Memberships with other forums

[Vanillaphant]

Hello, hello.

I dare say this has been asked before, but never mind! My question is: Are you, or have you ever been, a member of another online forum. If so, what kind of forum? And how does it compare with the TMF?

Cheeyers!

 

[teamtickleguy]

TMF is the only forum I regularly contribute to.

I am a member a steam traction engine forum and a horse racing forum, both of which have similar forum setup of on-top/off-topic forums as well as Introductions, Media, Events, Requests sub-forums. I am just a lurker in both of these, for info purposes more than anything - I get plenty of interaction and involvement within those interests offline, so I suppose I have no need to post online (and if I do, I do it via hashtags on social media) - whereas tickling obviously is rather more niche and personal, so contributing to the forum is a big part of fulfilling and enjoying this interest.

The other forums are similar to TMF in the sense they have:
1. Members that come and go, sometimes vanishing randomly after years of prominence, re-appearing years later
2. A few thorny/contentious subjects that get raised from time to time by innocent/naïve newbies, which leads to an old can of worms being unwittingly opened again!
3. Members having fall-outs, sometimes through unfortunate nastiness/trolling, but sometimes also through misinterpretation of the typed word and genuinely interesting debates going ever-so-slightly over the line of what's deemed civil when disagreeing with each other.
4. People arranging offline gatherings where they can share their interest over a beer or at an event.

 

[Vanillaphant]

Thanks for the reply, TTG.

I suppose it’s strangely reassuring to know that arguments and crappy behaviour occurs even on steam traction engine forums lol. I was gonna say that I find it difficult to imagine what the members of such a forum would fall out about… And then I thought, they would probably think the same thing about us! lol It’s amazing really, the shit that people find to argue about.

Out of curiosity, what is the interest in horse racing? Is it the gambling side, the social side, the spectacle…? My dad is very much into it (mainly for the betting), but, despite having attended a few race meetings, I’ve never really felt an attraction myself.

Cheers.

 

[teamtickleguy]

Thanks for the reply, TTG.

I was gonna say that I find it difficult to imagine what the members of such a forum would fall out about…

Out of curiosity, what is the interest in horse racing? Is it the gambling side, the social side, the spectacle…? My dad is very much into it (mainly for the betting), but, despite having attended a few race meetings, I’ve never really felt an attraction myself.

Cheers.

I think fall-outs come about as with all hobbies/interests the forum members are so passionate about it and can take it personally if someone has a different view of a certain aspect within that interest, can't always see past their own opinions and passions to see the bigger picture... for example with tickling you get the feet/upperbody rows and the m/f , f/m rows, renfaire rows etc

Which other forums are you a member of?

On the traction engine forum, without wishing to bore anyone too much, the fall-outs most commonly stem from the differing opinions of what owners of these engines choose to do with them.. for example some restore them to original specification and original colours..... others choose to convert (for example..) a rare vintage steam roller into a standard 4 wheel traction engine and add blinging lights etc so that it appears to be one of the more glamourous steam engines that were used to power vintage fairground rides. Opinions differ on the responsibility of owners to maintain originality/history versus their right to do whatever they want with something they've just paid a six-figure sum for.


Meanwhile, horse-racing fans tend to fall out if someone is perceived to be boasting about a particular win, or saying "knew that would happen" after the event rather than before, or criticising someone's research methods etc.

My personal interest stems a bit from betting (early visit to a point-to-point horse racing meet) and a bit from first watching the Grand Nationals on TV and having work sweepstakes. Gradually started following the same jumps horses each season and get a real enjoyment from researching the form of horses and different courses/different weights/jockeys etc and trying to find the winner. (I've no interest in betting randomly on a horse for the sake of it).
It's mostly the jumps, but this year I've been dabbling in the flat a bit more, with moderate success. Attending the Cheltenham Festival next March for the first time, can't wait.

Although, I do often feel torn between this interest and the whole debate over horse welfare and it's clear from stuff I've read that there's still a lot to be done in terms of looking after horse welfare ahead of looking after the punters. So I do feel guilty sometimes - the protestors definitely have a point on a number of issues, but there's plenty of ill-informed protestors who are wrong on certain matters too.

 

[Vanillaphant]

Interesting reply, thanks.

To answer your question, the TMF is the only forum that I frequent these days. I was active on a couple of comedy writing forums when I was in my early 20s, but that's it.

