The one year & one month anniversary

[AGTDenton]

Believe it or not it's been over a year since we all read the final article on Hexus!

One thing that always drew me to Hexus was the site layout & design.
They got it spot on for a tech site. Even today it looks good compared to others.
It just doesn't quite suit wider resolutions.
I also always appreciated they didn't go overboard with adverts and one of the few sites I actually allowed ads for.

Moving on it's good to see that Club386 is still going strong after a year.
There's been some new writers join over the year and they're posting a healthy amount of articles & reviews.
I noticed Mark Tyson eventually moved to Toms Hardware.

Pro's

• The layout and overall site design.
• Articles well written & Reviews thorough
• Appropriate ads for the content - nothing worse than seeing ads for trending nonsense

Criticisms

• Searching older articles. Lets say you remember an article was written in April, but not sure on the title, you can't search by date.
  You have to search by scrolling & scrolling back in time.
• Lack of a Forum. Forums imo trump the likes of Twitter & Facebook, would love to see one in the future.
• Disappointed they use Gleam for competitions. Gleam have done some shady things in the past and I dislike that it's bound to social media in order to get extra tickets...

So a year on, what is now you're goto tech news site(s)?

Have you joined any other tech communities as a result?

[Terbinator]

Believe it or not it's been over a year since we all read the final article on Hexus!

Crazy and kinda sad. This year has flown by.

The forum has obviously taken a massive hit with no new news articles being pushed + comment sections.

Can't say I check 386 anywhere near as regularly as Hexus. Without the forum section to follow-up reviews it feels a bit soulless to me personally + general H/W stagnation.

[jimbouk]

Wowsers a while year! Though nothing has directly replaced it for me. I read the register for general tech news (interesting style of writing and leans but the content is there). I didn't get on with the lack of cookie control when I first viewed club386 and without a dedicated way of interacting as you say it's just another news site rather than a community.

I don't know what I'll do when this firm shuts down. One day I couldn't reach the forum for unknown reasons and I felt rather lost, not that I'm going to turn up at anyone's doorstep but it's nice to have somewhere online you feel comfortable.

[Saracen999]

Believe it or not it's been over a year since we all read the final article on Hexus!

....

So a year on, what is now you're goto tech news site(s)?

Have you joined any other tech communities as a result?

<Bleep> me, is it really?

And in answer to the questions, none and no.

A slightly more informative answer is that for general tech news. I float around a few YT channels and occasionally pop into an article-type site but, really, only if I'm researching something I'm thinking of buying, not just for [urposes of "keeping up".

I'm spending MUCH less time looking at generic PC stuff. Why? Partly, did that for 20+ years for a living and, now, well .... bored with it, and retired so I don't have to,. Into that, factor in that it's largely very mature stuff and new releases tend (though not entirely) to be more evolutionart and cosmetic, than revolutionary and "Oh, wow".

The exception is things I never really did get into, or get around to. The former includes 3D printing where things do still seem to be moving, and yet, existing tech is pretty stable, not still alpha verging on beta. An example of the latter is finally digitising my music collection (pretty much complete), refurbing my venerable ol' vinyl spinner (Hi G8ina and yes, you got me going), and digitising my DVD collection. Oh, and picking up gaming a bit, while I still can. Hence why I float around a bit - 'cos my interests have diversified now I havee prper time to indulge myself.

So I haven't moved on, and doubt I will.

As for '386, I wish them well but, as above, the absence of a forum limits my interest anyway, and add in the 'floating about' into other fields (including those mentioned, but more photography especially macro), photogrammetry, and when I can, flying drones, heli's etc., and they're not really in the fields I'm spending time in. And, me and social media sites DO NOT mix. Even with using
YT a bit, I'm not signed in 'cos I don't have an account, and do the absolute minimum possible on anything Google and besides, that's what a VPN and browser isolation, etc, are for. And FB/Twit? Not in this lifetime. So no interaction from me with 386 via social media anyway, 'cos i is an old fart, and don't (read that as "won't") use them.

I hover here, because you lot are friends, even (especially) those I argue with a lot.

[Rob_B]

Another vote for "I read 386 but without a forum it isn't home"

I'm now on another big PC forum but it's too big, too many threads to get through even after only an hour of being away, also there seem to be a LOT of bigoted views on there, some things I've read disgust me and it makes me avoid certain parts of the forum, I've never had so many people blocked :/ Never had that problem with HEXUS

[Saracen999]

....

I've never had so many people blocked :/ Never had that problem with HEXUS

My view on that is a personal one, as an -ex-admin here and doesn't (that I know of, but it wouldn't surprrise me) represent either that of other mods/admins, or the site owner.

With that said, i'm glad to hear you've never had that problem here and aiming for that was an overt decision BUT it's a sword that absolutely has two edges.

Just like you (and I, I'd suspect) would rather just not experience those "disgusting" things, which may or may not be the same things, to some people, that would be seen as limiting their "freedom of speech". And they have a point. Sort-of.

I'm all for freedom of speech. It under-pins our freedoms of all other sorts. But there are limits. Even in the so-called Land of the Free, best known as the USA, it has never been wholly free despite constitutional amendments. And the last few years would (IMHO) indicate where it can lead especially when (using generic descriptors) "your" freedom of speech offends "my" sensibilities. That is perhaps most often seen in political views, and even those that strongly believe in the right to express views even (perhaps most essentially) when I don't agree with those views. There's an hugely famous old quote usually (though it's disputed) attribyted to Voltaire that goes

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

I rather thing "Yes .... up to a point. Do I feel like defending the rights of terrorists to encourage others to murder? Nope, even if I might sympathise with their actual grievances. Do I defend the right of paedophiles to advocate .... well, you get where I'm going with that.

