Very interesting observation. I have been with thathomesite since I don't know when. I think that it was mid nineties when I first stumbled on it . It used to be so active I remember having to "refresh" because by the time I had finished reading a thread, there were multiple replies to it.

I think the beginning of my internet time was spent chiefly on emails, (aol) then thathomesite. A bit later but still over 2 decades I think I found citi data forums. Those are also wonderful but I have gravitated within that forum to books, locations, and retirement. There are a host of other subjects which I explore from time to time(religion, health, home, fashion, travel).

Houzz and citi data are my main destinations. I also of course spend too much time on Facebook, and lately, I have been finding entertainment on Primetimers TV. I mostly have TV on in the background while I surf the net, but the commentary on there is really pretty sharp and entertaining.

Building A House, kitchens, cooking forum, (marriage, briefly, only to lurk), Parenting, divorce (I think, but may have been under marriage forum), weddings, vacations. LOL, me in a nutshell.

This is so true. I was thinking the other day about how my obsessions dictate my forum choices. Home stuff, nursing issues, diets, writing, supplements for health, diseases and back to home stuff. I lived on garden web when I did my kitchen and baths 20 years ago and here I am again lol.

I remember when I used to participate in chat rooms, where the conversation was live and kept scrolling. Do they exist now? I think I used iVillage. My Facebook groups are about caregiving, gardening and local issues. I’ve been coming here for almost 20 years. It’s still my best place.

I was an active participant of another decorating forum, Great Impressions, for many years, as well as a small spin-off group. GI has since gone much smaller and private. I’m still a member, although pretty inactive there lately. During our total kitchen gut and remodel, I spent time everyday on the Kitchen Forum. It was a huge resource and a huge comfort, as well. I then moved over to the Holidays and Organizing Forums. But Holidays kicked in my obsession with dish sets and holiday decorating and after purchasing my 13th set of dishes, I had to walk away (LOL). Great folks there, though. Then on to our Decorating Forum, which I loved. Once Houzz took it over, though, and the rude “professionals” barged in, it changed for the worse IMO, and I rarely venture over there these days. Briefly on to another organizing forum. Then setting up my own healthful eating site, which is private for our clinic’s patients, their families, and my huge extended family. These days, it’s mainly here on our wonderful Conversations Forum, my website, FaceBook to keep in daily contact with my huge family, a couple of FB food forums, and TripAdvisor.

On FB, I keep in contact with friends, family and just a few groups. I'm getting my pastured raised pork, for instance, via a local FB group. I also found out about bears wandering around yards from my home after I grilled outside one night... via a community FB group. There are a few other groups I've joined just due to shared interests.

I am on a chicken/poultry raising forum because I can run questions by, there. Since I am raising chickens.

I just joined a cooking forum which has a lot of great people interested in actual conversations.

I also participate in an online collaborative writing forum, which includes fun, creative, and great people.

I'm only on Twitter or Pinterest to promote my foodie/homesteading blog. Otherwise, little interest.

As for GW, I'm here for a few home building forums (big help especially on Kitchens and Building a Home), and the convos on Cooking, Home Decorating Conversations, and The Kitchen Table. I tried Hot Topics about this time last year, but so much of everybody is so set into their own cherrypicking mindsets that they can be ignored.

Occasionally if I have a landscaping / gardening question, I look at this aspect of GW as well. I know this is now Houzz, but that's not the social or discussion aspect for me.

I would love to find a good homesteading forum.

Oh, when I first got online, it was via CompuServe. I ended up on the Religion Forum (as a moderator) and playing around in both the Music and the Role Playing Games forums. That was late 80s and early 90s.

This is the only online forum I participate in, and only "halfway" now that I hardly even glance at the other side. I usually poke my head in here to see what's going on every few days at least. Other than facebook, that's about it. I do read a few decor blogs, but not as regularly as I used to.

