<p>CC forum the best, but Goodreads for book lovers is interesting.</p>
<p>This Parent Cafe is the one place I know I can pose any question of any topic (except politics, lol) and have it discussed intelligently, informatively, and fairly. The kiddos can move on but I’ll be here =). Also it is interesting to occasionally peek into the choice and chances threads to reexperience the angst and full bodied care and concern…nice to know it passes and every once in a while there’s someone we can help with that little detail or insight. This is a great community.</p>
<p>For those with graduate school in their family’s future, we recommend GradCafe.</p>
<p>ksm, is that on CC, or is that a separate forum?</p>
<p>The only other one I check into frequently is my horse-related forum COTH. People have been on there for years also;</p>
<p>All the other ones I look at have already been mentioned (tripadvisor, gardenweb, cruisecritic-which I call the “other” cc, and city-data). I am on several professional listservs and the can get pretty heated at times. They are also a wealth of information for topics in my field.</p>
<p>I believe there are some useful Disneyworld chatboards, but I don’t use them. There are also med school ( eg. student doctor network) and law school discussion boards. I forget the most popular one but there are several. Anyone use these and can comment on them?</p>
<p>The Disney forum I read is the DIS Discussion Forum (disboardsdotcom). It is mind-boggling in its depth re all things Disney. There’s also an interesting community forum for non-Disney topics, but the level of discussion is not usually what it is here. Though not as bad as in the “comments” section of your local online newspaper, thank God. IIRC, the DIS board too once had a politics forum that was closed because it became too nasty.</p>
<p>When my d was looking at law schools last year, I happened across the Top Law Schools discussion forum. Most of the posters there write really well. There’s a LOT of obscene language. I don’t believe that non-law students/lawyers can post, and I wouldn’t want to. However, they do have some of the most amusing posters I’ve ever come across. There’s a thread topic called “The Ding Bar” for venting frustration over admission decisions that is laugh-out-loud funny.</p>
<p>When you are planning a trip to Disney, there are a couple of nice Disney forums. If you are even considering a trip to the area stretching from Playa del Carmen to Tulum (we went down there several years when the kids were younger), the playa.info forum is amazing. It seems as active as cc. If you are considering a cruise - with people of any age, on any cruise line - the cruisecritic.com forum is very good. Again, it seems as active as cc. No forum I’ve ever found is as interesting as cc, of course. ;)</p>
<p>Another one of my favorite forums is: skyscrapercity.com which has lots of visuals of different cities of the world along with videos showing everyday life.</p>
<p>I used to go on the IVillage parenting sites before I found CC, but I very rarely go there now, CC is so much better!</p>
<p>Though I still think this forum is the best, the TUG lounge at the timeshare users group site is also friendly and informative and covers a wide range of subjects. tugbbs.com</p>
<p>I’ll search other forums when i need to (e.g., travel info), but CC is the one I go to regularly. People here are more than willing to offer helpful advice about a wide range of topics.</p>
<p>Thanks for all your responses. I always knew that CC was the best. So I am staying here until my grandkids graduate from college! I do plan to check out some of these sites when I really want to procrastinate!</p>
<p>For many years when D was in classical ballet training Ballet Talk for Dancers was invaluable.</p>
<p>I agree many of the City-Data forums are great. I used to spend a lot of time in the Salon.com forums before I found CC. But, they started to require a payed subscription in order to access many of the useful or meaningful areas of the site (of which the tabletalk forums were one), and then it started to look like an echo chamber for the far left for a while. I haven’t perused Salon for years. Don’t know what it’s like now.</p>
<p>Wow. I just jogged over to Salon for a look. No more TableTalk, just a comments section at the end of each article that effectively serves as a discussion forum, and have to say it has confirmed my decision to stay clear. Lots of profanity. Lot’s of personal attacks. A total lack of respect. No moderators, apparently. Yuck!</p>
<p>VeryHappy #24:</p>
<p>thegradcafe.com</p>
<p>I go on Fodors.com to the lounge forum but some people on there get really nasty sometimes. Not most people, but there are a few. I once posted about my son not having a job and you wouldn’t believe what one or two of them said.</p>
<p>One other I forgot that I look at but don’t post on is chowhound. Its great for restaurant reccs in other cities.</p>
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<p>disboards is wonderful when I’m planning a Disney trip. There are people who go to WDW all the time and they can tell you every little trick, tip and change. </p>
<p>I go to fodors when I’m planning a trip. The up to the minute advice is wonderful. For example, when planning a trip to Germany I asked where we should park the car while in Heidelberg (sp?) for the day and folks told me the two most convenient lots and how to get there. But as others have said, some folks are not kind and others are downright snarky. (They also tend to be judgmental about what you want to do. If you ask about how to get to Disneyland Paris, count on there being a few snarky posts about how terrible it is that you are going there. If you ask about hotels on S. Padre Island, someone will post about how touristy it is and suggest another beach destination hundreds of miles away.) But if you have a relatively thick skin, the advice is valuable.</p>