Other Forum Sites?

So I just discovered about these forum sites on a thread and I really do not know where to properly ask around in regards about them.

• The Sietch
• Sea Lion Press
• DEF
• Frozen In Carbonie
• Nyanarchy
• Digital Wild West

They got me interested due to some of the members here, especially the old ones and the mods, keeps talking about them in some way all over the site.

Can someone give me a run down about them? Are they safe to visit?

Is it okay to become a member of one? Why and why not?

I'm not trying stir things up! I just really want to know what's up with them.

 

Well, firstly, "DEF" isn't actually a forum in the SB/SV/QQ ecosystem, it's Keldin's pithy way of referring to The Sietch due to its tendency to start arguments at the slightest spark. Due to that same tendency, you are unlikely to receive any sensible discussion about the Sietch on QQ. Nyanarchy similarly you are unlikely to receive any sensible discussion about. You might be able to extract at least a little information from the Sietch and Nyanarchy rant threads, I suppose. Due to the nature of rant threads, the general political biases in the QQ Rants subculture, and the extraordinarily abrasive nature of a lot of the people involved, you will want to apply some hefty doses of salt to anything you read, but it's probably the closest you'll get to an overview of either forum.

Frozen in Carbonite and Digital Wild West are both essentially dead forums as far as I understand it, but they're at least a little easier to discuss. Both were founded by dudes who got banned from SB and basically said "I'll make my own SB! With blackjack and hookers! me in charge!". This went about as well as you might expect. It's okay to become a member of either, people are unlikely to care enough to judge you over it, but you may find it rather pointless.

Sea Lion Press, from some googling, appears to be an Alternate Histories thing. I know literally nothing about it, but possibly someone from the AH diaspora will show up to explain what's up with that.

 

Holy sh#t Someone actually replied and gave me an answer!

I thought I may have started something taboo when it looks like nobody was replying on the thread!

 

Sea Lion Press was started up by a bunch of long term AH users as a way to publish TL's and the forum spun out of that.

The name itself is a reference to AH.com's endless over the years "Sea Lion could definitely have worked" threads and the memes tied to it.

Skirting rule 8 for a second, it's also a place where a lot of AH.com's old "Politibrit's" slowly migrated to, if that means anything to anyone here.

Outside of that, not much to say. It's an Alternate History site with all that means.

 

So Sea Lion was created by AltHistory users while the rest of the other sites came from SB/SV users?

I mean, I just saw this when I first visited the first site on the list.

Spoiler

What's up with that?

 

That gets into the stuff that can't be talked about. You may wish to consult this thread and these two posts for further details on SB's history with The Sietch.

EDIT: But, to answer your first question - yes, the other sites apart from Sea Lion were all founded by and primarily populated by current or former SB/SV users.