Websites: What types of other forums are people members of, besides TC?

[PerditaPickle]

Recently I started this thread off, and then after a short while it got me wondering*...

What sorts of other forums, message boards etc are people members of, besides TC?  (Don't feel you have to share the exact name of the site or whatever, unless you want to.)

For example, I've a friend who loves nothing more than to keep doing new things with her hair all the time and she's apparently a member of a hair forum!  Useful for garnering hints & tips I should imagine (though I can't imagine what else they must talk about).

For me, I don't think I'm a member of any (not for a lot of years, anyways) unless you count the New Order of Druids circle forum, which I do occasionally post in (though to be honest the only real activity is within the college forums, folks following the courses posting their assignments and receiving their feedback).

I did join a couple of Facebook groups relating to Extinction Rebellion, but they're not really the same (and anyway I try to go on Facebook as little as possible because it's frankly depressing!)


*Read: my nosey streak perked up!

[TheGreenWizard]

Recently I started this thread off, and then after a short while it got me wondering*...

What sorts of other forums, message boards etc are people members of, besides TC?  (Don't feel you have to share the exact name of the site or whatever, unless you want to.)

Good question!

The topics/subjects I partake in include: gardening; witchcraft/wicca (different one than TC); aquarium/paludariums/vivariums; snakes; knitting; sewing; uh... I think that's all of them? There's also a few adult-themed ones as well.

I also am a member of many Facebook groups - mostly for getting information, though I do have a few that I'm a regular contributor in.

[Darkhawk]

What sorts of other forums, message boards etc are people members of, besides TC?  (Don't feel you have to share the exact name of the site or whatever, unless you want to.)

I actually don't much care for web forums, so please appreciate the irony of me being senior staff here.

In the past I was active on FetLife and the Straight Dope Message Board but both of them burned me out on two wholly different varieties of stupidly frustrated so I stopped.

I'm only in a couple of communities on Dreamwidth - a very quiet pagan one, an inactive fandom, a Leverage fandom, and an indie games community that was founded after a recent immense itch.io bundle for purposes of discussing said bundle.

Discord channels I'm in (mostly muted):
- The Cauldron
- channels I got subscribed to via Patreon (one of which self-describes as a slow-motion book club, an artist chat, the I Need Diverse Games community, etc.)
- private channels for various groups of friends mostly but not entirely for the purpose of playing RPGs
- a metric buttload of RimWorld modder channels
- a couple of other game channels
- a writers' group chat I may or may not get more involved with someday
- a game jam channel for a game jam I did a year and a half ago
- the channel for the class I'm taking on EdX which I mostly use to grep the backscroll for debugging my dev environment

Honestly, what I really miss is usenet.  I was super active on usenet once upon a time, and my major active froups were:
- alt.polyamory
- alt.sports.baseball.bos-redsox
- rec.arts.sf.composition
- rec.arts.sf.fandom

I also lurked alt.religion.kibology (but who didn't?), one of the Wicca newsgroups, and rec.games.roguelike.nethack, and spent some time on rec.pets.herps.

I did join a couple of Facebook groups relating to Extinction Rebellion, but they're not really the same (and anyway I try to go on Facebook as little as possible because it's frankly depressing!)

I don't really use the Dread Book of Face for much other than posting kid stories to convey to friends and relatives, but I'm technically in:

- a couple of announcement groups related to my line of the Craft
- a humor group for people with intestinal disorders run by one of my best friends from high school
- a local political announcement group affiliated with Indivisible
- my church's announcement group
- a different dad-jokes-style humor group also run by a high school friend
- a parenting-in-the-quarantimes group
- I just got invited into a New Age group and joined because what the hell, it's not like I pay attention to any of the above anyway beyond what I see at a glance (except church and Craft, which I will actively check occasionally)

Anyway mostly I fritter away my life reading the Tweeters these days.

And now you know way more about the shape of my brain than you did before!

[Jenett]

What sorts of other forums, message boards etc are people members of, besides TC?  (Don't feel you have to share the exact name of the site or whatever, unless you want to.)

Oh, interesting question.

I started on Usenet not too long after the Endless September, back in the time when it was exciting to turn the background of your webpage something other than pale grey (to be precise, fall 1994), and that shaped how I comment online. Basically, I'm unlikely to post somewhere other than my own space unless I feel I've got something to add to the conversation beyond "me too" or something already expressed.

(Like Darkhawk, I was on alt.polyamory, dipped into some of the others.)

Dreamwidth
My primary online space [1] (other than here: I basically load them both for updates multiple times a day generally) is Dreamwidth.  Almost everything I post is locked (limited access to people with permission), but these days I have a pretty sizeable set of people who comment semi-regularly, and it's where a bunch of my "thinking through this thing I will want to remember later" goes.

I'm part of a handful of communities there (three of which overlap with Darkhawk's), and admin of one of those (the_thinking_pagan, for the curious). I am, however, reliably sort of lousy at getting conversation going, so mostly it's commenting when someone else posts and occasionally doing admin necessary things. I am currently behind on the Leverage rewatch one.

