade and tech-research was required. (That's why I ended up with multiple accounts prior to this one - by the time upgrade-time came round I'd invariably totally forgotten my previous account ID and password, and even the email it was associated with.)

There was one other forum I used to frequent, but trolling didn't seem to be controlled at all, so I gave up on it.

I still can't get over how the tech-sub-forums here are often even more bad-tempered and partisan than the political one (just with loyalty to rival corporations in place of political ideologies)
 
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WelshBloke

Lifer
Jan 12, 2005
33,090
11,271
136
I still can't get over how the tech-sub-forums here are often even more bad-tempered and partisan than the political one (just with loyalty to rival corporations in place of political ideologies)

The video card sub forum used to be incredibly bad tempered, they split it up into sub forums because of it.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,587
10,225
126
I still can't get over how the tech-sub-forums here are often even more bad-tempered and partisan than the political one (just with loyalty to rival corporations in place of political ideologies)
LOL. Sorry that you feel that way.

It used to be worse - there were posters actually employed by online digital marketing agencies, to push "agendas", and shill for companies. One well-known person whos avatar started with "R", was eventually banned.

The "rivalries" between corporate factions, these days, are a bit more mild then back then.
 

pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
15,142
10,040
136
LOL. Sorry that you feel that way.

It used to be worse - there were posters actually employed by online digital marketing agencies, to push "agendas", and shill for companies. One well-known person whos avatar started with "R", was eventually banned.

The "rivalries" between corporate factions, these days, are a bit more mild then back then.

Can't say it bothered/bothers me, so much as bemused me. I get it when it's politics, that's serious stuff, even, in extremis, life-or-death, but getting angry over picking a video card or CPU team always seemed odd, even funny, to me.

The worst, though, was (is?) finding myself getting into bad-tempered arguments about trivial technical questions. I'd find msyelf thinking "what the heck am I doing?"

I quit a completely different forum (relating to an interest unrelated to tech) recently, because I really didn't like how angry I found myself getting with the troll contingent (and they were obviously trolling, which made it even worse that I let them get to me). I've also cut off from some people in real life, this year, because I'm tired of hearing their mad conspiracy theories about the pandemic.
 

Starbuck1975

Lifer
Jan 6, 2005
14,698
1,909
126
I read news sites and their comments sections more so than online forums. Even the NY Times comments section, which has a lot of high quality posters, degrades into partisan vitriol, they just use bigger words.

I first started coming to this forum when I needed help building my first gaming PC, and found it curious that a tech forum had such an active politics sub-forum. I attribute my learning of and embracing some aspects of democratic socialism to the older threads. I am hopeful that once Trump is out of office, the threads will cover a more interesting range of topics.
 

Greenman

Lifer
Oct 15, 1999
22,241
6,432
136
There has only ever been three forums I visited with any regularity, and only one of those that I gave up on. That was entirely due to being purchased by verticalscope, and being run by a German fellow who's English skills weren't all that great.
 

trenchfoot

Lifer
Aug 5, 2000
15,791
8,370
136
I've given up on a couple of them because they got totally politicised when those forums had absolutely nothing to do with politics.

In some ways it's like the Trump Defense League's lame efforts at excusing his despicable behavior is worse than the COVID one in the way it insidiously spreads itself everywhere you look.
 

MtnMan

Diamond Member
Jul 27, 2004
9,409
8,806
136
I still can't get over how the tech-sub-forums here are often even more bad-tempered and partisan than the political one (just with loyalty to rival corporations in place of political ideologies)
There will always be the Intel vs. AMD, or iPhone vs. Android, or the three-way Windows/Apple/Linux disagreements.
 

Perknose

Forum Director & Omnipotent Overlord
Forum Director
Oct 9, 1999
46,868
10,657
147
The video card sub forum used to be incredibly bad tempered, they split it up into sub forums because of it.
And yet the mods still have their hands full, also with CPU. Brand loyalty. So tribal.

I'm beginning to see that every EFFING thing is tribal, especially now, our politics.
 
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Perknose

Forum Director & Omnipotent Overlord
Forum Director
Oct 9, 1999
46,868
10,657
147
I feel used and dirty now! :oops:
Hi there!

You, ummmm, doing anything later?
GHnapSz.gif
 
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WelshBloke

Lifer
Jan 12, 2005
33,090
11,271
136
And yet the mods still have their hands full, also with CPU. Brand loyalty. So tribal.

It seems less viciously personal now though, although that maybe me not going in there so much so I don't notice. CPU and GPU performance used to really matter but now you can run even the newest games on not bleeding edge hardware (unless you go out of your way to grind things to a halt).

I'm beginning to see that every EFFING thing is tribal, especially now, our politics.
It's the blokey things! Sports, politics, computer hardware...
Blokes discuss things in a very black and white, I'm right so you must be wrong way and that naturally gravitates into two groups of monkeys howling and throwing poop at each other.
 

HurleyBird

Platinum Member
Apr 22, 2003
2,812
1,550
136
Anyone a member of other higher-level tech forums and can speak to the political leanings of the posters on the political forums there?

I don't post too often there, but my feel of [H] is that they're definitely right-of-centre (to the extent this means people are pro-Trump, I'm not sure). Not quite to the same degree that AT is left-of-centre, but palpable nonetheless.
 

brycejones

Lifer
Oct 18, 2005
29,869
30,670
136
I don't post too often there, but my feel of [H] is that they're definitely right-of-centre (to the extent this means people are pro-Trump, I'm not sure). Not quite to the same degree that AT is left-of-centre, but palpable nonetheless.
[H] is more than a little right.