Whenever I am stuck with a photography problem I ask at<p><a href="https://www.dpreview.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.dpreview.com/</a><p>and usually people there get me unstuck very quickly and I learn a lot from other photogs. The exception is in stereography and light field photography where there aren't that many people who know about it and even those who do a little don't understand the fundamentals well. But for ordinary things like taking flower pictures and sports photography (my main thing these days) it amazing.
The Straight Dope Message Board, <a href="https://boards.straightdope.com/" rel="nofollow">https://boards.straightdope.com/</a><p>Smart people from a wide variety of fields, high quality discussions on many topics, and good moderation. Been a member for like twenty years and it's always been informative, insightful, and sometimes even compassionate and supportive. A pretty tight knit place with many long-time regulars.<p>It's much higher quality than reddit, about as intellectual as this place, but broader in focus and a bit more civil, I think. If you join, be nice :)
Thumpertalk<p>Incredibly useful for DIY dirt bike repair, threads often have step by step instructions with photographs. Motorcycle people are generally very nice unlike some of the car forums I've used.
Techlore Discussions<p>Self-described as, "a home for reasonable privacy and security discussions" — which I find to be good description. It was formerly a Matrix + Discord community, but transitioned to a forum as it's a more productive medium for discussions.<p><a href="https://discuss.techlore.tech" rel="nofollow">https://discuss.techlore.tech</a>
Reddit used to be amazing, alas it's gone now. My only regret is not deleting all my data before deleting my account... it's out there forever, and I have no way to retract it now. 8(
I used to post on this forum called LivingWithStyle (LWS) in the 2000s and it was great. There were forums that covered everything and I actually got to know people and make friends over the years from it.