Independent Spaces for RPG Discourse

[Morrus]

Frighteningly we are all still at the mercy of ISPs and payment processors….

True. You can't escape core infrastructure. But that's kinda analogous to being at the mercy of energy companies and banks--at least those are heavily regulated, I suppose.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Similar dismissives have been used about many other publishers, such as Evil hat, Great White Games, Mongoose (don't know if it's still true), and Palladium (last I heard, staff of 3)...
Doesn't make their boards any more independent.

You do you - your independent is different from mine is different from OP Sly Flourish's I'm sure. But he literally put ENWorld at the top of his list, so whatever nuances his definition contains, ENWorld is part of it.

Not sure what you mean by "dismissives... about... other publishers". Sly flourish is talking about message boards, not publishers.

 

[Thondor]

You know I found as many RPG forums, classified them and did a visualization of them . . . almost exactly 10 years ago.
A lot of those are still around actually.
You can click any of the sites on the treemap or table and it will open up the website.

Analytics RPG Forums

Tableau workbook of RPG Forum data

composedreamgames.com

(I am still bummed that the Kenzerco forum is gone.)

 

[Eyes of Nine]

You know I found as many RPG forums, classified them and did a visualization of them . . . almost exactly 10 years ago.
A lot of those are still around actually.
You can click any of the sites on the treemap or table and it will open up the website.

Analytics RPG Forums

Tableau workbook of RPG Forum data

composedreamgames.com

(I am still bummed that the Kenzerco forum is gone.)

Can you do this again?

 

[Thondor]

Can you do this again?

Well I have been tempted to do so on a number of occaisons. It is a fair bit of manual data gathering efforts.
A ten years later update is tempting.

 

[Anon Adderlan]

Search functions in general are irrelevant, because people will ask the same question that is easily answered via search, anyway.

This is why AI summaries are a thing.

You interpret correctly. Basically, not a big information conglomerate like Facebook, X, Tiktok, Reddit, Instgram, YouTube.

Real forums made by real human beings (like you!).

Yet #Bluesky is on your list.

 

[Joshua Randall]

This is why AI summaries are a thing.

I trust artificial untelligence to summarize a thing about as much as I trust the techbros who funded it with my money. Which is to say, not at all.

 

[Morrus]

This is why AI summaries are a thing.

They’re terrible. Apple’s makes up news and attributes it to outlets, my phone tells me the opposite of what emails contain, they focus on pointless stuff and don’t just bury the lede they frequently miss it entirely. We’re some way off reliable summaries.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Even if we had reliable summaries, people still wouldn't read them. They would still ask the same questions that have been asked a billion times before even if those questions are extremely well documented.

No one reads the documentation.

OK, not "no one"; but the people who do, by definition, don't ask questions that have already been answered.

 

[aramis erak]

Frighteningly we are all still at the mercy of ISPs and payment processors….

And the appellate courts overturned the regulatory requirements for net neutrality.