What's the worst forum you've ever used/been forced to use?
By far the winner for me is the World of Warcraft forums. It reminds me of that line from Men in Black, where K says, "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, and stupid.". WoW brags that it has howevermany million subscribers, but really all that means is that their forums are flooded with hundreds of thousands of pathetic whiners. They have no way to be heard over the din of the other posters, so the only mode of communication is to WHINE AS LOUDLY AND WITH AS MUCH HYPERBOLE AS POSSIBLE LOLZ OMGWTFBBQ!!111!!11
>_<
So, yeah. What's the worst one you've had to endure?
The Cesspool, the first (and last) political forum I ever read and posted on. After my first post, I was called gay. After my second, my life was threatened. Don't think I ever made a third.
The apple sauce forums. Man, all those guys wanna do is talk about apple sauce!
Ditto on the WoW forums. Sad to hear it hasn't changed much since I played.
Second would be the forums for one of the guilds I was in when I played WoW, but the reason it was a bad forum is because hardly anyone ever posted....
For me it's a Danish forum called "Skum", I was very unlucky with the people I came in contact with, I was nice to them they treat me like crap :(
the forums for the singer Poe. Her fans are called Angry Psychos and after posting on her forums I now know why.
I use to be a fan of hers.
MeshMatters: the admin is a complete and utter cad!
ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and [THIS SPACE AVAILABLE FOR LEASE TO NEW DUAL TITLE TENANT]
"cad". Heh.
In terms of technical awfulness, the IMDb forums were hideous. I mean, yes the subject matter was trivial and yes it was full of kids who totally wuv this or that celebrity and think you are the world's biggest jerk if you don't agree. That's the nature of the subject matter. But, the trouble I had with it was that the forum software was so antiquated and feature-barren. It's like someone added a GUI to the old unix rn function (and not even trn, just rn).
[spoiler]1) There was no search feature, either for post content or even just topic titles. I consider that absolutely huge, though I understand it increases the effort for the servers.
2) The threads were hierarchical instead of flat (which is nice) and paged, but in multipage threads, there is no way to tell which post the message at the top of the page is in reply to.
3) You could view a user's public profile and a list of posts, but there was no way to get to that profile except clicking on his post in some thread. So, if you wanted to, for example, find someone to send him a PM, you'd have to hunt around for one of his posts and click on a link there to get to his profile (to get to the message link); there is no way to just know his name is "MovieFan2003" and search for that user.
4) There was no way to archive outgoing PMs. Threads on busy boards expire about monthly, so you'd see the same "How is it that Locke can walk?" thread over and over (except that the title would probably be the very helpful "Locke?" or even more helpful "wtf", but that's not really IMDB's fault.
5) When people deleted their accounts, all of their posts disappeared along with entire threads, if they started them. So, plenty of threads were full of holes and made no sense.
6) There was no quote feature when replying to a post, so any text you wanted had to be manually copied.[/spoiler]
Anyway, in case it isn't obvious, my foray into IMDb forums was quite frustrating. And, I really like IMDb in general and some of the discussions were fun, but, yeesh, buy some real software people!
In terms of rudeness/craziness of posters, I still think back to the usenet days. Absolutely no moderation and some people with no restraint at all. I don't remember if talk.politics.misc was the worst or if it was one of the comp.os.windows.advocacy groups. :lol:
I am sure some of the political sites today are the same way, but I never go to any of the big ones. Too much heat with too little light.
I remember a fanfic forum, where the general discussion was titled "Nobody Cares about your birthday,dog or dying aunt."
The material there was some of the worst shipping, slashing and torture fics I've ever seen from a bunch of adults.. I left after reading the five most "popular" stories and realizing that I could do an infinitely superior job to those writers.
I've got a low tolerance for bad forums so I cant remember any, although I did give up on RPG.NET because it was just too 'internety'. I need somebody to coin that word... but you get my drift. Like nobody would ever post an original though, it was meme after meme and when you would challenge them they would either ignore you (simply no answer in their machine brains) or absolutely freak out. I actually got one of the oldest and most beloved posters banned because I challenged some really shoddy popular wisdom and what ensued was a huge tirade of personal attacks that I never even saw, as she was banned and they where deleted by the next time I logged in. Of course people hated that, since she was big on posting cheesecake cosplay pics of herself.
