Peeves regarding homebrew forums

[dmtaylor]

You know what really drives me up the wall...

Somebody posts a really good question, and I formulate a really good answer, but... the OP accepts the first novice scatterbrained response that shows up in the first 10 minutes, then never comes back, so I responded to the thread for nothing. Nevermind if other responses are better or different or come from more experience, nevermind that... just never come back. Drives me nuts.

Any other peeves about people or culture of homebrewing forums on the interwebs (of which HBT is probably the awesomest)? (But I don't know if I can promise to come back to read them if you do. )

 

[tracer bullet]

People who have to argue about everything, and when they aren't arguing, still come off like they are. I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt but some folks might just be a-holes.

I have some names in mind but they don't seem to be around anymore. And that actually sucks, because they had a ton of knowledge. I assume they left because it felt like everyone was arguing with them (when I think it was actually the other way around).

 

[seatazzz]

Arguers, as above; also when a question is asked by a painfully obvious brand-new brewer, and some feel the need to answer with the most technical complicated foofooraw that (in my mind at least) probably leaves the OP more confused. Or answerers who don't read the OP's entire question. I could go on and on.

 

[DBhomebrew]

Or answerers who don't read the OP's entire question.

Or the subsequent thread of painstakingly teased out clarifying information.

 

[SaisonMan]

People who know a ton about homebrewing but can’t spell.

 

[AzOr]

You know what really drives me up the wall...

Somebody posts a really good question, and I formulate a really good answer, but... the OP accepts the first novice scatterbrained response that shows up in the first 10 minutes, then never comes back, so I responded to the thread for nothing. Nevermind if other responses are better or different or come from more experience, nevermind that... just never come back. Drives me nuts.

Any other peeves about people or culture of homebrewing forums on the interwebs (of which HBT is probably the awesomest)? (But I don't know if I can promise to come back to read them if you do. )

It’s not time wasted. Many others are reading the thread and learning from the collective and not just taking advice from the first response.

Just because a newb posts a q and then ghosts the forum doesn’t mean that there were a whole bunch of peeps with the same q and appreciate all of the thoughtful answers.

 

[Protos]

When someone with a good level of experience comes and asks a good, well-formulated question, in answers to which I would be much interested too, and the only reaction are silly answers from n00bs, whle the gurus for some reason pass by and keep silent.

 

[Protos]

Also, when someone asks a good question and gets a heap of really helpful answers and directions.
Then he thanks everybody and swears to come back to share what comes out of their suggestions.
And everybody say they can't wait to hear what was his experience.

Then, crickets.

 

[Airborneguy]

These style of forums are on the way out unfortunately. I am a moderator at CityData. It’s dying off big time. It’s much easier to people to either straight up google, or use ultra-quick response groups on Facebook and Twitter/X.

Sucks, but this is a dying platform-style.

 

[pvtpublic]

Arguers, as above; also when a question is asked by a painfully obvious brand-new brewer, and some feel the need to answer with the most technical complicated foofooraw that (in my mind at least) probably leaves the OP more confused. Or answerers who don't read the OP's entire question. I could go on and on.

I know I've gotten a bit soaked and done this a time or two or ten.

 

[DBhomebrew]

It’s much easier to people to either straight up google,

That's by far the #1 "How'd you find HBT?"

 

[day_trippr]

The Googleverse is full of opinionated "answers" to brewing questions that can at times even bewilder the grizzled veteran, never mind the random novitiate...

Cheers!

 

[Airborneguy]

It doesn't keep them here though. Mining years of quality posts is absolutely how people find HBT, but this style platform no longer attracts hordes of new members. It's becoming obsolete, across the spectrum of topics.

 

[Red over White]

It doesn't keep them here though. Mining years of quality posts is absolutely how people find HBT, but this style platform no longer attracts hordes of new members. It's becoming obsolete, across the spectrum of topics.

I agree as I have watched as free forums disintegrate over the last 3 years. However, the old curmudgeon stalwarts will tow the line. The new avenues will collapse, it's cyclical.

 

[bellhp]

These style of forums are on the way out unfortunately. I am a moderator at CityData. It’s dying off big time. It’s much easier to people to either straight up google, or use ultra-quick response groups on Facebook and Twitter/X.

