Someone reminded me that NationStates existed the other day. I took a look at their forums, and they're... adorable? See for yourself: https://forum.nationstates.net/
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It feels like the internet from 10-15 years ago. There's a kind of earnestness that I don't expect from the internet anymore. And I think the difference is that they're still using old forum technology, which crucially has no likes / upvotes / karma.
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That means no hypercompetition for attention, no ruthless pruning for memetic fitness. Just a bunch of people hanging out talking about politics and stuff. It's like seeing a species of animal I thought had gone extinct, chilling out in its own very isolated niche.
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I have a lot of fond nostalgia for old forum culture. Used to hang out on Yu-Gi-Oh forums correcting people about obscure card interactions, then on Stepmania forums talking shit and showing people my stepfiles. These forums no longer exist and aren't backed up anywhere :/
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End of conversation
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Also no proper threading, which is incredibly frustrating to read now in 2019 - they just have to keep quoting each other, and that + forum sigs takes up so much vertical space - but perhaps slows down the conversations in a good way?
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Omg I used to play nationstates it was so good
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Omg you guys, ME TOO. I really liked the kinds of thinking I got to do while deciding on issues.
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still convinced there has been no strict improvement on old php forum technology
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