This article is on Medium, which has a paywall. I’m a member, but not logged in. I was able to read it so it may depend on how many times you’ve read Medium articles.
One point he made that I found interesting was:
So, in light of all of this, should Reddit even exist? Is there really a point to a web forum in 2023? Aren’t we past all that?
He thinks we are. I never thought about it before. Maybe in the case of some Reddit subreddits and other forums, but I don’t think so in general. I’ve got a lot great information from forums.
It’s not just about the information though, is it? Web forums can offer a sense of community that his preferred alternative (long-form Medium articles with comments) just can’t match, in my experience.
I’m of the “old fart” variety that recalls the days of IRC and totally agree. Back even before forums those communities run off servers in peoples basements were a treasure trove of knowledge and community. I have very fond memory of making real connections with people there. As you pointed out, that simply doesn’t exist on an article with comments.
I agree, I much prefer this structure. But I think, ultimately, the problem is not the presentation but the amount of voices.
Even the best structured community presentation can fail if there’s thousands of voices hoping to be acknowledged. There’s simply no way to have a coherent dialogue about a given topic if we have to acknowledge even 50% of the people posting a comment.
This is how eventually everyone just dilutes their speech into quips, memes and such, because it’s the easiest way to catch attention and be acknowledged.
Of course, the threaded presentation of reddit/Lemmy and others is preferred over linear forums. But even 15+ years ago, forums had quotes with auto-added links to the quoted post. It was more work to keep track of conversations, I’ll give you that. On the other hand, you could quote several people and the conversation would flow the same for everyone. So it was not all bad.
I am hopeful that the lack of “karma” feedback to posters in Lemmy/Kbin will dampen the farming that goes on over at Reddit, and that posts are about contributing ideas or whatever content is expected in order to be a part of the community, rather than trying to get “upvotes.” Granted, that’s a huge driver of activity on Reddit and helped them grow to the size it is, but it’s also why there’s so much low-effort content there these days.