Back to the point .... I support people's freedom of expression, freedom of speech but not necessarily here.

This is not a public forum but a privately owned "space" (digital variety) in which, ultimately, the owner(s) get to set the rules. Don't like them? Don't post here. There are quite a few (actually, probably most) forums where I don't like a fair bit of what goes on, so I exercise my indusputable right to not go there, or depending on need, to go there and liberally ignore certain users. For most social media platforms, it's a major part of why I don't use them, the other (more important) bit being the business model of the owners.

But back to my original point, the double-edged sword .... I think HEXUS has that marked absence of offensive (to me, and probably most of us here) content because it was the view of what the owner(s) wanted here, and has been moderated out, sometimes very bluntly, for a long time. It didn't suit everybody, and that caused some right scenes betweem mods (including me) and users that objected to being reigned in.

I very large part of why I eventually quit moderating was that I just got too tired of dealing with that, and was getting too wound up by it. I'm enjoying things much more now that I don't have to think about it, let alone deal with it, than I was by the time I stood down.

Anyway, my conclusion is that by and large, those that wanted to freely express stuff we didn't want here have pretty much moved on, and given up thinking it was worth coming here, and most of those stil here are here because they like it, and don't like the stuff that offends them in a lot of other places.

The double edged sword, of course, is that while I/we like how things are here and some/lots of others don't, I wouldn't argue that one approach is right and the other wrong, just right or wrong for this forum.

Take swearing, for instance. I lost track of how many rip-roaring arguments moderating that caused in days past, those in person, I'm quite capable of swearing that would blister the hide off a rhinoceros, make a navy rating blush and probably mest a battleship armour plate. Just not on here. But a lot of people, over the years, really really didn't like having their 'verbiage' edited. I suspect I'm still .... ahem .... 'not liked' by them.

We don't see it on here, certainly not often, because of years of not always popular, and often allegedly heavy-handed, moderating. Some other forums I use have used had the same accusations levelled, including the "nazi-like" one. It wasn't always easy getting here, but it was (IMHO) worth it.

[Output]

I too vote for "I read 386 but without a forum it isn't home".

I still support them on Patreon, but my actual visits consist of monitoring their RSS feed, clicking on any that catch my interest based on the title, and leaving again shortly afterwards when I've finished reading the article.

Other than doing so if Club 386 finally made one, I've got no particular interest in registering on another tech forum while this place still exists (or at least still has some activity).

[Ttaskmaster]

I get the email updates from 386, but that's about it.
My tech news comes from where it always did - Seeing what friends and people on forums are buzzing about, supplemented by a couple of tech channels on YouTube.

I've been on many forums, with all manner of different people and cultures, opinions and perspectives. Some I've been on since the late '90s, long before I joined here.
Out of them all, HEXUS has always been the nicest place to come, and simply logging in feels like settling down in a warm, comfy armchair at home. I come here to get away from all the guff and hatred elsewhere on the internet.

If Parm & Tarinder were somehow able to get HEXUS attached to their site, or something, I think that could be a good move.

[DanceswithUnix]

That went by fast.

My first stop for tech news is Ars Technica. They have a broad take on tech and science news and is well written, and often that one site is all I really have time for. If I have some time, then I might hit YouTube and watch Gamer's Nexus, but I'll probably get sucked into videos on drumming (my latest hobby) or space rockets (always a fascination, but a bit out of my budget )

[Rob_B]

Yeah I tend to go to Ars as the coverage of tech, gaming, markets etc is pretty broad.
Less so into PCs these days as Sarcen mentioned so a purely PC site isn't what I'm after.

I used to subscribe to Ars too but cancelled a while back, I've not found anywhere that nails the price (interested to know what an ad supported user makes a site per month vs subscription costs) , I'd wanted to give C386 some money previously but it was £3+ a month, just noticed they now have a £1 option, seems more reasonable so I might go do that now.

[cheesemp]

I too vote for "I read 386 but without a forum it isn't home".

I think this is a common theme around us old regulars. I just wish they would add the ability to comment on a story. It would be something. I just don't find myself coming to Hexus as often now there is no news to consume. It hit a perfect mix for me of content and community. Its now either hexus with the odd, interesting thread or 386 with just news...

[Saracen999]

... and often that one site is all I really have time for. ....

That, too. Now I'm retired, I'm too busy to spend so much time on forums. Funny how that works.

[[GSV]Trig]

I'm active on very few forums, for good reason, they tend to get to a certain size and the signal to noise ratio goes above a level that is acceptable.

[Output]

I just wish they would add the ability to comment on a story.

I don't think just having open comments like that would be enough for me to feel comfortable doing so, as I think that would still seem more like a reader-to-article/article author reaction, rather than a community member reaction due to the forum being attached.

Even if I were to turn out to be the only one who decided to talk about a particular article on that attached forum, I think there would still be more of a feeling that more might chime in if there are other people active.

[g8ina]

Ive not migrated to 386, I was never really into the PC biased techie side here, but was more into for the side stuff like cookery, photography, audio....

There are still a few admin and mods left here, not too much actual work to do, we get the occasional spammer attempt, but not really an issue any more.

Im also in AVF, HiFiWigWam, LencoHeaven and VinylEngine/HiFiEngine, and thats it really.

[AGTDenton]

Like Saracen I meander through various Youtube channels for my source of news; LTT, GN, J2C, L1Techs, Hardware Unboxed to name but a few...

I agree with others on the communities of alternate sites, they're very congested and seem to be filled with a lot of spam making them uninviting. I'd say TH is one of the worst.

I used to get the daily El Reg Newsletters but that was a very long time ago. I think in that time the Inquirer has come & gone.

I think my hayday of Microsoft Newsgroups which was where I spent most of my time will never return.


That said I would very much consider creating something should these Forums discontinue