this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
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Asklemmy

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[–] fubo@lemmy.world 53 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

There's no "lore". Kbin uses /m/ for "magazines". Every freakin' site needs to come up with its own word for the social/data structures that are obviously correctly called "forums".

Or maybe "newsgroups".

[–] manitcor@lemmy.intai.tech 27 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

bit of lore about the word "forum"

you would think it was the centralized providers marketing that moved from the word first but in reality it was the forums themselves. When you didn't want your employees wasting time on the internet you would block certain words in the URI rather than certain domains. Words like "forum" and "chat" were perma-filtered at many workplaces like reddit or some other sites are today.

Many sites migrated away from using the word "forum" initially by hacking up thier default forum installs (some of those early php apps SUCKED) years before subs.

1-letter path names became a good way to obfuscate.

[–] fubo@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Wouldn't surprise me. The industry jumped over to "HTTPS everywhere" as soon as it was politically convenient — but one good reason was to prevent people from building "filtering" middleware without having to hire someone who understood enough of Bruce Schneier to explain why filtering URLs wasn't a thing you wanted to be doing in the first place.

[–] dan@lemm.ee 17 points 1 year ago

Personally I think “communities” is the closest we’ve got to a generic name for those things.

[–] Nemo@midwest.social 11 points 1 year ago (3 children)

This but the plural is "fora".

[–] CheshireSnake@iusearchlinux.fyi 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Idk if you're being serious, but "forums" is also accepted and isn't wrong.

[–] fubo@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Quidquid latine dictum ...

[–] Nemo@midwest.social 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

...in latine manet?

Nescio, nemo sum.

[–] fubo@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

... sit, altum viditur.

("Whatever is said in Latin is seen as elevated." / "If you say it in Latin, it sounds more profound.")

[–] dannoffs@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

We're speaking English. "Forums" is just as, if not more correct than "fora"

[–] burningmatches@feddit.uk 1 points 1 year ago

We’re speaking English.

Barely

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 1 points 1 year ago

I still yearn to go back to the original forums.

No, not PHPBB or Usenet.

I mean like the Roman one.

[–] manitcor@lemmy.intai.tech 38 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] calabast@lemm.ee 36 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah but why don't Lemmy instances use "reddit.com" as their URL? We may never figure this stuff out 😞

[–] ivenoidea@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

What’s the lore reason why Lemmy uses some dumb animal as it’s mascot and not a cool alien?

[–] eldopgergan@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

I think c stands for communities, that's why?

[–] Jamie@jamie.moe 11 points 1 year ago

Probably just a sensible choice to not completely copy Reddit.

I think you answered your own question. The "/c/" is for community instead of "/r/" for [sub]reddit.

[–] Madbrad200@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

u/ for user, c/ for community, is my bet.

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