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Forums Are Still Alive, Active, And A Treasure Trove Of Information

Here are the Internet forums that are still alive and kicking and full of information and interesting people.

Forums are still kicking. Credit: Steve Hoffman Music Forurms

When I want information, like the real stuff, I go to forums. Over the years, forums did not really get smaller, so much as the rest of the internet just got bigger. Reddit, Discord and Facebook groups have filled a lot of that space, but there is just certain information that requires the dedication of adults who have specifically signed up to be in one kind of community. This blog is a salute to those forums that are either worth participating in or at least looking at in bewilderment.

What follows is a list of forums that range from at least interesting to good. I will attempt to contextualize the ones I know well. This post is by no means supposed to be complete and will be updated whenever I find more good forums.

Audio (Audiophile)

ASR, an infamous audio forum. Credit: Audio Science Review

Audiophiles have an oversized presence in the forum game. Part of this has to do with the fact that overpriced gear brings out the worst, best, and most creative in people. It is a fantastic place to start this off. 

  • Audio Science Review is notorious and fairly new in the grand scheme of things, a forum that deserves its own post. They pride themselves on doing objective, scientific analysis of speakers, amplifiers and home audio equipment generally. 
  • Super Audio Best Friends is another audio forum that apparently has had beef with ASR’s methodology.
  • Audiogon is also a well-known, good and reliable audio forum.
  • If you want a forum that is just people talking about old speakers specifically, Audiokarma is the destination. Speakers have generally gotten better and more efficient over time, but old speakers have their defenders, and this forum has some fairly interesting and unique information that does not exist elsewhere. It has a sister site called Videokarma that I had no idea existed before writing this blog. 
  • For everything involving headphones, Head-fi’s forums are probably the best and the ones I root for the most with audiophile stuff. It’s where I found my favorite closed-back headphones. They have their own convention, Can Jam. I probably respect this forum the most.

Audio (DIY)

diyAudio is a deeply useful well of knowledge. Credit: diyAudio

Eventually you wanna cross from simply being a guy who has an expensive stereo to someone who starts making audio equipment. Here are some good places to start.

  • diyAudio is the destination if you want to make speakers, amplifiers, PAs and more. An incredible resource.
  • Speaker building groups like the Midwest audio club are quite good.
  • Semi related, but GroupDIY is the best website for building a microphone and related equipment. You can make a total Neumann U 87 clone from info gleaned from that site, and people who have been on their forums have gone on to start their own mic businesses. 

Audio (professional) and musicians

Gearspace, formerly called something else. Credit: Gearspace.

People who own audio gear in a professional context are their own niche. This particularly holds true for musicians.

Music

Steve Hoffman, my man. Credit: Steve Hoffman Music Forums.

People who collect old records love posting. Here are some of the most active haunts.

Cameras, Video, Production, Gear

Not just a good forum, also the best website for camera reviews. Credit: DPReview.

One of my niches is cameras, and so as a result I have spent a lot of time on vintage cameras. I have close to 30 film cameras at this point, and I lay the blame squarely at forums and Goodwill’s auction site. Here are some old forums to enable you.

  • For modern cameras the DPreview forum is by far the most active.
  • A lot of my knowledge came from obsessing over the MFLenses subreddit. This was particularly popular around when camera sensors got big enough that you could adapt older glass to newer camera bodies. I learned a lot about Soviet era lenses there. 
  • This has led to other, niche forums. I spend a lot of time with vintage Minolta cameras, and for that the Dyxum forum is still fairly active. Konica Minolta’s camera department was later bought by Sony in 2006, so it now encompasses discussions of Sony cameras. 
  • PentaxUser is also still kicking around, though Pentax as a brand is not what it once was and the forum is less active.
  • DVXuser used to be one of the best forums for shooting video, based on the Panasonic AG-DVX100, but if you are old enough to remember that camera you are old now. 
  • Cinematographer Roger Deakins (Fargo, The Shawshank Redemption) has his own forums.
  • Photo.net’s forums remain active. 
Thank you Creative Cow you have saved my life. Credit: Creative Cow.

Adjacent to this and you start getting into video production and editing: 

  • Real video editing heads know about the Creative Cow forums. I have spent nights working overtime looking for why something wasn’t rendering correctly. There is a deep treasure trove of info there.
  • Autodesk's forums.
  • Blackmagic’s forums are active if you use any of their products.
  • Further down the rabbit hole is Videohelp, which is a great resource for a lot of questions about encoding. 
  • Even further down that rabbit hole are the Doom9 and the MakeMKV forums, the former being real pervert encoding information, and the latter being useful if you wanna learn how to archive your blu-rays using a jailbroken disc drive called a LibreDrive

Home Theater, A/V and Media

The oldest and most active home theater forum. Credit: AVSForum

Speaking of blu-rays, let’s talk about home theater, A/V and general media.

