Is this forum slowly dying?

[punisher73]

Just curious if anyone else thinks that this forum is slowing way down?

It used to be when I logged on in the mornings there would be about 5 pages of new posts. Now, when I log on to the site it is very common to get the response that there are no new posts.

Anyone else notice this?

 

[granfire]

I usually come to MT for the MA talk.

I have to admit I was bored over the weekend.
But here is the point - for me, anyhow:

You can't have a serious discussion when your opponent is:
a) close minded
b) uninformed, or worse yet misinformed and too uninformed to know it
c) the first line of the post contains derogatory terms putting people down.

Sometime in the last 2 decades the country has been split in two, the red and the blue with little ground in the middle.
I blame the advent of sub par journalism, that caters to the lowest common denominator and at that succeeds to push this low ever lower.

 

[Omar B]

Dying, no. In need of help, yes. The forum is not nearly as fun as it was say even at the beginning of the summer. There seems to be a lot of arguing where there should be discussions and sharing of ideas.

I can think of one active thread going on right now with an OP that counts for all 3 of Gran's points posted above. Leave the angry and ill informed alone, don't they usually cling closer to their stories than anyone else?

 

[Grenadier]

The political forums have a lot of activity leading up to elections, and die down a good bit afterwards. Usually, by the time elections are over, everyone's a bit spent when it comes to frenetic energy.

Give it time to recover. All it takes are a couple of controversial events, and you'll see the sparks fly.

On that note, I'm going to post a bit of a controversial topic myself!

 

[Empty Hands]

It used to be when I logged on in the mornings there would be about 5 pages of new posts. Now, when I log on to the site it is very common to get the response that there are no new posts.

Anyone else notice this?

That is a technical issue. Happens to me constantly. No posts will show as unread, even though there are many that have been made. If you click the option to see posts updated in the past 24 hours, you can see that there are many new posts in threads you are familiar with. For me, only posts made after I log in will from that point show up in the "view new posts" function, and that is lost again sometime after I log off, not sure when.

That said, the new posts volume is still lower than it was before. A large number of regulars have left in the past year, oftentimes due to personality and political conflicts. Not sure if that's contributing.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Don't know about the study, to be honest if it died, I'd be ok with that, but I know many would not be. But it does appear to me that MT in general is slowing down as compared to what it once was

 

[geezer]

I don't know if the forum is getting slower or if those of us who've been on here a while are getting bored and have said all we have to say. On the other hand the activity level is definitely dropping. Worse, the sister site to MA Talk, FMA Talk is almost dead. Very little activity. Not even the occaisional outrageous trolls to liven things up.

 

[Tez3]

I don't know if the forum is getting slower or if those of us who've been on here a while are getting bored and have said all we have to say. On the other hand the activity level is definitely dropping. Worse, the sister site to MA Talk, FMA Talk is almost dead. Very little activity. Not even the occaisional outrageous trolls to liven things up.

I always have somethng to say! :lfao:

I'll come across to FMA and troll if you like?

 

[dancingalone]

Don't know about the study, to be honest if it died, I'd be ok with that, but I know many would not be. But it does appear to me that MT in general is slowing down as compared to what it once was

I sometimes think that for every Study post one makes, there should be a rule that a regular martial arts related one should be made too. Probably would lose Bob some traffic however.

 

[granfire]

I always have somethng to say! :lfao:

I'll come across to FMA and troll if you like?

Gimme some box wine and I come along!

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Overall, forum traffic appears down across the net. Facebook's sucking up much of the socializing time. FMAT needs attention, an active staff and an involved membership. I don't own it so can't do much to boost it. Kenpotalk is thriving and growing, traffic and participation is up there by about 35% since March. MT, is stagnant. Part of that is my fault, as I've been waiting all year for vBulletin to stabilize and debug enough to do the huge upgrade. I expect to announce that finally this month. That will enhance the blogs, video capability and many parts of the site. Traffic, we're averaging about 300 posts per day site wide, down from 900/day in 2007...though I blame the decline in TLP thread for much of that drop.

The Mentors and staff are in a slow process of evaluating MT's sections, and trying to revamp some stuff. I've got some things in the works to better tie MT and KT, and possibly FMAT together depending on how tests I need to run on beta-sites run. (I don't want a repeat of our last outage, so I test heavily before fiddling anymore. This slows down things a bit). I've trying more content building such as the video areas too, but I need help to do this. MT's also lost a number of previous active staff this past year as life and interests change. I miss their presence here.

As to the Study itself, it's still busy, but not as heated, active or crazy as during the 04 and 08 elections. Part of that slow down also falls on me, as I've stepped back from much of my past political outspokenness...better for my stress levels, not so good for keeping an area jumping.

In short, yup, we're slower, but don't count us out. We're still more active than many bigger martial arts sites. I've got the post counts to prove it.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

btw, if anyone wants to join a 'rebuild MT' team, drop me a note.
Must commit to making a minimum of 150 posts in 30 days.

 

[Xue Sheng]

are we here yet

irate:

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Not quite, but I kinda feel that way.

 

[granfire]

Overall, forum traffic appears down across the net. Facebook's sucking up much of the socializing time.

In short, yup, we're slower, but don't count us out. We're still more active than many bigger martial arts sites. I've got the post counts to prove it.

That pretty much confirms what I have observed.
I found all the forums I hang out to have slowed considerably in the last 3 years.

Is that like the NaNoWriMo challenge? Like writing a 50k word novel in 30 days, I think I can handle that...

I can't promise insightful contributions though....

 

[Rich Parsons]

In the last year or so I have taken a serious break from the Study.

Today I noticed for the first time in a while that my most active forum is not the Study but the Bar and Grill. ;~)

Previous to the study it was the Mod Forum area, and that was there for a few years after I was no longer a mod staff member.

Facebook does it up all the "Hey how are you" and I have avoided repeating myself and reposting stories or data.

Everything slows down for a while. The point is to not let it go away if that is what you want.

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

Traffic has slowed down at almost all forums. Except of course for facebook. Also several long time posters and myself included have made some major changes and simply cannot post as much as we used to! Still I imagine with Bob getting to the upgrade and things settling across the net that you will see things pick up here soon!

 

[granfire]

I think I did my job tonight...
now, can I get a 3 day ban please, before I tell somebody something bad...


just until wine and hormones level out, then I shall be good.


Or give me some chocolate...

 

[dbell]

Traffic has slowed down at almost all forums. Except of course for facebook. Also several long time posters and myself included have made some major changes and simply cannot post as much as we used to! Still I imagine with Bob getting to the upgrade and things settling across the net that you will see things pick up here soon!

In a forum that already has embedded video, picture and link capabilities, I'm not sure how upgrades would improve input?

The main way to add more input it to talk about your art(s), your school(s), and the evolution of the various arts that are present in the forum. The "tweaks" to the system are just that tweaks to the system. It already has what is needed to make it successful, except for us posting more and replying more.

And getting other, legitimate, martial artist with computers and Internet access to come visit it. (So if you have a blog, school web site, etc, link to MartialTalk and get people involved!)

 

[ForeverStudent]

I think problem also could be technically. In forum main page it says that since my last visit was 116 new post and 9 threads.

When i go to new posts i see only 28 posts.

I've been lurking around so much, now when i created account you say this is dying!