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[Bauglir]

Honestly, dude, you've pretty much gotta start tripfagging* on 4chan or something for the closest approximation of that that you're gonna get. SMFs tend to be constructed around some nucleating interest (like DF for Bay12) or as short-lived exoduses from people who got fed up with another SMF and decided to make their own forum, but with blackjack and hookers. Whatever the merits of the latter people, they do not make for a stable community base. They're designed, by their nature, to have rules - note the implicit concept of "on-topic"ness created by the subdirectories we've got around here. And if you don't have a guiding interest to shape what discussions are permissible, your forum has nothing to offer to people compared to ones that do. When all you hope to offer is a vibrant community based on the abstract principle of free speech, that community will never clump together in the first place. Not only do those valuable contributors have no reason to root there to begin with, too many will be repelled by trolls and vicious assholes who like the idea of "I can say whatever I want and you can't stop me" because it means they're free to be trolls and vicious assholes.

The thing you've got in mind runs counter to the tools you want used for it. It's akin to asking how to scale Everest with a rope made of knotted-together sheets.

At least in my experience.

*With apologies to the gay folks around here. I'm using 4chan's local lingo there because quite frankly I am way too tired and buzzed to provide the at-length definition instead of the shorthand, but if anyone's offended I'll change it tomorrow morning.

EDIT: also i am sorry for unfriendly debating habits, to whatever extent i'm in the list of unfriendlies. it's a thing i've been trying to work on

[Orange Wizard]

Does anyone know of any forums like that which also have a decent amount of traffic?

A forum like that is basically just going to be a slightly shittier *chan board.

E: Hang on, that's what Bauglir said. What Bauglir said.

[Bohandas]

Does anyone know of any forums like that which also have a decent amount of traffic?

A forum like that is basically just going to be a slightly shittier *chan board.

E: Hang on, that's what Bauglir said. What Bauglir said.

And like I said, my main problem with the chan boards is that they're not simple machines forums.

[Tack]

I keep remembering that episode of the (American) Office.

See, that sentence right there is where your whole argument falls apart. [/facetiousness]

tripfagging
*With apologies to the gay folks around here. I'm using 4chan's local lingo there because quite frankly I am way too tired and buzzed to provide the at-length definition instead of the shorthand, but if anyone's offended I'll change it tomorrow morning.

Personally I like the whole chan lingo, because it throws all connotations of the word out of the window.
30 years of this and when someone calls a gay person 'fag' the correct response will be 'but I don't even use 4chan'.

Of course, if it is actually bringing pain to people today to see 'vidyafag' etc, then yes perhaps we shouldn't use it.

@Koss, Below-

Yeah, exploding seems to be the main thing which gets people banned. You can be super passionate about your views, but as soon as you start typing with anger it can all devolve really quickly.
Worst of all because that smug robot on the other side will be sitting there refuting all of your passionate blah with their cold steely douchebaggery, only getting people more riled up.

[KingofstarrySkies]

Does anyone know of any forums like that which also have a decent amount of traffic?

A forum like that is basically just going to be a slightly shittier *chan board.

E: Hang on, that's what Bauglir said. What Bauglir said.

And like I said, my main problem with the chan boards is that they're not simple machines forums.

Then you're shit outta luck.
@HotButtonDiscussion
I'm gonna admit right now: There have been times when things are brought up, mocked, or praised that make me want to explode. But, more oft then not, I just either shut up or say something along the lines of 'meh'. Iunno. Just feel like most of us have some basic human decency to not say shit that will obviously cause others strife/anger.

[Bauglir]

And like I said, my main problem with the chan boards is that they're not simple machines forums.

Right, exactly. I'm just trying to say that, in my view at least, you've got contradictory goals. A Simple Machine Forum works against the sort of community you want, and the community structure you want thrives best in *chan environments where everything is ephemeral.

Spoiler: Since You Mention 4chan Being Randomly Laid Out (click to show/hide)

Incidentally, within any given 4chan thread, posts are arranged chronologically. In the catalog or index, threads are arranged chronologically by the most recent post, except that threads past a certain number of posts are not bumped back up to the top when new posts are made (this is done specifically so that even popular threads will die). Each time a new thread is posted, the last thread in the index gets bumped off. I recommend using the catalog, as it presents a neater interface, but you will only see the image and opening lines of the OP, so you will miss out on wacky derails until you develop an eye for the sorts of threads likely to produce wacky derails. Note that those are the index view, which shows you a thread's OP followed by the most recent posts, separating threads with lines (not pictured).

Each post contains, as red links preceded by >>, a reference to any posts it's a reply to. Replies can even be made to posts in other threads, and slightly more complicated syntax allows replies to be made to posts on other boards if you want to be particularly cheeky about something. Each post also contains, as blue links near the top of the post, references to any posts that are replies to that post.

It's pretty straightforward once you get used to the idea that all content is doomed to die and nothing you say really matters.

[Bohandas]

Honestly, dude, you've pretty much gotta start tripfagging* on 4chan or something for the closest approximation of that that you're gonna get. SMFs tend to be constructed around some nucleating interest (like DF for Bay12) or as short-lived exoduses from people who got fed up with another SMF and decided to make their own forum, but with blackjack and hookers. Whatever the merits of the latter people, they do not make for a stable community base. They're designed, by their nature, to have rules - note the implicit concept of "on-topic"ness created by the subdirectories we've got around here. And if you don't have a guiding interest to shape what discussions are permissible, your forum has nothing to offer to people compared to ones that do. When all you hope to offer is a vibrant community based on the abstract principle of free speech, that community will never clump together in the first place. Not only do those valuable contributors have no reason to root there to begin with, too many will be repelled by trolls and vicious assholes who like the idea of "I can say whatever I want and you can't stop me" because it means they're free to be trolls and vicious assholes.

