Sherdog has suffered a lot from losing traffic to Reddit. The main forum still has enough users that it superficially seems similar to how it was 10+ years ago, but the subforums are dying.

F12, the grappling forum, used to be one of my favorite places on the internet. It barely has new content anymore. There has, for reasons I don't fully understand, been a mass exodus to r/BJJ.

I can't overstate the loss of community that occurred as a result. On reddit, the fact that usernames aren't prominent and there are no avatars makes it impossible to build "characters" in your mind. People are friendly, but they are perpetual strangers.

Previously, I thought the upvoting and downvoting structure of Reddit was great. But, when applied to a hobby I love, the results were soulless and depressing. Opinions seem to be tailored to the crowd in a way they never were on the F12 forum.

A lot of that may be that Reddit attracts younger people who are newer to the sport. Whatever the reason, it's sad to see a great forum whither away.

Don't take online communities for granted. They seem immortal until they die.

Groupthink in popular tech forums is horrible, if someone experiences an issue, the rest of the people reply "I Dont have that issue", and minimize the person's interaction. Too much absolutism in tech being pushed, you can do the same thing multiple ways, depending on the scenario, people need to think in degrees not binary reactions.

I've been on forums for a few decades, and the interaction has gone to downright militant in responses as fact. I've seen so many truths about tech that simply isnt remotely true, but a big tech company says it, so their fanboi's repeat is as fact.

Common knowledge for an enthusiast vs production is another issue. The proper way of doing something might not be the way an end power user uses it, and their usage scenario can lead to all kinds of issues. So downvoting is way too common to exclude/discredit these people.

> I can't overstate the loss of community that occurred as a result. On reddit, the fact that usernames aren't prominent and there are no avatars makes it impossible to build "characters" in your mind. People are friendly, but they are perpetual strangers.

It's funny, I've had the exact same thought more than once.

If you asked me "Should comments be judged by their content and not the person making them", I would say absolutely. But then you get Reddit. I do miss the characters from various online forums in the 90s-00s.

It's a little ironic posting this reply on HN though :)

This seems to be why https://github.com/veggiedefender/hn-friends and some other extensions exist.

I've got some people tagged by companies, or their interests, or names if I happen to learn them randomly (like spotting John Nagle!) It definitely makes the experience more interesting.

Thanks for the update; I no longer roll and don't follow the sport very much, but it makes me sad to hear that all-devouring reddit is eating Sherdog.

I suspect the future of forums is going to be stuff which is kicked off of platforms. For example: right wing people kicked out of reddit, or nude enthusiast types formerly of Tumblr or whatever. There's probably a r/bodybuilding reddit, but I bet it's tame and lame compared to the forum.

Thanks for giving me an excuse to discuss Sherdog on HN!

They're the two places I hang out most.

Somehow, I suspect the intersection of their user bases is pretty tiny...

There've been a few guys discussing judo and jiu jitsu on here ... I dunno maybe you were one of them. My own BJJ dojo contained very few people over 30 who weren't Ph.D. in math/science types. Someone's probably giggling at this but they were all 220+lbs and lean; overachievers, goldman trader types - they all went to the best local dojo. We did have one Brazilian waiter guy (one of the best in the dojo), but I really felt like an underachiever in general when I'd enter their doors.

Come to think of it, many of the high ranking dudes in my Karate dojo also had Ph.D. type education (LBNL Arnis club didn't count). Martial arts seems to loan itself to personalities who can grind out difficult things.

where do you go on sherdog to find good content? My experience with sherdog has always been constant shitposting and inflammatory posts. Of course, my only window into sherdog is browsing the highlighted forum threads on the front page for the past decade, which is probably exacerbating the problem.

r/bodybuilding is actually pretty hilarious, one of the best communities on reddit imo.

> There's quite a few I can think of, but most of them I'd rather not mention so the eye of Sauron passes them over.

You've piqued my interest. What are they?

Unfortunately, you can't just simply tell anyone, because that's how most enjoyable places get ruined.

To be frank, that's how I feel about HN: it's a little haven of (usually) calm, rational discussion, and I fear that as it gets more popular the level of discourse and content will decrease.

I believe HN will remain as it is, thanks to the behind-the-scenes work of the moderators.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/th...

https://drewdevault.com/2017/09/13/Analyzing-HN.html

Thanks for posting that New Yorker article, it was a great read about the humans behind HN.

Then why mention it?

The person above is merely relaying their experiences that these communities indeed still exist. You can read this implicitly as: "having authentic experiences online is absolutely possible, if one is willing to find and seek them out, but you must be willing to seek". And also: that those that aren't willing to seek these things out themselves, will ultimately destroy these communities for they lack that same necessary passion required to have these sorts of interesting and authentic experiences.

Not everything communicated online is intended for the direct and easy benefit of yourself.

Probably indication for the OP that such groups are still out there, rather than leaving it open to interpretation that reddit has finally absorbed the last of such groups.