Forums and online spaces
I lurk, mostly. I have a set of Pagany forums I load up once or twice a month and see if there's anything new. (It's one of the ways I look for things I want to write about for Seeking.) Slightly more actively, a Tarot forum, and also I have a handful of Reddit communities bookmarked, and occasionally comment. (/pagan links to Seeking, so I've been sort of poking my nose in to read periodically for a while.)

I do the same with a handful of writing-related forums.

My more regular reading involves one associated with an advice blog, one that used to be a the Chronicle of Higher Education forums, and broke off to do its own thing when they shut the forum down, and the Library Society of the World, a group of awesome librarians who chat and geek and share useful links. (Most of us are sort of cynical about our official professional org options in various ways.) I think I've posted in the first two about twice each, but I comment in the LSW every couple of weeks.

I mostly use Facebook to belong to a bunch of private groups associated with classes or courses or specific projects Some of Pagan/magic related, some are writing related. I occasionally comment in both, but usually if I think I've got a useful comment. I really really really despise the legal name requirement, and basically never post anything in my own feed.

Discord: The Cauldron, one other Pagan one, a devotional practice one, a musician (related to her Patreon) channel, ditto an artist, a role playing game that is getting off the ground, a fanfic exchange channel, and a self-publishing one. I check in once or twice a day in the first four and the game, and sometimes chat more (but it's always behind other windows for me, which means it's easy to not peer at it.)

And then sometimes other thing - for example, this month I'm taking a writing/productivity class (so far, awesome) which has discussion threads on each lesson, but isn't really a discussion forum. One health-related Facebook group, and I have two of the CPAP forums bookmarked for when I need to troubleshoot.

Meta about what I'm doing with that
I have strong feelings about ongoing development of myself as a witch and priestess (which includes things like "reading a book" but also things like "being aware of what kinds of conversations people are having these days in places I don't spend most of my time"), and I feel the same way about the writing related communities.

There's a bunch of things in self-publishing where knowing that a site (ok, usually Amazon) is doing something extra wonky this week, or that this change is in the works, and here's how to approach it is really helpful and reduces my stress level a lot.

I mostly don't read them in detail - for the Facebook groups I have notifications on, and twice a day go through and open up the posts that look relevant/interesting. That's usually 5-10 posts out of a hundred, on average.

[1] Besides my own websites, which have commenting turned off, because wow, is spam awful on blogs these days.

[Gaudior]

Recently I started this thread off, and then after a short while it got me wondering*...

What sorts of other forums, message boards etc are people members of, besides TC?  (Don't feel you have to share the exact name of the site or whatever, unless you want to.)

For example, I've a friend who loves nothing more than to keep doing new things with her hair all the time and she's apparently a member of a hair forum!  Useful for garnering hints & tips I should imagine (though I can't imagine what else they must talk about).

For me, I don't think I'm a member of any (not for a lot of years, anyways) unless you count the New Order of Druids circle forum, which I do occasionally post in (though to be honest the only real activity is within the college forums, folks following the courses posting their assignments and receiving their feedback).

I did join a couple of Facebook groups relating to Extinction Rebellion, but they're not really the same (and anyway I try to go on Facebook as little as possible because it's frankly depressing!)


*Read: my nosey streak perked up!

To be honest, I'm more active on facebook groups these days, but I also used to be pretty active on Veggie Boards. I gravitate a lot towards the crunchy crowd too (I'm not anti-vax, just a disclaimer).

[Dynes Hysbys]

What sorts of other forums, message boards etc are people members of, besides TC?  (Don't feel you have to share the exact name of the site or whatever, unless you want to.)

I don't spend much time on line in paganspace - most of it depresses me too much. When I am online then it's either my local facebook groups or the wild food and plant identification ones. I've also taken to hanging out on a business support group for my particular business sector  as thanks to Covid-19 I need all the help I can get

[EclecticWheel]

Recently I started this thread off, and then after a short while it got me wondering*...

What sorts of other forums, message boards etc are people members of, besides TC?  (Don't feel you have to share the exact name of the site or whatever, unless you want to.)

What a good topic!

At this time I am essentially active only on ecauldron, but I've participated in various forums and other forms of online social interaction.

While I do indeed prefer to conceal the exact names or sites, one is a vast forum covering many religions, movements, and topics.  This one could be wacky or poor in content in my opinion, but at other times useful and interesting, especially if you might be asking an odd bit of information that might not be available elsewhere.

I participated at one time in a conservative leaning Anglican forum in which Anglicans only debate, but guests may ask questions.

In practice we actually did allow guests to debate about Anglican theology in areas in which Anglican theology is contested or ambiguous, which is a lot, depending.

Quite a few were Continuing Anglicans.  What was so likable about the forum besides the interesting and intelligent discussion is that Anglicans from multiple jurisdictions, provinces, parties, and theological camps were by and large so civil to one another, and kind.

