Best and worst deaf/hh forums?

Facebook, Twitter, and other online social media have gradually impacted many deaf/hh online discussion forums in the competition to maintain relevancy when they lose members. Over the years many forums have come and gone.

The first online deaf discussion forum outside of Listserv newsgroups that came onto the scene was Deafnotes (www.deafnotes.com). It began in July of 1999 but prior to that with the same website owner a site called www.deafchat.com started in 1998. This began to draw the attention of participants of Deaf-Lnewsgroup on wanting to belong to a forum that is owned and operated by a deaf person.  The number of participants in Deafnotes was about the same as bit.listserv.deaf-l at the time and consisted about 20 or 30 active participants each day. It wasn't long until people gradually began to prefer Deafnotes over Deaf-L newsgroup.

For example, the popularity of Deafnotes bulletin board lasted only a few years when some members of Deafnotes who felt repressed by Deafnotes abusive moderators began to design their own online discussion boards. Others wanted to branch out into discussing more about U.S. politics, or cochlear implant issues and not feel restricted to discuss them whether you're supportive of it or not. Some felt that forum members should be allowed more freedom to discuss various deaf, hearing loss or non-deaf related topics without fear of getting banned or locked out of a discussion forum for political or apolitical reasons. Some members left because of personal reasons.  Others left because of obvious bias and prejudicial behaviors seen in moderators favoring certain members over others. Or saw bias towards a certain issue. The reasons for leaving or joining a deaf/hh discussion forum are many.

During the 2000s the number of deaf/hh discussion forum websites began to increase and suited and appealed to certain groups of people. There were online deaf discussion forum websites, discussion groups and even chat groups during that decade such as www.deafonline2.com (cochlear implant friendly although the site is in limbodeafonline2 was established after leaving www.deafnotes.com), www.deaflore.com (defunct see Wayback archived section), www.deafnotes.com (in limbo but is vociferously anti-cochlear implant anything),  www.deafbase.com (see Wayback archived section),  bit.listserve.deaf-l newsgroup (hardly any activity but is now a Google run newsgroup), www.deafreedom.com (defunct, see Wayback archived section), www.hearingexchange.com (forum does not exist, it was once a private forum, see Wayback archived section), www.deafmadness.com (defunct but see Wayback archived section for goodies),  www.alldeaf.com (forum is active but favoritism and moderator bias continues to be a problem, supporters of CIs are out of luck), www.deafchat.com (defunct, see Wayback archived section), several deafness related listservs newsgroups, www.deafspot.com (defunct, see Wayback archived section), www.hohtimes.com (defunct, see Wayback archived section but forum was private), and a few other similar deaf and hard of hearing discussion or forum websites that I'm sure I may have missed. Let me know what I missed.

Over the last 4 years deaf/hh people have been increasingly moving towards Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube (the "Big 3 social media") rather than go to a forum website as part of their online socializing activity. Online discussion forums are becoming a dinosaur in the age of online social media.  It will only be a matter of time until some of the remaining existing deaf/hh online discussion forums will simply cease to exist. These forums show the nature of people on how they essentially need a "refuge" to come together to mostly agree with each other rather than a site they can't  agree to disagree in a discussion. There was only one forum site that I've been a member of whose moderators did not abuse its moderating duties. As moderators they had a policy to  "agree to disagree" rather than to allow prejudice and bias rule the day when it came to politics and deafness related issues. They expected members to handle arguments without needing kids gloves from moderators to handle constant and ongoing complaints from thin-skinned members who cannot handle a difference of opinions. This was a site where no members need not fear reprisals (i.e. banishment) from other members over a difference of opinions in their effort to "game the system" and that forum was Deafreedom. Which reminds me of this....

As a matter of curiosity sake which one of the past (defunct), old and active discussion forums were the best ones and worst ones that you have participated in, and why? This is your chance to speak up.

Green Brownie Eaters

I've been to several online forums (both hearing and deaf/hh) going back to the 1990s and have participated in many debates, proffered my own opinions and facts on a variety of topics and issues. But over the years there were two online forums, which were incidentally deaf/hh forums, that stuck to my mind on the pervasiveness of such bullying type of attitudes that took place. Some form of bullying took place were quite direct and obvious while others tried to make it discreet but even their actions were obvious through the use of pervasive amount of emoticons, excessive use of memes, raucous put downs and insinuating remarks in the effort to bait people and just plain making fun of those who comment in online forums. Quackery ensues from supposed "experts" who are unprofessionally or emotionally too involved.  Sometimes moderators were of no real help with their heavy lead fingers on ban button by banning members 3/4 of the time they don't personally like because of ideological differences and whatnot just to protect their status quo and precious ideologies. Sometimes it's like that, other times not so.

The good, bad and ugly I suppose in the world of deaf/hh discussion forums.   

One deaf/hh forum was one of the earliest chat forums that was set up. It only took a few short years for members to realize the pervasiveness of such militant beliefs or attitudes in a variety of topics or issues but were exacerbated when owner(s) or monitor(s) who continually looked the other way when you have ongoing crude or bullying remarks time and time again against members whenever they simply disagreed.  In this forum former members discussed how bad one other forum was.

I haven't patronized DC or DN in months now, since I've learned of it's true colors. Now I'm finding more of a militant attitude among the Monitors (gasp!! Shades of Orwellian 1984!!) that seem to override any free expression under the guise of "maintaining the peace in here". Ahh, well... It was a good site while it lasted.

Indeed. That particular deaf forum lasted several years before it petered out into internet oblivion.  As you can see in the Wayback Machine based on the amount of online activity peaking out for many forums around in the mid-2000s years (see below for graphics). Favoritism reared its ugly head for far too many times and it became obvious to everyone except to the owners, monitors and few chummy friends of theirs who participated seemed to be immune from getting suspended or banned or hardly even a tongue lashing. Please, no French kissing jokes here. Instead of instituting their own rules strictly by the books, emotionally uninvolved, on handling members' posted comments it was often times found easier to look the other way and leave a bullying comment or heavy insinuations in place. Sometimes you get ethically-challenged people who have tried to post members' names and workplaces as effort in retaliation of sort. Certainly not the cat's meow. That very same thing happened to deaf bloggers as well. If those kinds of practices on looking the other way as a matter of practice then any online deaf forum's popularity would only last for so long. Destined for the internet trash bins of yesteryear. 

Below you can see screen grabs from various deaf/hh forums over the years based on the Wayback Machine's number of crawl times. Less postings means less crawling by the Wayback on updating a website.  Around 2004 - 2006 were typically the heady years as you can see. Most popular deaf/hh forums died out around 2007 - 2009.

Over time popular discussion forums will someday soon go to the wayside and slowly die out into oblivion into internet obscurity only to be revised on occasion through the Wayback Machine or Google caches. Or that former members of one discussion forum gets peeled away to make way their own discussion forum but only to see the same pattern repeated and eventually get destined for the Internet trash bins of yesteryear. It's only a matter of time, ya see. Yet, forum owners have every right to see how their own forums take place and what is allowed and not allowed. That much is clear.

So, by now you are probably asking what are the "Green Brownie Eaters" seen in the blog title above? Well, they're the ethically-challenged people who think they can get away with things hoping others will look the other way, even among those higher up in the echelon ladder, knowing the substance baked into the brownies they are eating is illegal in an otherwise innocuous looking brownie treats. And how they hope others will eat them as well by jumping the bandwagon. Meow!