[alexjplant]

> My pet theory is that someone who claims reddit is a great place for niche hobbies were never part of an old-school forum with truly passionate and engaging members.

This. On forums you recognize members by their funny avatars and the hyper specific advice that they have (useful or otherwise). Stickied posts like "timbit2's Guide to Vintage Frobulators" or "New to Frobs? Not Sure Where to Start? READ" abound. There are usually decades of easily-searchable posts accumulated. People reply to your threads helpfully. The marketplace forums are full of well-cared-for gear.

On Reddit you get a lot of beauty shots and question posts with replies like "bro just get the new Vinculum x Chadbert420 frobber. Shit is [fire emojis]". There's usually a woefully out-of-date wiki or sticky that you can only access from one interface or another. There's no sense of community, just upvotes of pictures for clout.

Of course these are contrived straw men versions of their respective communities but in my experience they're correct more often than not. I have been dipping my toe into various Discords that seem to have a better sense of community but Discord doesn't seem to lend itself to longer-form content as forums do... I wonder whether this is something the Discord platform could be augmented to facilitate.

[layer8]

Discord is a chat platform, not a forum, and its contents are closed-off, not discoverable via web search. It’s a modern form of IRC chats, not of web forums. The two serve different needs and audiences.