Discord Server

[Snowdog]

Originally Posted by Ring Bearer

Are u guys the oldest LOTR Forum on the Internet?

Hey Ring Bearer, yes, Barrow Downs is one of the old legacy Tolkien sites that cropped up in the pre-Peter Jackson Lord of the Rongs fanfic days (1999 I think on the old EZ Board?) Another one that is still around pretty much in it's original tech, though has very little use these days, is Entmoot. I believe they started on EZ Board in 1999 as well. The One Ring (.com 1999) has just this year renovated the tech platform, and Tolkien Forums, another original 1999 EZ Board forum, tech-renovated a couple years ago and is pretty solid and has a core of active members. Sadly, Minas Tirith (.com) crumbled into dust a year or so ago. They got started in 2000.


As for the whole Discord thing, I find it to be yet another distraction to take away use from forums when a site has a server.

Bethberry! Good to see ya!

[Zigûr]

I don't mind discord, but I think it skews towards a different style of posting and a different kind of user than an old-school forum like the Downs. That being said, I think there might be some decent-sized "modern" discussion platforms where people are discussing Middle-earth in a context that is grounded in the books, like r/tolkienfans on Reddit. I don't have a reddit account but it seems that way from a bit of lurking.

Comparatively speaking I think I'm still a bit of a newbie here (yes, despite posting semi-regularly for nine years). But the Downs is one of two forums I'm part of that keeps alive the flame of late 90s/early 2000s forum culture but with all the trolls etc filtered out over long years of survival and consistent users becoming familiar with each other. It's not really the kind of place that needs to be dragged kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century.

[Morsul the Dark]

To be honest I’m on a few discord groups that are all lovely. I would say it’s unlikely to serve the function wanted. A discord doesn’t grow a platform it’s an outcrop of the current group.

As an example one group is a fan base for a podcast the podcast gets roughly 10thousand listeners a month, 5000patrons, and maybe 50-100 Discord users.

And 100 is sort of the sweet spot. I’ve been in Discord’s with 1k+ people and it’s just spam, not even bad spam just too many people trying to have conversations. At once and you can’t follow. Like a theatre of people all talking, it’s just noise.

However, for the downs I would probably support a discord if the base was much more active, again as an offshoot.

If you’re looking to grow the site there would need to be a massive push of evangelization undertaken. Posting links to the site from YouTube videos, or Reddit, so on so forth.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Snowdog

Bethberry! Good to see ya!

Long time no see, Dawg. How are you doing?

Running any Inns these days?

[Snowdog]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Long time no see, Dawg. How are you doing?

Running any Inns these days?

Doing well! I retired from running Inns when I set alight the old overgrown Snowdog's Inn on the Minas Tirith site. Only visit them now. Retirement suits me!