Firstly, Reddit is a forum (well, a collection of forums).

As for what kinds of people frequent forums? In my experience, usually people looking for niche information and communities. For example, I've been using the TurboBricks Volvo 240 modding forum for the better part of a decade. The forum itself has nearly two decades of user-submitted knowledge that doesn't exist on any other centralized website. They're a great way to talk directly to peer users dealing with the specific topic as you

You're on a forum right now.

I want to know just who these people are?

Me. :)

Or anyone else who is part of a niche community I guess. One popular example is xda-developers.com - even in 2023, it's forums remain relatively popular, and there's no real replacement for it. Reddit had several Android-related subs, but they don't see the kind of discussions that XDA sees.

One big difference is that traditional forums are more suited for long-term and lengthy discussions. Reddit, Lemmy and similar sites primarily revolve around the "now" - posting or discussing the latest news and trends. Once a post falls off the front page, no one cares about it any more - whereas on a forum, a single thread can have a lifetime of many years.

Also, the fact that there is no points/karma system means every comment and post gets equal visibility, and there's less chances of an echo-chamber forming / ass-kissing / meme / low-effort posting. Like look at SchnoodleDoodleDoo on Reddit - every single comment of their's is a lame poem that adds no value and wastes screen space - basically spam - yet every time they post, they get a flood of replies from people like "Schnoodle you're the GOAT, marry me xoxo" etc. Honestly, it gets very annoying seeing such ass-kissing and useless comments on every single thread.

And same with posts - because there's no points system in a traditional forum, you get equal visibility over every post. Whereas on sites like Reddit, you'd have to pray that your post gets enough upvotes so that people will see it (or alternatively, buy upvotes), AND you'd have to also make sure you post at the right time so they people will see it, otherwise your post will quickly dissappear from the page. Lemmy, since it's till fairly niche, doesn't have that issue right now, but once it's popularity grows, it'll suffer from the same issues associated with votes and timing. Which is not very ideal for someone posting a question wanting help with something.

What kind of people frequent on forums?

people interested in the forum topic

Idk anything about Linux forums, but as far as forums in general:

Are there really so many people to frequent forums and provide answers to people who seem to be in trouble

This is legitimately my husband's favorite thing to do. He's not into Linux, he's into garden tractors and mowers, but he loves the enthusiast forums and Facebook groups he's in and is very active.

Generally, he loves helping people who want to learn, and specifically, he is nuts about helping people learn to care for their machines and save them from the junkyard. He will spend hours on the phone and days over email helping people troubleshoot things, purely for the joy of helping.

And when he's not helping somebody, he's talking to other tractor nerds about how cool their tractors are and how best to take care of them! 😂🥰

So yes, there are people who like to hang around to give help, some people just really, really, really love to help.

The people on forums are usually the more dedicated to a specific topic that relates to a forum, I used to frequent a lot of forums 10+ years ago

Though I treated Reddit like the forums of old

And I've started treating Lemmy like that as well, with a sprinkling of shit posting as well for giggles

I peruse ModWiggler occasionally (bbs forum for synthesizer enthusiasts), more often since the Reddit blackout stuff when I stopped using it.

And I am actually quite pleasantly surprised by the quality of discussion and how many people are actually open to more radical ideologies. Way more personal and pleasant than subreddits for the topic. In fact, most synth enthusiasts I know are leftists. I don't really know why.

I think there is an argument to be made that communities that are smaller and harder to enter have better social health.

Also, I think forum users tend to be older, so you get less edgy teens. I don't trust surveys. I think most people I interact with on Reddit are teens. Surely they wouldn't lie about their age, right?

I'm on every website I've ever heard of and so I've been exposed to a great deal of forums. The most popular of these is the TV Tropes forums. People go bananas over it. They're like places of mental salience, that's the main takeaway. I was also popular (if that's the right word) on the DeviantArt forums (you might be familiar with me if you've looked up my username on Lemmy on DeviantArt), though it's a hotbed of hate and inceldom, especially the last thing. And now you may begin to see a nemesis in the mix.

Lots of neurodivergent people.