Back in the time (late 90s, early 2000s?) there were forums for pretty much anything and everything. There was also mIRC, ICQ and a few others to keeps us entertained talking to others.
Forums were abadoned for various reasons, the main one (in my view) was that everyone was discovering the ways of communication in real time (looking at you skype, FB, FaceTime, et cia).
All of a sudden we’re seem to be going back to the old good format of forums.
Hello MPU forums.
Happy with this new format as it offers A LOT better search features and all the wisdom from this great community is not “lost in time”. However, pretty sure I’ll miss the “REAL TIME and much more PERSONAL” way of communication that FB offered.
Anyway, the move is done so, as they say in this country, “long live the MPU group!”
I’m really glad this was done because I only really used Facebook for MPU and to follow a couple of musicians. I am looking forward to logging into Facebook much less now
I prefer forums for these sorts of groups - so much better than Facebook, especially when I’m trying to search for information or previous posts. I can follow topics of interest without having to scroll with pages and pages of gaff.
I was really disappointed when Facebook took over as the primary replacement for the good old fashioned forum, though I can see why it did.
I’m super happy about the move as I deleted my FB account a couple years ago. Also, I’ve got fond memories of the MacCentral forums (and others) from the late 90s into 2000s. As mentioned, forums are easier and better for information retrieval.
I’m a bit sad about the move to a forum from an FB group. As many negatives as there were as an FB group, the fact is that I’m on FB all the time for both work and personal communication and it was useful to have new MPU posts pop up in my feed to remind me to check out the group. But now I have to explicitly remember to come check the forums, which is just another todo on the list. This is one reason why I stopped frequenting forums. I hope this time it will be different for me.
Yeah, it’s kind of interesting actually. The underlying discussion of FB becoming the primary interface for so many people using the web. I know in my own family FB is now the web. They don’t really use web browsers much. It’s FB, email, and something like Messages.
I suppose this move suits those of us that prefer the old school web of diverse sources, feeds, blogs, forums, etc. It is more to keep up with, no doubt. I hope you’re able to settle into the new place and I’m looking forward to seeing your posts.
I’m trying the Discourse app on the home screen of my iOS devices, with badges turned on, to give me the nudge to check in (not that I’ll need the nudge, probably). I’m finding it much easier to keep up with things, and not miss things due to the Facebook algorithm, here.
This group was the majority of my Facebook usage anyway, with many in my circle giving up FB and the same friends posting. I think Facebook is bad enough not to let it leech on my personal life. Just my opinion.
I like the format and function of the forum over FB for sure. I’m afraid it means I’ll likely be less active, but not on purpose - I think I’ll just forget to check it as often. But that’s alright - I think the benefits outweigh the potential negatives!
Make sure to tweak your email and notification settings to suit you! You could also subscribe to some of the RSS feeds if that will suit your workflow.
I am really happy with the move. I think the discourse software is very good and a far better forum software than many others I experienced over time. Also, while I am and will remain a Facebook user for the forseeable future, I was never convinced that Facebook constitutes a good platform for forum-like discussions on topics that branch out into sub-topics. Also, the Facebook algorithm cannot be trusted, and I never felt that I caught 100 % of the super-useful and fun interaction in the group. So, I am more than happy about the move and excited about this new format.
I look forward to getting used to the new interface, and excited for better search functionality.
I do miss the scrolling feature, being able to read people’s posts. A suggestion to the group; maybe longer subject lines, so we can get more of a feel for the post without clicking. I miss reading the first few sentences!
Happy to get back from vacation and find MPU on Facebook gone and a REAL MPU forum taking its place. This will be much easier to follow, and following my family’s activities on Facebook will be easier because MPU posts were swamping my feed!
My only grumble, like a few others here, is around losing the drop-dead-easy discoverability of the Facebook group. But I will take Rose’s suggestion and explore the notification settings.
Lots of positives with the move to the forum. This is the first time on Discourse for me so there was a few things I looked for such as being able to subscribe to categories for example the IOS section then you get notified of every post to that section something that’s possible in phpBB forums. Also I’m surprised the author of the post isn’t shown only the last person to comment on it. I might want to read every post Rosemary makes but it seems there’s no way to do that. Happy there’s a dark mode though.
Follow this link. From there you can set categories as Watching to get notified of every new post in any/all of the categories. You can do the same for tags here.
Sounds like you’re viewing it from mobile. If that’s true, it has more to do with not enough space for both the OP and the latest poster.
Thanks for the detailed reply. I’m definitely using a web browser on a desktop machine to view the group.
See the below screenshot. The photo is of Andre the last person to comment at the time I took the screenshot. Even though there is plenty of space below the subject the authors name isn’t mentioned. It’s not a big deal really it was just something I thought would be there.
