Mad_Cyril wow thats quite a lot of accumulation into this one. Its mental how much forums died around 2010 / during the uprising of Facebook including a local one I really loved (attached to Promise, Shindig and Habit in Newcastle)
Forums are way better in a lot of ways IMO - they aren’t forcing agendas and using algorithms to think up what to show you. The content / users basically moderate that themselves
Re: the ribbing - tell you what this feels like for me. I was 16 when through a friend I discovered Gurn.net. Being the youngest and relatively new to the internet at first I took the ribbing personally. Then in one fell swoop a year later I met them at Creamfields 03 and it clicked that the whole thing was banter just not how I go about it. Without seeing peoples facial expressions or realising they’re just bored at work/university I couldn’t believe peoples attitudes to one another until that point. Having not met you guys yet it’s brought a reminiscent feeling of that point (even though its nowhere near that)