[fav_collector]

It's organized well for finding information but it lacks the "human" element in a social community. You're just anonymous person #4214 who's interested in cars or football.

In the good old days with forums, people were recognizable with avatars and signatures. People chatted about everything, not just the topic at hand, so the personality of each person had a large spectrum. The communities were small enough where people formed an identity and reputation. Many times they even connected their real life identity in "post your picture" threads.

Reddit has effectively killed many forums without replacing that human community aspect and it's kind of sad.

[pivotal]

This is an interesting thought. The nicest communities on reddit I've encountered tended to be small or to have a small "core" group that all knew each other and were highly visible in the community. /r/running for example, when I regularly read it, had daily threads where the main people chatted about all sorts of things. It felt very homey, reminded me of when I read obscure usenet groups as a kid.

I wonder if there's space for forums with purposefully limited membership where people could get to know each other on that more intimate level. I know you could always set up your own private forum for your friends, but maybe as a service.

[fiatjaf]

https://spectrum.chat/ ?