7 Mar 2009

Why I stopped participating in online forums

Filed under: Internet and Blogging by Hari
Posted at 19:41:51 IST (last updated: 7 May 2009 @ 18:20:45 IST)
There's a reason why I'm not seen much online these days. Simply put, I've disappeared from online (especially tech) forums where I used to spend (in hindsight, I would say "wasted") days, weeks and months, either sharing my knowledge or participating in debates which more or less came around in circles and contributed nothing to the sum total of my own knowledge.

Sharing my knowledge would have been a good enough incentive to continue had there been some kind of official, systematic recognition or reward system. Sadly, most online forums are run by amateur individuals with little or no professional skills (I would include even some of the big forum owners in this category), no managerial resources, no vision; only a bit of free time and money to spend on advertising and promotion.

There is of course, peer approval. But mere peer approval will never be a satisfactory reward for knowledge; if it was, most people in the world would be willing to accept just enough monetary compensation for bare necessities. Of course, there is always an occasional "thank you" message that leaves you feeling good for a while, but that does not (or very rarely) translate into long-term friendship or appreciation.

Helping should never be seen as a waste of time, but unfortunately that is what it has ended up being in online forums because of the general attitudes prevailing in these communities. Even those solutions that you share on public message boards in the hope that it will help others in future end up getting lost in a huge cobweb of irrelevant information and the very same questions will keep popping up over and over again in different places. The impression one gets is that nobody cares.

What is worse about online forums is the tendency, sooner or later, to draw one into flame wars. If you do get caught up in some kind of flame war, all your 1000+ good and helpful messages will be forgotten (if they are remembered at all in the first place) in a flash and you'll be criticized as a troll and have your character analyzed and taken apart; some sarcastic devil will also provide you with unsolicited advise to visit a doctor thrown in amidst his abuse. If there's anything I've learned from online forums, it's that there's no such thing as goodwill; there's no such thing as gratitude. Everything is about cliques and attitudes.

The other important reason I stopped participating is that you lose control over your own content on a web forum and there's no way to keep track of all your contributions in a meaningful manner, while a blog which is fully under your own editorial control and gives you a chance to preserve, categorize, label and highlight your important contributions in a way you think fit. For instance you cannot serve up examples of your online contributions to a prospective employer by showing them messages on a bulletin board. It would just be too tedious. A blog or a personal website on the other hand, gives you the chance to get recognition, readership (small or large) and allows you full freedom to modify, correct or remove out-dated information.

I wish I could get back the time I wasted on these forums. Well, one grows and learns, I suppose. :-|

8 comment(s)

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  1. So that's why you wanted to change the domain eh?

    Comment by sokuban (visitor) on 9 Mar 2009 @ 04:45:33 IST #
  2. Oh no. There's a totally different reason for that. This article is a generalistic opinion of mine on online tech forums especially. I've held this opinion for a long time now.

    I'm not averse to online forums as a means of socializing and communication, but I feel that being too involved in them will be of no gain in the long run.

    Comment by Hari (blog owner) on 9 Mar 2009 @ 08:18:30 IST #
  3. I can totally agree with your assessment on forums when you get caught in a heated debate between others. You can have a million awesome posts but everyone will remember when you acted like a troll because you didn't see eye to eye with them on some random stupid topic.

    I don't frequent forums myself any longer. I was a moderator at LQ for almost 8 years before calling it quits. I think the thing that got me most about LQ and moderating it was I lost the ability to just be a member as well, with special privileges when the time came around to use them.

    I guess I didn't like the fact I felt I was being censored in what I could say or do on the forum or I'd be castrated for just stating my actual opinion as a member, not moderator.

    For example, one of the incidents that brought this all up for myself as a moderator on LQ was I said the word "bitch" in a post. Other members say it all the time but I get reported and then another moderator publicly humiliates me in front of the other moderators on our mailing list.

    But yeah, online forums for the most part are a huge time waster. I wish I could get back some of the countless hours I spent browsing LQ, helping and moderating. I could have achieved a lot of other things I just now getting done in my spare time nowadays.

    Comment by drew (visitor) on 9 Mar 2009 @ 23:00:52 IST #
  4. Hari and Drew, I hope that you don't feel that your time at LQ was a total waste. Without your input and help to others, I may have had to ask a question in one of those several thousand posts that I put in. But, because of both of you (and others, of course) helping the way that you did, I solved many problems by reading the answers that were provided to others.

    And, by posting your web addresses in your sig, or wherever, I got to meet you in a different "arena". I won't ever say that was a bad side effect of participating in a forum. But, I also see your point about the time spent. I'm guilty of doing the same.

    Comment by MrCorey (visitor) on 10 Mar 2009 @ 04:48:46 IST #
  5. Corey,

    You are or were a rarity on LQ from what I recall. Many people take online forums for granted and especially the people who do spend countless hours there helping them. You and your type are the ones I miss when I did help others out.

    But I do feel that I spent way too much time on LQ when I reflect back now. I lost a lot of time I could have spent on myself, family and other more meaningful things instead of spending a lot of time helping ungrateful people.

    I am however grateful like you said, met you and others in a different online style that's a good thing I got from LQ.

    Comment by drew (visitor) on 10 Mar 2009 @ 07:43:06 IST #
  6. Drew, yes, I'm glad in some ways that I was a regular at LQ.org for a period of time.

    MrCorey, I agree totally with Drew. Gems like you are rare to find on a big forum. I am glad that I got a few great friends through LQ.org. But this post wasn't particularly targetted at LQ.org, but a general assessment based on my experience of 4 years.

    Comment by Hari (blog owner) on 10 Mar 2009 @ 08:27:35 IST #
  7. I must say that I agree with you when it comes to pretty much any other online forum. My time experiences with LQ were not like on any other forum.

    Comment by MrCorey (visitor) on 10 Mar 2009 @ 14:41:52 IST #
  8. Actually, except a few mature people like you, I didn't find LQ.org to be a particularly nice forum at all. No more or less than any other huge forum - it was rather impersonal most of the time and during intense debates, there were some big egos around (I won't name any) and frequent nasty "Linux-newbie" trolls from time to time.

    Comment by Hari (blog owner) on 10 Mar 2009 @ 17:19:59 IST #

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