I have posted and lurked in forums and sub forums identifying as left hand path, a category I do not care for in terms of its usefulness when defined as western. But I find the different and very individual approaches to Luciferianism and Satanism fascinating and potentially useful to take inspiration from.

I posted in a couple of neo-pagan forums over the years, one of which I utterly pissed off several people in my first post for my combination of practices at that time which I had described (a problem I never ran into at ecauldron).  That was my first and last post there!

Facebook has enabled me to make friends of people who are neo-pagan, of all parties of Catholics and Anglicans, independent sacramentalalists, Anglican- identifying atheists, and other unique combinations of paths.

[Green Sky]

What sorts of other forums, message boards etc are people members of, besides TC?  (Don't feel you have to share the exact name of the site or whatever, unless you want to.)

I'm also a member of the biggest Left Hand Path social network/forum, called SIN. It seems as though many forums and social networks are dying away. Ecauldron seems to be very alive and active for some reason.

[MadZealot]

What sorts of other forums, message boards etc are people members of, besides TC? 

None. I was on a couple of Masonic boards about a decade ago. Even owned one for a while. Far as I know, they've all gone tits up, and I let my domain lapse. The were great for a while but once they got too big they lapsed into inanity. Don't let the conspiracy talk fool you; Masons are, by and large, utter fucking shitheads.

Got an instagram and a twitter. Both are intended for use with eventual author content, but wind up being homes for random inanity. 

FB is a time suck, but it's fun.

[Nerys53]

Recently I started this thread off, and then after a short while it got me wondering*...

What sorts of other forums, message boards etc are people members of, besides TC?  (Don't feel you have to share the exact name of the site or whatever, unless you want to.

Many forums related to my hobbies. Most forums are not very active tons of silent readers, few posters.
Recently went to look for some but they closed down, like Tarotforum only archives remain.

[PerditaPickle]

I try to go on Facebook as little as possible because it's frankly depressing!

FB is a time suck, but it's fun.

Interesting divergence of opinion!     I'd guess there are lots of ways in which Facebook can be used, and in my feed I've lots of petitions & issues showing up all the time, to alert me to slacktivist actions I can take (in theory).  Trouble is, you get some sort of fatigue from it (not sure if compassion fatigue is the correct term, but something like it).  Maybe I should follow my spouses example and have a feed full of funnies instead!   

[Altair]

Recently I started this thread off, and then after a short while it got me wondering*...

What sorts of other forums, message boards etc are people members of, besides TC?  (Don't feel you have to share the exact name of the site or whatever, unless you want to.)

For example, I've a friend who loves nothing more than to keep doing new things with her hair all the time and she's apparently a member of a hair forum!  Useful for garnering hints & tips I should imagine (though I can't imagine what else they must talk about).

For me, I don't think I'm a member of any (not for a lot of years, anyways) unless you count the New Order of Druids circle forum, which I do occasionally post in (though to be honest the only real activity is within the college forums, folks following the courses posting their assignments and receiving their feedback).

I did join a couple of Facebook groups relating to Extinction Rebellion, but they're not really the same (and anyway I try to go on Facebook as little as possible because it's frankly depressing!)


*Read: my nosey streak perked up!

My online footprint is what one would expect from a Boomer, i.e., mostly Facebook groups:
--Alumni from my college
--A progressive political action group for alumni from my college
--A NY State birding group
--A Black sci-fi group
...plus one or two others that are rather specific and/or not all that active.

No other pagan forums; TC is my pagan home.

I'd be interested in a forum for gay male pagans, but also simultaneously I'm horrified at how many ways such a thing could go awry...which is probably why I haven't pursued it.

[Stranger Things]

Many forums related to my hobbies. Most forums are not very active tons of silent readers, few posters.
Recently went to look for some but they closed down, like Tarotforum only archives remain.

Same. Wasvery sad about Aecletic closing. I did not notice immediately, because sometimes I'm away weeks or even months from myforums when I have trouble communicating with people.

Mostly on my German RPG forum nowadays, some forums attached to my games - if you love cats and breeding try Pure Felinity - but I am not super active on either. Iam on one other Pagan forum which is very slow,and considered signing up for a big German one but you basically need to tell them your whole story when signing up and I can't do that. I am way too private.

[PerditaPickle]

I can't do that. I am way too private.

Goodness, yes, I can understand that.

Recently I started this thread off, and then after a short while it got me wondering*...

What sorts of other forums, message boards etc are people members of, besides TC?  (Don't feel you have to share the exact name of the site or whatever, unless you want to.)

And then, I'm noticing that there are a huge number of Discord servers around for all sorts of things, like associated with various YouTuber's communities.  Based on one or two which I 'poked my nose in' and then noped out, some of these can then have a large number of channels within the server -- I just don't know how people can keep up, without spending their whole day glued to it!  I've just the one active Discord server I'm a member of, and the other handful are really just the occasional meme -- I couldn't cope with any more than that!