Drugs and Substances

Shroomery is one of the most interesting forums on this list, even if you don't like drugs. Credit: Shroomery.org.

Drugs are great for forums. While I am not making it the explicit policy of Aftermath to do drugs, the forums for drugs are informative or at the very least very funny.  

  • Bluelight is the most notorious active drug forum. As with many drug forums, the stated goal is harm reduction.
  • I have a special place in my heart for the psychedelic mushroom forum Shroomery. Partly this is because it’s ancient and it still looks like a black light poster, but also because it has a lot of non-drug related mushroom advice on there. If you wanna learn how to cultivate culinary mushrooms it’s a great resource.
  • The Poppers Forum exists. While the idea of a poppers forum is conceptually funny, it is actually a complicated topic. Poppers availability, chemistry and legality is a somewhat complex topic. As an aside, I would highly recommend the recently released book Deep Sniff if you are interested in the history of poppers.
  • Grass City is the dedicated weed forum. Kinda speaks for itself.
  • I remember there used to be a lot of steroid forums. That’s not my scene and not worth linking directly but it is worth mentioning.
  • Daily Drinking Thread forum.
  • I don’t drink any more but I used to home brew beer, and when I did the Homebrewtalk forum was a destination I spent a lot of time on. Lots of very helpful guides on how to make alcohol. They also send you an email wishing you happy birthday. The Homebrew Forum based out of the UK is also a good resource here.
  • Wine Making Talk is an active wine making community. 
  • The BeerAdvocate community I spent less time on because BeerAdvocate reviews were some of the worst writing I have ever read. 
  • Wine Berserkers is a notorious wine forum. CellarTracker is also well known.
  • Home Barista forums are some of the larger coffee forums.
  • Teachat used to be the biggest tea forum, but apparently there was a split, so now Tea Forum exists.

Fashion

This place was so useful if you were getting into Acronym. Credit: Superfuture.

I personally don’t think you should learn about style from a forum unless you have a hyper specific way you prefer to dress. That said, there’s a lot of useful info on clothing brands online.

Plants and Animals

pigeons.biz? pigeons.biz. Credit: pigeons.biz

Farming and gardening is, unsurprisingly, fertile ground for forums.

  • AG talk is apparently quite a good agricultural forum and not surprisingly spartan in its layout.
  • The Combine Forum is a great resource if you own a combine harvester. I do not, but it makes for a good read even if you don’t own a John Deere 9660 STS.
  •  The Lawn Forum is quite good if you are the kind of person who gets obsessed with lawns, although I learned a lot about fescue if you (correctly) believe that lawns with traditional grass are bad for the environment. It’s also where I found out about chelated iron as a non-toxic herbicide.
  • I somehow ended up on Beesource, the beekeeping forum a while back while attempting to learn about an antifungal chemical. Seems fun over there! 
  • I have heard nothing but good and useful things about  the garden.org forums
  • Bonsai Nut for trees.
  • Miniature Horse Talk is the only place you need to go if you have a miniature horse.
  • Bug Guide for bugs.
  • FaunaClassifieds is a good resource if you are buying a snake.
  • Caudata.org is for the discussion of newts and salamanders.
  • FieldHerpForum is for Field Herpers (people that search for amphibians or reptiles).
  • Guinea Pig forum.
  • Backyard Chicken is the forum for home chicken owners.
  • Birdsforum is the birding community hub. 
  • Pigeon.biz is the internet’s main hub for pigeon information. 
  • Parrot forums, for parrot and other bird owners like parakeets, cockatiels and macaws.

Repair Hobbies, Vocational Hobbies, Appliances and Home Goods

Vacuumland is shockingly useful and looks like it has not changed since 1999. Credit: Vacuumland

Sometimes you gotta fix some stuff. Forums are the perfect structure, because old guys love hanging out in a place and telling you how to fix something.

Gaming

The RGB mod thread on this forum is one of the most useful I have ever seen. Credit SHMUPS forum.

Gaming forums have seen better days, but gaming has always been one of the largest percentages of forum communities. We don’t need to relitigate NeoGAF or ResetERA here. Some of the more interesting forums are the retro ones. 

Doomworld is one of the largest repositories of unique gaming culture in any one place. Credit: Doomworld.

 In addition to general topics there are multiple forums devoted to specific games and subgenres. 

Technology, Computers, Software

A great resource for actual hardware info. Credit: HardForum.

Tech people are unsurprisingly still active on forums. Here are some of the more active ones.

Crafting

If I had to choose one forum to save for future generations, this might be the most useful one. Credit: RPF

Forums are great if you are trying to make some stuff. 