Beyond that the one awful experience I had was with a MUD instead of a forum, where I was quickly banned in a huge ceremony for speaking spanish to a fellow player.
Folks, this is a fun topic, and obviously some of the worst forums are going to be political. Saying you went to a site and it was terrible is fine. But, the rule against making political comments here still stands.
For me it would be the ChinaDaily forums. It has nothing to do with most of the posters being Chinese who are trying to improve their English...so they make some grammatical errors. Some of the non-Chinese posters are just jerks and the moderating team does nothing. It hard to get any intelligent conversation started. I guess that's the problem with most political forums.
Almost every game-related forum I've been on has pretty much stunk for different reasons.
On boards for Half-Life and similar multiplayer shooters, you've got the what I can only assume are mostly maladjusted teenage boys cussing at each other and flaming is part of the everyday posts. Don't even think about moderating, or you'd have your entire member list go nuts on you. (Speaking from experience as an owner of one such board.)
On boards for MMOs such as CoH & WoW there will always be the people who seem to absolutely hate the game, but for some reason not only do they feel the need to complain very loudly and often, they continue to pay for the service! Sure every board has its share, but it seems that MMO boards have more than the norm. It's not even a matter of being a paying customer, since I've seen the same on F2P MMO boards too.
Oh, and on boards for "games" such as Sims2, you have the soap opera drama. Not a little weirdness on occasion, but constant accusations of he said/she said, divas, "IP" theft, "relationship" issues between posters, etc.
Even though I haven't made anything for FF in a long time, and haven't played it for even longer than that, I returned to the board simply because there really isn't anywhere else I've found that that has the same community feeling. I don't always agree with the way things are run around here, but I have to say that I'm glad there are people in charge that care enough to do their best.
I guess I've been lucky. The only forums I've really frequented have been nice. Then again, I don't really go to the forums that would lend themselves to being angry and rude.
DiabloII.net. The lingering impression I have left of it is a flood of "I can spit farther than you, *$%!" – I would probably have the same feeling visiting many competitive action-oriented multiplayer game forums, I suspect.
While not following many forums (and far fewer Usenet groups), I must say that FR is still the most civilized one. :)
Stumpy: Interesting comment on the usability of IMDb. They feel particularly relevant to me these days, as at work we're in the early stage of developing different community sites for a client. While as an information architect (i.e., responsible for usability among other things), developing a community portal from scratch would be an interesting challenge, I'm hoping we'll be able to use an existing software package. In the Web industry, even if people are actually competent and care, the deadlines and processes are sometimes (like creating ex nihilo and delivering a complex invitation management system on top of an already byzantine existing project in less than a week total time) just too crazy to do anything remotely good.
Edit: Ninja'ed by Pyroclasm (and Protomorph), who said it much more eloquently than I did.
We're civilized by design.
I'd say probably the worst one I've been too was GameFAQS... there's just a bunch of jerks there who will insult each other and use l33t language, thinking their cool. And there is one thing about GameFAQS... it has a message board for most every game that's come out. Even old games have message boards. But most popular games like WoW and games like Rock Band and GH3 have arguments out of the wazoo... Believe me, if you were to say "Coheed and Cambria sucks." on the Rock Band forum, you'd get a vast majority of the members coming at you with hate words...
FORIAMSPAM!
Quote from: Pyroclasm on January 17, 2008, 06:03:42 PM
Almost every game-related forum I've been on has pretty much stunk for different reasons.
With the exception of this one and a couple of game creation sites, my experiences with game related forums have been in the dumpster.
Worst two:
- rec.games.video.arcade : back in college I would surf this area looking for info on Virtua Fighter. The group that played that game was okay, however they were dwarfed by the sheer number of Mortal Kombat II players who were in a constant state of waving their
[anatomy] around. Information was unreliable, insults were constant, and there was even an MK porn thread. I never posted there, but having to slog through that morrass left me with a poor impression of gamer "culture".
