My first foray into internet fandom was almost a decade ago (yikes!) when I frequented a small-ish (at least by more recent standards) but very active X-Files forum. Discussions primarily analyzed the weekly episodes, and I like that their was a ready-made group of people who shared that interest. However, that site is long gone. A forum, sadly, can only last as long as someone's around to keep it going.
My start in the HP fandom was also through forums, at first primarily Fiction Alley. By that point it was already too huge, though. I felt like the only way to feel any actual sense of "community" was to post exclusively in one area of the boards, but that severely limited what topics you could discuss. Yahoo!Groups were also still pretty popular with HP fandom back then too, but the sheer volume of posts was overwhelming to deal with.
I've only been on LJ since September, but I have noticed that fandom on LJ is quite different than on forums. I do miss the built in community that a smaller forum has, but I like that it's easy to find info on a variety of fandoms on LJ. I'm primarily a fandom-lurker rather than partcipant (XF and HP are exceptions, not the rule), and LJ is great for lurking and for finding fanfic. But I still feel like, as far as having focused discussions, like on a particular episode, book, chapter, whatever; it's easier to jump in and participate in a forum than to comment in the personal journal of someone I don't know.
(Sorry for the lengthy comment... you're not the only one with a tendency for tl;dr!)
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-01-03 10:46 pm (UTC)My start in the HP fandom was also through forums, at first primarily Fiction Alley. By that point it was already too huge, though. I felt like the only way to feel any actual sense of "community" was to post exclusively in one area of the boards, but that severely limited what topics you could discuss. Yahoo!Groups were also still pretty popular with HP fandom back then too, but the sheer volume of posts was overwhelming to deal with.
I've only been on LJ since September, but I have noticed that fandom on LJ is quite different than on forums. I do miss the built in community that a smaller forum has, but I like that it's easy to find info on a variety of fandoms on LJ. I'm primarily a fandom-lurker rather than partcipant (XF and HP are exceptions, not the rule), and LJ is great for lurking and for finding fanfic. But I still feel like, as far as having focused discussions, like on a particular episode, book, chapter, whatever; it's easier to jump in and participate in a forum than to comment in the personal journal of someone I don't know.
(Sorry for the lengthy comment... you're not the only one with a tendency for tl;dr!)