The quality of online forums were expected to drop after the appearance of blogs technology. That's what I foresaw some time ago.
Many good forummers went on to become bloggers.
You may be right but for some reason the dynamics of a blog and online discussion forum seemed different.
Online forum calls for open discussion and results in a variety of views. Its much more important and more valauble than a blog to society and I suspect many of us.
Blogs are the viewpoint of a single person, the author and hardly anyone bothers to have a discussion after a viewpoint or observation is made. I have noticed censorship taking place of incoming comments. Lets face it, there are millions of blog but 99% are either ego trips or bland or both. Some make it up by copying contents from news and other blogs, others do heavy graphics or just plain sex such Xiaxue and Dawn Yang.
There are alot of great onlineforums usually on a specific topic such as cars, hobbies, even politics etc.
I suspect the key is moderation of the extreme.
The old SBF was great and Sam did have excellent control in the early years. He however did let the bigots and religious fanatics run loose for quite a while and that alone began the rot, scarying away people.
I however felt that, it was doomed the moment real identities surfaced and the chase, harrassment began. Some these chaps did not realise that warm bodies attract parasites. In some cases, those who were victims became perpetrators and became much worse.
Eventually a select few drove the sane ones away and the morbid took over. Imagine an online prediuction on the death of an individual or celebrating the misfortune of others.