- Everquest (during beta) : I played briefly in the open beta. I went on the boards to make some suggestions (like more clothing options) I was accused of dictating what could be worn. I pointed out that if some barbarian wanted to wear a loincloth more power to them, I just wanted some pants. I gave up shortly after that as I watched the trolls come out en masse.
Quote from: Spam on January 18, 2008, 01:41:10 PM
I'd say probably the worst one I've been too was GameFAQS... there's just a bunch of jerks there who will insult each other and use l33t language, thinking their cool. And there is one thing about GameFAQS... it has a message board for most every game that's come out. Even old games have message boards. But most popular games like WoW and games like Rock Band and GH3 have arguments out of the wazoo... Believe me, if you were to say "Coheed and Cambria sucks." on the Rock Band forum, you'd get a vast majority of the members coming at you with hate words...
FORIAMSPAM!
You can't because the word suck is banned, though I'd think that if the word suck is band the phrase Coheed and Cambria should be banned because they mean the same thing.
This site was made by someone I know, it's got to the worst forums I've ever been on :P
http://shhac.info/
I've never joined the site but some of the comments posted there (particularly on the sports videos) are just plain terrible. It's such a great site but probably so big now that its beyond moderation.
EDIT - er, 'the site' being YouTube, of course...
Quote from: BWPS on January 18, 2008, 11:07:53 PM
Quote from: Spam on January 18, 2008, 01:41:10 PM
I'd say probably the worst one I've been too was GameFAQS... there's just a bunch of jerks there who will insult each other and use l33t language, thinking their cool. And there is one thing about GameFAQS... it has a message board for most every game that's come out. Even old games have message boards. But most popular games like WoW and games like Rock Band and GH3 have arguments out of the wazoo... Believe me, if you were to say "Coheed and Cambria sucks." on the Rock Band forum, you'd get a vast majority of the members coming at you with hate words...
FORIAMSPAM!
You can't because the word suck is banned, though I'd think that if the word suck is band the phrase Coheed and Cambria should be banned because they mean the same thing.
*stabs BWPS with his own stick*
You suck! :P
As for the topic of discussion, the Guild Wars forums were a painful endeavor when I was attempting to not hate that game. Not quite as bad as WoW, but close enough for my tastes. Oddly enough, I find the COH forums quite decent. So long as you avoid the PVP sections and the server forums, they're a decent bunch of morons over there.
But funny enough, the only other forum I've frequented that was really decent was the GTAzz forums back from the days of GTA1. Who'd have thought a GTA forum could have sensible and intelligent people. Of course this was back when the game was cheap pixels and barely heard of by the mainstream, the latter being something FF shares. The smaller the game, the better the forums.
-IMDB
-GameFAQs
-Eidos Forums
IMDB and GameFAQs I can probably slump into one reason why they suck: lack of features and waaaay too many elitists kids. I'd have to say out of the two, GameFAQs is better, but only slightly. IMDB is just flooded with really, REALLY dumb topics and both sites are full of tons of online drama.
I've had some bad experiences on the Eidos Legacy of Kain forums. The moderator there just loves showing off her admin abilities and mods time and time again. Funny thing is, the ACTUAL lead moderator is a guy who works for the actual developer, but handed most of the board admin duties to her because she was so adamant about being one. She'll check every post anyone makes and will almost always revise or remove something, especially if it starts a debate of potential arguing. I understand being a moderator can be tough sometimes, but it really shows there that it's gone to her head. On the flip side though, there's not nearly as many dolts there as there are on GameFAQs or IMDB. Then again, you can't argue points of disagreements either. Within a week of posting there I was threatened to be banned because I disagreed with someone and gave valid reasons. :rolleyes:
Oddly enough, I still post at all 3 of the websites, although not so much at Eidos anymore since I don't think there'll be a new Legacy of Kain game in a long time... :(
*ch*n. A million billion times more hilarious and wrong than all the stuff you guys have mentioned. - edited because naughty kiddies might search for it and find naughty things.
Quote from: The Enigma on January 23, 2008, 02:14:53 AM
4chan. A million billion times more hilarious and wrong than all the stuff you guys have mentioned.
One of my friends used to be on 4chan... for what I could see it was really nasty :blink:
Quote from: YoungHeros on January 23, 2008, 02:21:39 AM
Quote from: The Enigma on January 23, 2008, 02:14:53 AM
4chan. A million billion times more hilarious and wrong than all the stuff you guys have mentioned.