 

[siamese dream]

I was a long time member of a forum called Blamonet that eventually died but had a large membership at one time and lots of really cool, really fun people to talk to. I remember a lot of the people from there... I traded burned CDs of different songs with a few members to intro each other to music we liked that the other person hadn't heard... I had a couple friends that we wrote actual paper and ink letters to each other, and still have a couple drawings one member sent me, another one sent me a photo of his dog and I sent him a drawing I did of his dog from the photo. I never met any Blamonet people in person, but there were multiple other members who had close real-life friendships and met their significant others on Blamo. It was a music forum mainly for Smashing Pumpkins fans, but later included sub forums for Bright Eyes and Elliott Smith. There were also general sub-forums like here, and sub-forums to discuss books, movies and other topics. They had a sub-forum called "Hell" where the admins would put all the threads that had dissolved into flame wars between different members to burn for eternity (or until it shut down lol)..

There were even crazy hi-jinks by a couple notorious trolls who would routinely manage to shut one sub-forum or the whole page down by flooding with nonstop posts somehow. They would always return under a different username and the admins would block the new username when they caused trouble but everyone seemed to kind of take it in stride actually and "Iggy" (the main offender) was sort of a character everyone thought was a pain in the ass but kinda funny too. They had a rivalry with a second Smashing Pumpkins fan forum called Netphoria. The members of Netphoria routinely trolled Blamonet and vice versa. When one forum was down for the day due to technical issues often the members of the other would flood the one that was still running, this became a regular occurrence. 😂😂. I kinda miss Blamonet still.

 

[Vanillaphant]

Thanks for the reply, siamese dream.

Can't say I've ever been tempted to join a fan forum myself. Perhaps I assumed, unfairly, that the members of such forums have no interest in talking about anything save whatever it is they're a fan of! lol But from what you've said, it sounds like the forum you were on enjoyed a decent amount of off-topic discussion. The other thing I would worry about is that if you were to express an opinion about the object of fandom that wasn't wholly positive, you might get shouted down by some of the forum's more "zealous" (i.e. hopelessly obsessive; mentally unhinged lol) members. "How dare you! Everything [so-and-so] does is amazing! Call yourself a fan?! Burn in hell, fuckface!" - or whatever.

 

[indivision]

I was a member of customerssuck.com for a few years back in the 2000s. I went back in the early 2010s on a sister forum they have. It was a forum for people who work in retail and other various service jobs. The forum was intended to give people a chance to vent about the difficult and abusive customers they sometimes had to deal with. I was attracted to the forum because, at the time, I worked at Walmart, and you deal with some pretty bad customers there. However, I left the forum because most of the members were very negative people who had very poor social skills, and all that negativity influenced my mood greatly. Also, many of the members there were left wing social justice warrior types who were very anti-Christian. It didn't help that the moderators there were very overbearing, controlling, and nasty.

I like the TMF, even though I tend to come and go. Most of the people here are very reasonable and friendly, even when disagreements pop up. I know there are exceptions and there have been fallouts here. But whenever I come by the TMF, I'm always glad I stopped by.

 

[Vanillaphant]

The customerssuck forum sounds like a good idea. Weird that most of the members would have crappy social skills though, considering the nature of their work. Are you sure they weren't just in a bad mood? lol

 

[indivision]

Given that they were like that most of the time, I don't think so.

Then again, it's hard to tell.

And yeah, the forum itself was a good idea. However, all the negativity was pretty draining for me. I also found most of the members to be very easily offended by very random things. Like a thread would get started, a discussion would ensure, and sure enough, someone would get up in arms over some random detail and the thread would be derailed.

 

[cloudgazer2k]

I've been in a few, but the TMF is a place I keep coming back to. I was once a regular poster on a forum sponsored by an RPG company, kicked around TickleTheater, a forum dedicated to current and former coffee shop baristas, and there was one that's just full of weird and off-beat folks that I can't quite recall the name of. In terms of comparison, they all used vBulletin, and had some similarly structured forums and sub-forums.

 

[Vanillaphant]

a forum dedicated to current and former coffee shop baristas

Was gonna say that sounds a bit niche... But then, if you're into coffee, why not!

and there was one that's just full of weird and off-beat folks that I can't quite recall the name of

You already mentioned the TMF.

 

[cloudgazer2k]

Well, I didn't just wanna give it away, but the coffee shop forum was all about baristas who worked for Starbucks, and it provided a safe space for them to vent about some of the more useless policies and procedures the company had put in place (like speaking to black customers about racial inequality in America...yeah, I'm serious).