Oh, and I forgot about the era of the College Confidential website/forum. That was a helpful one. Not so much ongoing conversation, but great information.

IdaClaire, I do have about five reviews on Trip Advisor. They keep wanting me to post more. Someday... If something is really bad, I just don't have the time (and perhaps it was truly a bad night for the site, short staffed etc). I'd rather post about meals I give a 4 or a 5 to, to make up for my time writing stuff up. I usually prefer to Recommend pleasure.

Bad or indifferent - unless the truly bad was obviously something the site could have avoided: health hazards or true indifference… I have less inclination to review.

Oddity Note. Yesterday I decided to check my reviews on Amazon. I've apparently posted exactly 100 of them. From the beginning back in the early 2000s until just a couple months ago. They go in spurts. I'll apparently do about 3-8 or something then not come back to review for another broad period of time.

Mostly on books, some kitchen implements. An occasional music CD review back in the earlier years. One documentary film.

Hmm.

I love cooking and used to belong to an active cooking forum. I do enjoy our Cooking forum here but the activity is rather light. Lots of good posters, though, with great advice and experience. I always learn something new.

I joined Facebook a while back to keep up with community events and news. I don't engage but read to keep up.

Various forums and blogs and what-have-you over the years based on interests and hobbies, most health related, like running, intermittent fasting (of which I'm a lifelong practitioner), meditation, etc. Hobbies like trying to keep my houseplants alive (of which I'm a lifelong struggler).

This might be TMI but several years ago, I fell into the "mommy-needs-wine" culture when my kids were little. I found a very active and supportive alcohol abstinence forum that probably changed my life more than I realize. There are a variety of posters, from the deeply addicted to the habitual drinkers who just want to stop. Everyone is always supportive and never judgmental. I no longer drink alcohol but I still like to drop in and read threads because they are so inspiring. The forum is actively monitored and any abuse/spam is immediately removed, so it's full of hopeful people helping one another. I love it there.

It is interesting to see where I've been! Started in the late 80's on aol's infertility forums, then on to the Russian adoption forums, adoption listserves. Specialized Russian adoptee parenting listserves. Planned all our vacations using VRBO and TripAdvisor. Found IVillage kitchen remodeling and decorating forums. Then the gardening forums. After a while ventured onto the conversation side. My saved bookmark list consists of Real Estate sites, cooking blogs, gardening sites, jewelry beading videos and KETO recipes. On facebook I keep up with our CA community, our PA community, various recipe and beading groups, and a few far flung friends.

I can't even remember the AOL and Yahoo groups I visited when I first got a computer and internet access. There were probably a couple listservs before that. I've joined a few online forums related to specific health issues over time but fortunately not much need for that at the moment.

I discovered these forums when I was looking for info on frontload washing machines many years ago. After I got my new washer/dryer I dropped off for a few years until we decided to remodel our kitchen. Then I joined the TKO on the kitchens forum. It was great back then - pre-HZ. I then wandered over here to the HD conversations as I was looking for a new home after kitchens. Since I'm not all that much into actual decorating I came to this side.

Over the years I've spent some time on city-data when DH had some long term gigs in other cities. And I weighed in with info on my local city. Don't do much with that any more.

Forums I used to visit don't have much going on. I think a lot of forum type activity has morphed onto Facebook and I don't do FB. Tried that briefly but not of interest particularly not divulging all my personal info to go who knows where. I currently have an alias account I use to read a health related forum but it's read only. I post nothing. Interestingly FB recommends possible friends for me, all of whom are in Norway.

I read Nextdoor from time to time but drifting away from that as I can't stand to hear about all the lost/neglected pets.

My Flylady group was a Yahoo group, but after a while conversations dropped off. Finally one member told me that they'd all migrated over to Facebook. I wasn't ready to venture to Fb yet, and I don't think the group is active anymore. But, I'm Fb friends with a couple of them and we have visited IRL, so that's okay.