Well then, the thing to do would be to start with a guiding interest or interests - perhaps even of a really pandering nature to draw people in - and expand from there. How many of the discussions on here are about Dwarf Fortress?

EDIT:
Perhaps a board about music, with subsections focusing on heavy metal, classical, folk, and pop,, plus a general subsection for other genres, and a large offtopic subsection like the lower boards here. That would make a fine nucleus to grow this idea from.

[Flying Dice]

Honestly, dude, you've pretty much gotta start tripfagging* on 4chan or something for the closest approximation of that that you're gonna get. SMFs tend to be constructed around some nucleating interest (like DF for Bay12) or as short-lived exoduses from people who got fed up with another SMF and decided to make their own forum, but with blackjack and hookers. Whatever the merits of the latter people, they do not make for a stable community base. They're designed, by their nature, to have rules - note the implicit concept of "on-topic"ness created by the subdirectories we've got around here. And if you don't have a guiding interest to shape what discussions are permissible, your forum has nothing to offer to people compared to ones that do. When all you hope to offer is a vibrant community based on the abstract principle of free speech, that community will never clump together in the first place. Not only do those valuable contributors have no reason to root there to begin with, too many will be repelled by trolls and vicious assholes who like the idea of "I can say whatever I want and you can't stop me" because it means they're free to be trolls and vicious assholes.

Well then, the thing to do would be to start with a guiding interest or interests - perhaps even of a really pandering nature to draw people in - and expand from there. How many of the discussions on here are about Dwarf Fortress?

Note that DF, though it was the original draw, isn't the only one any more. The upper boards, obviously, are still all about DF, and a lot of us who don't go there any more were still drawn here initially by DF. Now that the community has developed, though, there are also people who come here for features on the forums, the Mafia and RTD subforums in particular. Other Games could also be considered a draw for gamers and devs in the same sort of niche as DF.

That's the thing. It doesn't have to continue to be about the original core subject once the community has developed a shared culture, but it's likely that that will still exist in the popular consciousness -- pretty much all of us, I think, still "get" just about any reference to DF and understand what people are talking about, even if we haven't played it in years ourselves.

[Bauglir]

Thing is, every single person on this board is ultimately here because of Dwarf Fortress. Not just because it's why the board exists, but because we either came here because we played and migrated down eventually, or because we talked to somebody who did, or we talked to somebody who, through some number of degrees of separation, heard the place had a reputation we liked. And before that reputation was originally constructed on the conversations of people who came here for no reason other than Dwarf Fortress. That's what I meant by nucleating - even 4chan grew out of a place to share anime and pornography and anime pornography. Once you've got a community in place you can start to have concepts like freedom of speech be relevant to how it actually operates, but before you even get started on that you need some reason to get the community sprouted.

A music board could work. I'd say go ahead and start one up, if you've got enough content to discus to get enough people attached, and enough patience to see it through until its main draw becomes being a large community with no rules but the bare minimum to not get v&.

EDIT: Ninja'd by the Dice.

[Owlga]

If this place was just about DF I doubt I'd stick around, given I'm not even allowed to play the game anymore anyway it would be pointless. But some of the people around here seem okay and since recent events I thought it might be a good chance to make myself a somewhat more social person.

So yeah, stuff.

[Flying Dice]

Heh.

I forgot to mention it earlier, but I really like the two-way linked quoting (especially the hover-images of posts) on the chans, it's marvelously convenient for quickly browsing through a discussion that you arrived late to. Makes me wish that SMF and &c. had a similar "quoted by" feature that would seed links in posts that connected to subsequent posts that quoted it. The multi-quote function over on SB is also quite useful for quickly responding to multiple posts, as opposed to opening a bunch of tabs and copy-pasting or waiting for the laggy preview quote-adding over here.

E: Yeah, Owlga, I probably wouldn't either if all that was here was the upper boards. That's the nice thing about established communities: as before, they don't have to have all discussion oriented on one thing 'cause it's already cohesive enough and large enough for other interests (and even general nattering) to prosper instead of dying off.

[EnigmaticHat]

Even if I go back to DF, which is going to happen at the very least to check up on adventure mode (I love you even if no one else does!), I'm going to limit my time in the upper boards.  So much time spent on the same memes.  Like yes, boatmurdered is great, but like... how many years ago was that?  You can make a new story, with new memes, and maybe stop having real life racism for non-existent races.  It was funny but then it got weird.

I dunno, I like the environment here.  Lord knows if DF had a typical gaming community there's no way I would have stuck with it as long as I did.  To be honest I haven't developed an actual two sided friendship with anyone although there are plenty of people here that I like in a one-sided way.  But its chill, we do find interesting things to talk about, and this isn't my only source of human interaction so whatever it doesn't need to be everything.

[Orange Wizard]

I'm not even allowed to play the game anymore

Wait, why not?

Even if I go back to DF, which is going to happen at the very least to check up on adventure mode (I love you even if no one else does!), I'm going to limit my time in the upper boards.  So much time spent on the same memes.  Like yes, boatmurdered is great, but like... how many years ago was that?  You can make a new story, with new memes, and maybe stop having real life racism for non-existent races.  It was funny but then it got weird.

I think it's cyclical. People who are new quickly hop on the elf-killing/MAAAAGMAAAA/it is inevitable/carp/fucking boatmurdered bandwagons, and people who have been around longer either stop caring or take part ironically. Then more newbies turn up and the cycle continues.

[Owlga]

Wait, why not?

Recent events caused domain blockings. Not sure I should go further into this.

Also the magma stuff is really annoying.

[Yoink]

Spoiler: There used to be a weird, scatterbrained, rambling post here, but I think this sums it up. (click to show/hide)