The other forum, I believe, was WTF.com, and it was...an odd place.

 

[Vanillaphant]

(like speaking to black customers about racial inequality in America...yeah, I'm serious)

lol! That's a Starbucks policy?! Shiiiiit.

When I looked it up, I discovered the news story about "racial bias training". So I'm guessing that has something to do with it...?

That's hilarious, though. Do they advertise this? Next to the price board: Black customers: Buy one coffee, get baffling non sequitur for free! lol

The mind boggles...

 

[indivision]

I almost forgot to mention, I was also a member of TickleTheater for a while. I liked it there. The people were nice. Somehow, I just floated over here for my tickling discussion needs.

I was a member there at Tickletheater back when instant messaging was the hip and cool way to communicate, and as I recall, many of the members there enjoyed getting into cyber tickling sessions via instant messenger. I remember the members here being a little less receptive to that sort of thing, thinking it was stupid and pointless (well, not everyone, but most). I wonder how many people still even communicate via instant messaging. That seems to have gone out of vogue.

 

[cloudgazer2k]

lol! That's a Starbucks policy?! Shiiiiit.

When I looked it up, I discovered the news story about "racial bias training". So I'm guessing that has something to do with it...?

That's hilarious, though. Do they advertise this? Next to the price board: Black customers: Buy one coffee, get baffling non sequitur for free! lol

The mind boggles...

During the peak of the BLM movement, Howard Schultz released a memo to have baristas and managers engage POC customers on things like racial equality, bias, etc. It was both ignored and protested. Ol' Schultz thought he was doing a good thing, but the last thing I wanna talk to someone about as I hand over their iced quad venti caramel macchiato is the level of police brutality in America.

 

[Sandisk444]

I was fairly active on the ultimate guitar forums when I was in high school. Not too much in the vein of actually music and song writing but mostly in what was called "The Pit" which is akin to our "silly stuff" sub-forum. Good times were had as an awkward teenager chatting with other awkward teenagers about random guff. I stopped going once I got more busy and outgoing since there wasn't too much there for me. I wasn't a big member of the "community" there.

I'm also a member over at the tickletheater but it was long after it's prime so I don't really go on there much. Mostly just to see if it's still alive lol.

 

[vainbetrayer]

I've actually been a member of several forums over the past few years. Trading card games, video games, competitive swimming... you name it!

The trading card game ones usually have a bunch of people debating about "how overpowered X card is" or "how overpowered Y card is". People usually got to know each other through the "off-topic" sections of the forums, which usually had great reads.

Video game forums... it depends on the game, but it's mainly a bunch of people that care WAY TOO MUCH about the game, and want to make sure you know it.

The competitive swimming forum I was on was pretty nice tbh. Could usually get good swimsuit recommendations and technique advice when posting videos of yourself swimming. It died around the time I got into college though.

 

[Vanillaphant]

I was fairly active on the ultimate guitar forums when I was in high school.

"Ultimate guitar" rings a vague bell, but I didn't realize there was a forum. Did you join because you played guitar? Or was it more for fans of guitar-based music generally?

The competitive swimming forum I was on was pretty nice tbh. Could usually get good swimsuit recommendations

I just assumed that, if you're a guy, you climb into your speedos, put on your swimming cap and off you go...? Obviously not!

 

[Sandisk444]

"Ultimate guitar" rings a vague bell, but I didn't realize there was a forum. Did you join because you played guitar? Or was it more for fans of guitar-based music generally?

It's predominantly used as a source for tabs/chords for pre-existing songs so if you play covers on guitar you'd likely have run into it. But yeah, I play guitar which is how I found the site in the first place but my reasons for joining the actual forum are probably more along the lines of having that feeling of belonging to a community of sorts. I wasn't very outgoing around my high school days so that was about as good as I was gonna get, haha.

 

[vainbetrayer]

I just assumed that, if you're a guy, you climb into your speedos, put on your swimming cap and off you go...? Obviously not!

You did usually for practice & most events, but not for the big ones. For those, you had to wear something like this https://www.speedousa.com/lzr-elite-2-jammer-style-7050700 and you had to replace them every 2500 yards you swam.

Luckily, I only ever bought 1 (some people bought them monthly or yearly), and was able to use it for the 2 events I swam in at the state level for 4 years without it wearing out.