  • TheRPF is the best prop/cosplay forum bar none, and potentially one of the most useful forums on this list. 
  • Finishing.com has been going for decades, and if you have any question about finishing metal it has probably been asked. The site has roots in the pre Internet era and it’s maintained by one guy from New Jersey.
  • IForgeIron is the destination for forging metal.
  • Leatherworker.net for leather.
  • The American Association of Woodturners is a great resource if you have a wood lathe or would like to have one. 
  • Chemists Corner is for people who formalate makeup and cosmetics. If you want to start making your own shampoo or moisturizer this is a great place to start, along with bulk buying sites like Making Cosmetics.
  • The Secret Society of Lathe Trolls if you want to cut vinyl. 
  • Wet Canvas is a hub for painting and other visual arts. 

Hyper-Niche Activities (Useful)

You know those flash lights that can blind an entire neighbourhood? Learn about them here. Credit: Budget Light Forum

Hyper niche forums call for their own category. 

Hyper-Niche Obsessions (Questionable)

The credit forum has a sub-forum where guys post their credit cards in their forum sigs. Credit: myFICO

Not all forums are in the service of something useful, so here are the ones that are at best neutral.

Other 

Something Awful: I hear it's better since LowTax died! Credit: Something Awful
  • You have to mention Something Awful because while it does have some genuinely vile parts, it’s apparently gotten much better since LowTax died and also because big portions of it have useful niche info.
  • Niche off boards on 4chan would occasionally have good stuff, but that’s harder to recommend with a straight face on account of it being a cesspool but also just difficult to sift through and anonymous, which runs counter to the idea of most forums as a resource. Moreover it has always just given me a headache to look at it even on a good day.
  • BoingBoing’s forums are worth mentioning. 
  • Metafilter.

Sex Stuff

Lovers Lab is where you go if you wanna mod a werewolf that has sex with you into Skyrim. Credit: LoversLab

I’m not going to link to porn forums because that’s really just kinda tacky, but there are some sex-adjacent forums that are interesting unto themselves.

  • The largest porn forum is adultdvdtalk (NSFW, obviously), primarily when it comes to commercial pornography.
  • I have been informed by a person who makes technologically advanced buttplugs that there is a forum for people that sync their toys to porn. I will direct you to the post about it for attribution instead of linking directly.
  • There is an entire forum dedicated exclusively to porn modding in video games called Lovers Lab
  • Eka's Portal is an infamous furry vore website.
  • Quicksand Fans for quicksand fetishes.

Exercise, Training, Competitive Sports Forums

This is what greets you when you try to visit the bodybuilding.com forums now. Goodnight sweet prince. Credit: Bodybuilding.com

People who train their bodies or in a competitive sport love posting on forums. Here are some of the most notorious. 

Sports Forums

Not a sports guy but I will say Go Birds. Credit: The Philadelphia Eagles Forum

I am going to be honest, sports generally are a weak point for me. My understanding is that this is one subject where a lot of stuff has moved to other platforms like Discord. That said, I did reach out to the folks at Defector. Dan McQuade mentioned the Sports Argument Stadium at Something Awful, and Luis credited the college football boards on IGN as an inspiration. Another suggestion from Dan McQuade:  "Oh people loved the Eagles message board. Like on the official site. Great community developed there. Not kidding. smart and informed.”

Gun, Weapon and Military Forums

Where nerds talk about those strange planes that never got built. Credit: Secret Projects Forum.

I have found a shocking amount of practical information from gun and military forums despite not wanting to own a gun or to deal with a huge portion of gun owners.

  • I have stumbled into useful information about military clothing on the AR15 forum. I do not endorse it because it’s obviously a reactionary site, but gun forum stuff is shockingly useful if you wanna learn how to refinish something. I have also stumbled across it when looking up deadstock Patagonia military surplus jackets.
  • Blade Forums are apparently the big non-culinary knife forums. Similarly, I have ended up there despite not owning a switchblade or gravity knife.
  • Secret Projects forum are the aviation forums specifically devoted to lost or unbuilt military projects. 
  • Archery Talk. Has a good marketplace which is useful because many marketplaces will not allow you to sell bows.
  • The Great War Forum is the forum about WW1.

Car and Vehicle Forums

Are you the owner of a 2004 Ford Explorer Sport Trac for whatever reason? This is your forum Credit: Sportrac.org

I don’t own a car or even want one, but I would be remiss if I did not mention some car-adjacent forums. A lot of them have sadly gone under, but the ones that remain and are active are unsurprisingly very niche.

Those are just some of the more interesting forums I could find that are still active. I don’t assume that all of them will live to even the end of the year, but I think it is worth remembering that culture is still being generated in independent places that aren’t closed gardens owned by tech companies. It’s important that we cultivate these wells of knowledge, lest we lose them forever, in favor of spaces far outside of our control.

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