Thoughts about synchronous and asynchonous communication?

[malformed_jill]

i think talking more about the different styles of messaging, from the non-instant forums (idk, email can count?) to instant messaging like irc, xmpp, discord and such, is a pretty interesting topic for seeing how it points the direction a community's culture develops. i kinda wanted to develop on what amlux started on in the introduction thread, mainly due to my recent experiences.
here's some general observations i've noted:
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Asynchronous communication, non instant, are generally more relaxed and have more room for decent, detailed and sincere communication and topics, maybe more so if barebones interaction/engagement bait such as likes/thanks/karma/reactions are removed. Though, they generally aren't more accessible for hosting and are more unpopular. That is mainly a good thing in these times since it shows some technical prowess, though certain (proprietary) forum software can really suck due to their inability to add or remove features.
...note when i say generally more relaxed and so-so, i do mean it, i used to go on AllTheFallen and it sucked Hard if you weren't just there for the game stuff and actually spoke there, because lolicons are one of the top 10 most annoying things on the internet due to their festering holes in Xitter and 4chin.
i feel the PPH also affects the nature of forums more than i realize, since 4chan is a prime example of high PPH not being worth it in the long run (personally i think most imageboards are ass garbage to speak on due to 4chan's prevailing effects on them, especially behavior-wise).
I generally don't have much to say due to how much less time i've spent on forums and the like.
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Synchronous communication is a bit more annoying, and is ultimately more accessible for most other people, to create and chat in. This is a double-edged sword. Instant messaging is more dedicated to less relaxed and profound statements, usually more of a playground, with mockingbird humor and responses (from a generation of Discord users), making it utterly insincere sometimes. I feel less really is less (instead of more) when it comes to modern chatrooms if the proper respect and etiquette isn't there.
The accessibility to each chatting service can end up with some odd choices which end up centralizing things a lot more. There have been multiple instances where I've seen a chatroom direct users to a Discord for any support or suggestions, or even for verification to speak in another chatroom, which also expects them to have done the humiliation ritual of giving your mobile number to Daddy Discord and opening up your puckered anus for him to lap up all your messages and info as they come. A lot of people have said that Discord servers take thriving communities and splinter them up into smaller spaces for shit talking purposes.
With more dedicated cultures, such as RP-dedicated ones (such as MUSHs), I feel there's more respect for each other since more people are expecting to look for one another for something more than just barebones social interaction. Though, these can fail too if these features aren't emphasized enough, I'd know from hosting an Attorney Online server, niche place, compounded by this and the above issue of Discord (and shitty developers but I don't wanna go on about that piece of shitware).
IRCs seem to be more better since pretentious oldheads still use them, but there aren't much active ones that I've found, or ones that I've found at all.
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Generally, I thought accounts counted more towards if the place for communication was better or not, but it took a while to find out that it barely mattered in comparison to the general culture that's built first.
Administration also matters a lot. If the mods act like faggots, I'm very unlikely to end up returning since their behaviour ends up defining the whole culture, or just the fact that I'll have to keep running into them again. Especially in instant messaging, there seems to end up being a suckup culture people have towards the mods and the owners.

of course, any more thoughts are welcome, that's why this topic is here...

[vulonkaaz]

i kinda use instant messengers as an async thing, its not uncommon for me to answer messages two days later

[malformed_jill]

i kinda use instant messengers as an async thing, its not uncommon for me to answer messages two days later

i think i just don't know how to reply or i'm just not interested in what was said so i often just leave it for a few hours until they type again

also i should add that spam is worse on synchronous communication than asynchronous, i don't think there's much of a forum equivalent to a connection flood (tcp, ws). i think this is still an irc issue as well

[satoridepon]

On spam I mostly see fighting it as a dumb uphill battle. If you go too far trying to stop it you'll end up with a super restricted shitty thing thats annoying to use (see the state of email). The Internet is decentralized after all.

[malformed_jill]

i just brought that point up about spam because some weird schizo tried to syn flood something i was hosting earlier to little effect (we were all away or just left)
honestly i think this is another point where culture and etiquette sort of matters because the thing i'm hosting has a community who instead of fixing their internal issues, decides to engineer the best way to fuck other places over instead

[Amlux]

Interesting comments. I think the internet really needs both. And it pretty much always has had both, even in its earliest days. But I've felt as though the internet has recently had way too much synchronous communication. In general, I think the entire technological sphere has been suffering from an overabundance of synchronous communication. It seems as though there is no reason not to prioritize synchronous communication at first. It's why humanity has constantly sought after it: telegraphs to telephones to emails to instant messaging and the like.

But I think that humanity has lost something by forsaking asynchronous forms of communication like letter writing. One of the important things about letter writing is that you have to sort of anticipate what your conversation partner will think and feel about what you say. It causes you to be more actively engaged and careful in crafting something meaningful to that person. I'm currently reading a very in-depth biography of George Washington and it's amazing how much time and effort had to go into writing thoughtful, meaningful letters back then. And we have an amazing record of them as well. Which adds another point: asynchronous communication is often easier to archive. I'm sure many of our parents and grandparents have sentimental letters around the house. Who has sentimental Discord logs?

So I think that slower, more deliberate form of communication is a valuable skill and is one that the internet and society at large needs more of these days. But you're right in that it's a hard ask at first. I do worry about sustaining this forum at times because of it. But thoughtful threads like this are a great benefit and help to me in doing so. I'll also be finding some way to use my YouTube channel as a beacon or notification method for streaming and hopefully tack on a little reminder about the forum onto it. I dunno, always happy to have advice.

[drummyfish]

Seconding what Amlux said and personally I enjoy async more because of the slow nature that means less stress and also for it feeling more valuable because we're creating something more permanent. Async communication has some inherent advantages (already pointed out by others) but it is only possible with some level of technology and effort, so I see computers as providing this valuable chance to lead slow, asynchronous communications, and that I want to mainly take advantage of. Real time communication is what we naturally do even without computers and so while instant messaging and video calls are certainly useful, I rather view them as a poor substitute for what should ideally be happening in real life, face to face. That's not to say it's wrong to use synchronized communication, but only in those situations where it serves the purpose of "virtually meeting" someone close if there is otherwise no other option, like speaking to a family from abroad and so on, because computers don't create the possibility to communicate in real time, they only extend it to reach far in space. So I feel like chat shouldn't be the default mode of communication as it's sadly become the standard with Discord and shit. That said I also suppose there are other dimensions of communications that may matter equally as much as the speed of communication, such as the level of anonymity (imageboards, avatars, real names, ...), structure and organization (reddit style comments, linear threads, ...), reactions and "algorithms" and so on. Maybe these can be discussed as well?