One of my friends used to be on 4chan… for what I could see it was really nasty :blink:
12chan is worse.
Forums dedicated to the HL mod 'the specialists'
Full of over-agressive firearms worshippers
Quote from: The Enigma on January 23, 2008, 02:14:53 AM
*ch*n. A million billion times more hilarious and wrong than all the stuff you guys have mentioned.
IMO, Imageboards are a category unto themselves. (as I would say are binaries groups) They're not really forums. Almost all are set up for "anonymous" posting of images with little to no moderation. In some you can't even post any text with your image. Most are set to autoprune by age of the post as well as falling off the "last" page. Not really what I would say are true forums.
Arguably even the "safe for work" boards are a venue for censored porn. Since this is supposed to be a family board, wouldn't it be best if we censor ourselves and not provide search leads?
The screwfix forums. People there are foul mouthed and mostly ignorant, and quick to move in on folk like a pack of rabid dogs.
Oooo good topic.
Worst game related forum (since that seems to be a genre of its own) was the Shadowbane boards before its population dropped and the game went free-to-play (ie back when it was a real MMO). At least on the server i was on, it was horrendous. There was one guild that either owned every city or had vassal states of the so called free cities (all are player run) and as such there was much contempt and efforts to overthrow this guild. Well the forums ended up being a verbal PvP zone that carried every bit of drama from in game out to the rest of the world. I am not squeemish in the least but honestly some of the personal attacks made me sick from disgust.
Worst "other" forum i have been to is the Kung Fu Magazine forums. Granted ANY internet forum is gonna attract nay-sayers and negativity, but there is unarguablt a distinct line between constructive criticism and personal attacks. Regardless, you would think there would be enough older, more mature martial artists to keep the young-uns' negativty buried under useful posts. But it was the so-called masters/senseis/sifus/gurus who were the worst. It was a clear example of "assumed anonymity" bringing out the worst in potentially good people. Every post i saw from the long standing memebers and self proclaimed masters made me fear for all martial arts students out there who don't question their teachers in some respects.
Quote from: Midnight on January 23, 2008, 02:45:26 AM
Quote from: YoungHeros on January 23, 2008, 02:21:39 AM
Quote from: The Enigma on January 23, 2008, 02:14:53 AM
4chan. A million billion times more hilarious and wrong than all the stuff you guys have mentioned.
One of my friends used to be on 4chan... for what I could see it was really nasty :blink:
12chan is worse.
Never discuss /b/ ¬_¬
One of the worst forums I've ever been to? I honestly can't think of any. I have a pretty sick sense of humor, and I'm pretty hard to disgust/offend. Mainly cos I've heard every insult you could think of :P
Quote from: Sevenforce on January 24, 2008, 09:09:07 AM
I'm pretty hard to disgust/offend. Mainly cos I've heard every insult you could think of :P
Your mother is made of walrus spleens!
Quote from: captainspud on January 24, 2008, 09:14:02 AM
Quote from: Sevenforce on January 24, 2008, 09:09:07 AM
I'm pretty hard to disgust/offend. Mainly cos I've heard every insult you could think of :P
Your mother is made of walrus spleens!
....*AND* she's extremely attracted to Capt. Spud.
Quote from: Panther_Gunn on January 24, 2008, 10:38:46 AM
Quote from: captainspud on January 24, 2008, 09:14:02 AM
Quote from: Sevenforce on January 24, 2008, 09:09:07 AM
I'm pretty hard to disgust/offend. Mainly cos I've heard every insult you could think of :P
Your mother is made of walrus spleens!
....*AND* she's extremely attracted to Capt. Spud.
Ooooooooo. . .
Better than her being a fungi to be with ;)
There was a political board at animenation.com that was an utter warzone a long time ago. Think it was either removed or hidden. Also agree about gamefaqs. The site itself is great but there are a lot of boards with nothing but arguments, rude comments, trolls, and rabid fanboys. Hell, Im afraid to even ask a question there sometimes. I think the larger the community, the more conflict there will be. There are a few gems though.