3katz, it seems to me that a lot of people on Kitchens now aren't TKO anymore, they are decorating. I don't know, maybe I'm just nostalgic.

I forgot to add NextDoor to my list, too! In our mountain community it’s a godsend. Not only do we keep each other notified about the very occasional break-ins and suspicious cars in the area, but upcoming social events, things for sale, recommendations for anything and everything, and lost and found pets. And updates and photos on new foals seen in our wild mustang herds. Oh, and on bear and hummingbird first (and last) sightings . . . both of which showed up last week here!

Some of the first forums I found were almost 20 years ago when our house was new. The ones I found and connected with were iVillage and here, mostly about garden design and planning, bluebird nest box monitoring, and ponding. I was turning a lot of bare ground into mostly shrub and perennial gardens and found a lot of useful info. I didn’t know anything about bluebird nest habitats and found a wealth of knowledgeable people on that forum. Ponds not so much, as there were many who already had beautiful established ponds and were happy to show them off. A handful of people had advice but it was always scattered. There were a couple of others I visited on occasion but they seem to be gone. I don’t recall how I found my way over here, maybe through baths and kitchens, but likely because I needed decorating help.

I also found a gardening site which is still around but requires a paid subscription. I literally met some people from my area when we met at a garden show a couple of times and also had a get together a couple of hours from my home. We communicated a lot and some of us still do on FB, although we have dropped our subscriptions. The website also was bought out and isn’t quite the same.

I joined NextDoor and it is fairly active in our rural area now. And I also have been a sometimes contributor on Trip Advisor for quite a while. I always go there to look at reviews anyway when we plan a vacation. I’m not religious about writing stuff but do when something stands out.

Well, reading some of your replies, I guess I forgot to add Tripadvisor (been using it for a very very very long time, but mostly ahead of our travel. I do then post reviews and answer questions after we have traveled.

I forgot about the groups on AOL. There was a baby boomer's group that I spent so many hours on.

I do use Nextdoor as well as Meetup, both regularly but not for hours as I can do on FB.

I think that 's it.

Hmm, I did have an AOL account when CompuServe went down, but I never joined groups there. It was essentially just an e-mail addy for me.

Actually, I did forget Meetup. I still belong and am active in two groups. One is a book club where we meet at a dinner spot and discuss the book for the month. The other is a cooking group and I've met some friends that I hang out with outside the Meetup as well. We meet over themed dinners at people's homes. To me, this one no longer feels like an online-specific connection - just something we use the Internet for to provide dates for the next event.

In the past, I was part of two or three photography Meetup groups, but I've lacked the time to continue. One health and wellness group, ditto -- but actually that's how I connected into the local pork meat share I'm in on FB, mentioned above.

I'm on NextDoor, but our neighborhood Fb, community Fb, community services recs Fb, and community sale fb's, are more active and all in one place, so I rarely look at our NextDoor. My neighborhood Fb group is great for "who has a coyote in their yard" or "why is there a police car on X street?" or "whose cat is this", since the cats don't room that far. Some in our neighborhood Fb group even started a "I'm going for a walk, wanna come with me?" type group. I love that!

Wow, this brings back memories. My path has been similar to Bpath although I have not visited the Alzheimer’s site, yet, but this is something I need to look into my FIL has dementia and it is becoming a larger challenge. In addition to GardenWeb my past includes AOL, Flylady, TripAdvisor, Cruise Critic, College Confidential and I used to be quite active on a small eBay seller group of mom’s, we still have a Facebook group but it is fairly dead at this point. First stumbled on to eBay when I think the entire site had just over 100 pages of items for sale. Was a regular part-time seller/buyer for about 10 years. Now my main sites are this group and NextDoor.

I forgot about Meetup too! Gosh, I haven't looked at that site in over a decade, but at one point I "met up" with a group of women who held weekly belly-dancing classes. It was a hoot, but I had not one shred of potential in my body.