What was your first forum or online community?

[Tvtyrant]

The old Bob and George sprite comic chatroom and forum in the early 2000s, and then the Misfile forum (called Napalmluck) in 2004. I moved from there to here in 2010.

[Velaryon]

My first online forum was the Kargatane's Malodorous Goat Tavern, a Ravenloft fan community turned semi-official forum during the 3e days when Ravenloft was being published under the Sword & Sorcery line. I joined in summer 2002, a little over a year before they shut the place down and everything moved over to the Fraternity of Shadows website (which AFAIK is still the largest Ravenloft fan community online).

[Rysto]

You mean like how bulbasaur is clearly the superior choice to beat the game with one pokemon (not counting randos for hm usage)?

Nah, they did stuff like painstakingly reverse engineer the super effective/not very effective/no effect table, because the official table given in the manual was a goddamned lie.

(I did it with Charmander, myself)

[Thanqol]

Wizards of the Coasts forums.

Let's just say that I'm glad those days are behind me. Not that they were bad - I was bad.

[OnceUponAnAxe]

The Neopets forum was where I started to spread my internet wings

[BWR]

The Roleplaying Game Consortium (RPGC) around 1999 or 2000.
Towawrds the end it was just 5-6 of us hanging around like dusty old vampires too comfortable to move out of the house.

[Eldan]

A German board called DnD-Gate, I think. If there was anything before that, I don't remember. Certainly the first thing I was a regular on.

[Celestia]

I don't remember what it was called, but it was some sort of multiplayer service that I was required to sign up for to play Dungeon Siege 2 online. It had a message board system, and I hung out there semi-frequently. I wasn't really a regular poster, though, as my sister spent a lot of time on the phone.

[-D-]

My first forum was a Warcraft 3 modding one, but that was shutdown years ago. I forgot what it was called. I think it was Wc3 battle or something.

[Killer Angel]

This one; then i expanded my activities into various Wharhammer forums.

[AdmiralCheez]

I lurked on a lot of forums back in my early days, but when I did finally decide to start making accounts and posting, I kinda did all of them in a very short amount of time. I'm pretty sure it was either the IMDb forums, or GameFAQs that gets the official "first" though.

[factotum]

It was the SF Literature forum on Compuserve--was a member of a writing group called the IMPs on there. I obviously lost access to it when I switched from Compuserve to an unmetered Internet provider 20 years ago.

[Delicious Taffy]

I started my online interactions on deviantART. Specifically, I was active on the Video Games, Religion & Philosophy, and Politics subforums. It might have maybe shaped my internet behavior in a few less-than-wholesome ways.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Good old Entmoot, early 2000s if I'm not mistaken. Fun little community, I also started getting into RPGs there.

[Rodin]

The OCRemix boards are the first big one that I remember joining. Rarely actually talked about music, it was all about the community like it is here.

[chainer1216]

I think it was called AbsoluteAnime back in 2002, you can probably guess what mostly went on there, its also where i got my first taste of roleplay, which lasted all of four posts over two days before i decided is was too dumb and cringy even for my weeby 13 year old self.

But very shortly after that i met a group of MtG nerds that made their own Proboards forums for MtG and DnD.

[Floogal]

The first one community I spent a lot of time on was Lemmy's Land (Super Mario fansite, with a stronger focus on the Koopalings). I was mostly a lurker, though.

Starmen.net (Earthbound fansite) was the first place where I actively posted on the forums.

[Psyren]

WotC forums were my first - started with Magic the Gathering and then transitioned to D&D as I got into things like Neverwinter Nights and actual tabletop. My main gaming forum shortly after that pertained to Blizzard, particularly Diablo and later WoW.

At some point after that I discovered OotS and made an account here. As one of the most active 3.5/PF1 forums on the web I've been a regular denizen ever since.

[jdizzlean]

tribalwar.com from tribes 1 (1998) thru vengeance (2007). my log in might still be valid, but i haven't been there in years.

and my team from all that, tappakeggabrew.com which now just redirects to our facebook page. about 10 of us out of the original 30 or so still keep in contact.

[bushssang]

My first time is Yahoo!

[2D8HP]

What was your first forum or online community?

Or at least, the first one that truly mattered to you?

I came to the internet late (I'm 51) so no Usenet group stories from me, mostly I renewed library books and occasionally read newspaper articles online in the '90's (each page took about 20 to 40 minutes to "load"), around 2003 I posted less than half a dozen posts on some political forum and didn't post any again until 2014 or '15 when I asked and answered questions at https://www.ridgidforum.com on plumbing issues, next I posted a lot here, afterwards a few other places but by far the most has been at http://www.giantitp.com/forums/forum.php

[Wraith]

Fort Mossflower; an AngelFire-based fansite for all things related to Brian Jacques' Redwall novels.

I have a lot of nostalgia for that place. Back in... '97 or '98, I think? Was when I got my first PC, and was also around about the same time that I first started collecting a series of books - Redwall. The combination between the two led to me discovering webrings, fansites, webcommunities, dedicated roleplaying as a fantasy-esque character that wasn't just childish "make believe".... Really was my gateway into RPGs, writing and internet subcultures, which in turn led me to nearly every other hobby I have today.

I would have been 12 or 13 then. More than a lifetime and a half ago, and I still remember my first ever 'character' which I used on that site.