Sucks, but this is a dying platform-style.

These type forums are the only kind I use ... I stay away from Facepages and tweetbooks, tictoks etc.
I have lot's of hobbies and there's a forum like this for most of them.

 

[Airborneguy]

These type forums are the only kind I use ... I stay away from Facepages and tweetbooks, tictoks etc.
I have lot's of hobbies and there's a forum like this for most of them.

Sure, there’s plenty of others who feel the same way, but the statistics skew greatly towards older posters. Citydata has extensive, well, data on this subject.

I’m not happy about it either, but its true.

 

[dmtaylor]

Following is my own essay on the subject of dying forums. It all comes down to the word in bold: Facebook. Well, that, and maybe YouTube, and now TikTok, etc.

https://homebrew.meta.stackexchange.com/a/490/16971

 

[GoodTruble]

These style of forums are on the way out unfortunately. I am a moderator at CityData. It’s dying off big time. It’s much easier to people to either straight up google, or use ultra-quick response groups on Facebook and Twitter/X.

Sucks, but this is a dying platform-style.

But over half the homebrew questions you google, lead you right back to this site. And I can understand new people not creating as many posts/content because most of the basic conversations are already covered multiple times over.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

These style of forums are on the way out unfortunately.​

If this is true, then this is unfortunate for both web search (e.g. Google) and LLM powered 'discussion' (aka e.g ChatGPT).

Both appear to need human generated content (not content farms or AI generated articles) to survive.

---

CityData. It’s dying off big time.

If this is the CityData site you are referring to ...

​

how often does a person relocate? and note the forums that the web search promoted.

Citydata has extensive, well, data on this subject.

If the data says the CityData is "on the way out", and the forum wants to survive, maybe ignore the data and look else where for ideas to survive?

I watched the "Live forum preview" for a couple of minutes.

---

Here's the web search result for an active astronomy forum:

(An observation for those who collect data (aka post counts): many evenings this year have been "smoky nights" as well as "cloudy nights")

 

[GoodTruble]

You know what really drives me up the wall...

Somebody posts a really good question, and I formulate a really good answer, but... the OP accepts the first novice scatterbrained response that shows up in the first 10 minutes, then never comes back, so I responded to the thread for nothing. Nevermind if other responses are better or different or come from more experience, nevermind that... just never come back. Drives me nuts.

Any other peeves about people or culture of homebrewing forums on the interwebs (of which HBT is probably the awesomest)? (But I don't know if I can promise to come back to read them if you do. )

Sometimes a short, quick response is appreciated.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

It may be that "What happened to homebrewing homebrew.stackexchange.com?" is more closely related to "what is happening to Stack Exchange Inc (a web discussion services company)?" than what is happening in home brewing discussion.

Stack Exchange has it's roots in software (much like CityData has it's roots in "relocation" information). Two data points may not be a pattern; and there's more to be considered (e.g. quality of content, structure of that content, user interface).

 

[moreb33rplz]

My peeve is brewers who insist that if you don't brew your beer like they do/as good as they do/with their same methods then you must be brewing bad beer

 

[tracer bullet]

My peeve is brewers who insist that if you don't brew your beer like they do/as good as they do/with their same methods then you must be brewing bad beer

Agreed, but now that I think of it, sort of the opposite bugs me at least as much. People who scoff at the extra work some of us put into beer, and possibly because they don't know any better. Along the lines of "You guys putting work into a closed transfer are dumb - I let my NEIPA slosh from my fermenter into my keg and my beer is delicious, any benefits you think you have from a closed transfer are in your imagination".

 

[GoodTruble]

Agreed, but now that I think of it, sort of the opposite bugs me at least as much. People who scoff at the extra work some of us put into beer, and possibly because they don't know any better. Along the lines of "You guys putting work into a closed transfer are dumb - I let my NEIPA slosh from my fermenter into my keg and my beer is delicious, any benefits you think you have from a closed transfer are in your imagination".

Well, the problem will persist until we can taste things over the internet. Then we will have a bunch of other things to argue over.