Doomworld is still going. I joined a few years back and it was such a blast of nostalgia being on a normal forum after so long.
this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2026
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Asklemmy
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What's a thematic forum? Do you mean a site with people on it talking about some topic? Do you mean software like NodeBB?
IDK what you mean about "return" of old school forums. They never went away, they're still here, maybe slowly declining, but a long way from dead. I don't think NodeBB is particularly relevant to keeping them alive. Neither are client side apps since they are usually accessed with browsers.
Most of the forums I know are completely dead, killed by Reddit or Discord. But I know of some programming forums that are still active, they are dedicated to specific programming languages like Python or Rust. That's what I mean by thematic. You can discuss a wide range of topics, but the primary focus is on a specific subject. These are the ones I've used:
https://lobste.rs/ maybe? Non-programming forums are still around too, like progarchives.com. AI scrapers may be more of a threat than Reddit. I heard that https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/ put most of its fiction section behind a login wall, maybe to avoid scraping and other overactive bots.
Vogons is still actively used. I'm also aware of some other forums but I don't feel comfortable mentioning them even though I use some of them occasionally.
Yeah, I think you are right, the whole internet is going to end up behind a login if bot acitivy keeps increasing.