KF all you get to read about are terminally-online schizos getting outed as sex pests and /pol/fags whining about how nothing is worthwhile ever because da JOOS, da INDIANS, da GAYS, da TROONZ, and da WIMMINZ.
Yeah, the doomerism here off-topic is very annoying, but as you said, there is some good/insightful talk here from time to time, (which is a lot like the off-topic side of spacebattles, except they're full of lefty doomers. I think any site where politics are allowed will eventually have its own set of politisperg doomers.), and I also think it's very worthwhile as a place for other communities to shitpost. A lot of threads in places like Community Watch have the feel of an entirely different website. It should be noted for KF itself that a lot of the hatred of the LGBT is because there are few places to do it online these days outside imageboards, especially in communities where they are prominent. I hope they are just blowing off steam and are not this fixated.
Non-imageboard forums are something I have a little knowledge of, as I think they're quite neat, but they tend to cluster around a few certain topics, be cliquish around people who have been posting there for like 20 years, benefit from being based around a hobby where information being searchable justifies their existence, and tend to be fragile communities that are susceptible to userbase rot or the activity being swallowed by chat. They also tend to skew a bit older userbase-wise, but they also attract users who are ideologically opposed to social media. The Internet forum is in a strange place culturally. They don't have that countercultural aura imageboards did (do?) but seem to be healthier in terms of userbase, and their usually not being anonymous tends to prevent the most egregious of 'coorrrrrrddddd activity. In terms of fragility, a lot of forum software is outdated, and a lot of webmasters don't have the know-how to upgrade or migrate, and hosting on something like Discord or Matrix is free, so a lot of communities end up there, and oftentimes they set it up in addition to it, and it just sucks up most activity. I have a feeling they're going to stabilize in terms of userbase and become associated with older Gen Z and Millennials, like how other forms of communication online thought obsolete are still used by older people. All of what I said applies to the English-speaking Internet only, by the way.
It should be noted that a lot of forums
are based around car makes and models, and I know next to nothing about this so I can't tell you anything about their quality.
Reef2Reef
https://www.reef2reef.com/
Topic: Saltwater tropical fish keeping
Activity level: Moderate
Quality level: Moderate to high depending on the topic. There are many saltwater fishkeeping aquariums but this is the largest one and should be your first look, there are some people with experience with surprising, exotic animals posting here. Pet owner still use forums for some reason, and there are like 6 active forums specifically for aquariums but this is the most interesting one to just sit and read.
The Front Row Forums
https://forums.leagueunlimited.com/
Topic: Rugby League
Activity level: High
Quality level: Moderate to High, but can often be the only place to find talk for non-NRL footy.
Sports fans in general seem to still like forums, I guarantee any team you could think of that plays at an elite level has at least a somewhat active forum, especially if it's an English association football club, any one of those in the EFL and a few outside of it will have one.
https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/ is decent too if you prefer the other code.
BushcraftUSA
https://bushcraftusa.com/forum/
Topic: Bushcraft and other outdoorsy topics, focused specifically on North America as the site has a large classifieds section
Activity level: Moderate
Quality level: High to low, depending on the topics, some topics seem oddly prone to flames.
Sherdog
https://forums.sherdog.com/
Topic: UFC & MMA
Activity level: High
Quality level: Moderate to low, there's usually a bunch of longer posts in the first few pages and a lot of the thread is people agreeing with them. Can focus more on gossip in fighter's personal lives, but I think this is due to the UFC"s decline in quality lately and UFC fans would rather suffer than watch other promotions.
EndeavourOS
https://forum.endeavouros.com/
Topic: GNU/Linux, specifically the EndeavourOS distribution (which is just an Arch installer with a pretty wallpaper and better community)
Activity level: High
Quality level: High, there are a ton of Linux forums, often clustered around distributions but this is one of the best ones and has a lot of people who join to talk about general linuxy fossy tech stuff without using the distro itself.
https://forums.gentoo.org/ is worth a shout too but is much slower. FOSS lovers use a lot of weird non-social media sites so you'll probably find the most activity online with these types if you can tolerate their convictions.
ZooChat
https://www.zoochat.com/community/
Topic: Zooph- Nah, I'm joking, a forum for enthusiasts of zoos and other wildlife parks
Activity: Moderate
Quality level: Moderate to High, can have some interesting insights but can be oddly elitist.
DharmaWheel
https://www.dharmawheel.net/
Topic: Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism
Activity: Moderate to Low depending on topic
Quality level: Low to high, sometimes this is the ONLY place you can find topics or discussion of those in English, unless you're willing to brave Facebook groups and even then it might not be in English.
Unexplained Mysteries
https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/u
Topic: Schizophrenia (Mysteries, the paranormal and metaphysics)
Activity: Moderate to high
Quality level: Low to amazing, depending on the poster and how interesting you find this stuff. GodlikeProductions used to be good for schizophrenia too but their banning of VPNs has made me suspicious of it.
Websleuths
https://www.websleuths.com/forums/
Topic: True crime and unsolved mysteries
Activity: Moderate
Quality level: Low to holy shit this site
generated leads that solved cases, but also has a lot of emotional pleasantries that you'd think people who talk about unidentified bodies and missing people all day wouldn't need.
LetsRun
https://www.letsrun.com/forum
Topic: Athletics, the track & field kind
Activity: Moderate
Quality level: Low, in a loosely moderated imageboard way. Not as free as AutoAdmit, but is known for having inflammatory posters. Can get off-topic at times.
AutoAdmit
http://www.autoadmit.com/
Topic: 'Law school discussion'
Activity: Moderate
Quality level: Very low but can be fun, very shitposty, almost entirely unmoderated.
Nationstates
https://forum.nationstates.net/
Topic: Politisperging and roleplaying related to the game
Activity: High
Quality level: Low, unless you enjoy the game enough to roleplay as your own nation.
Badger & Blade
https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/
Topic: Wet shaving and other 'gentlemanly' topics like cologne.
Activity: Moderate to low
Quality: High, but they are opinionated and are probably a 'type' of guy. Really, really sharp blades that aren't for everyone are popular here.
I'll post more when I have some time.
P.S. What's up with City-Data?
http://www.city-data.com/
It is pretty dead these days but despite the topics it seems to just be schizos.
I went on there once and it was nothing but a bunch of crazies whining about muh declining Western civilization and spouting incel nonsense. It's very low-quality.
Any space that doesn't have a set topic or is 'general', 'news' or 'current events' is going to attract a flavor of weird sperg. It's a shame, but the mood that permeates most of the Internet is fucking wack and that's why keway and the shardee were such a breath of fresh air, so you hope to find people who are just spergy about their hobby/topic in places like this. Or older people. Older people are usually either chill or the biggest sperglords of all.
