Are Forums a dying thing?

[Eperot]

It seems to me that the various forums I am on for the various things I am interested in are all....well....crickets chirping. Nobody home. I recall in the days of OldHouseWeb and Wavyglass, and here on the district a flurry of activity in years past and nowadays it seems like hardly anyone posts. Do you believe online forums are a dying breed? and where are the people going? Facebook?

Facebook might offer some instant gratification but it is in no way nearly as helpful a resource as a traditional forum.

Thoughts?

-Eric

[Gothichome]

Eric, I certainly hope not. I to remember the heady days of wavyglass and oldhouse web. I have no answers for the slowness of the forum format. May be with today’s technology with twitter and the like, folks have gotten used to the instant feedback. I follow another forum from Briton, same kind of folks as here, old home people restoring and maintaining old homes, they have two or three posts/responses every day.
I certainly hope it’s not the regulars (and I include myself) here in the District who have discouraged participation in our discussions. We have lots of signed up members and many hundreds of views every day, but no participation, Have we, over time, become to narrowly focused, I have no idea. Maybe others have the answer, I certainly do not.
I certainly enjoy seeing other folks projects and progress and am happy to show off the progress in Gothichome.
Ron

[1918ColonialRevival]

I don't necessarily think they're dying. On forums such as this, I'd say it's because a lot of us are still working our jobs, plus using whatever free time we can squeak out working on projects around our houses. We only feel the need to post if we feel we have made an accomplishment worthy of sharing, need advice or input, or want to share something we've found. Alternately, some other forums I belong to consist of a lot of retirees who are devoted to the hobbies the forums are dedicated to, but it's easy to tell some of them spend way too much time online. One forum in particular (I won't mention which) is full of what I call armchair philosophers who post a lot of content, but only a little bit of what they post has any value. Compare that to this forum, where I find most of the content valuable or inspirational. There might not be as many postings here, but quality usually makes up for quantity.

That said, to me social media is the worst technological development of the 21st Century. I've never had an account for Facebook or any of its ilk and I never will.

[Gothichome]

Quality over quantity, you might just be correct Colonial.

[Mick_VT]

I have worried about this some ver since I set up this place as a refuge from the spamfest at WavyGlass. I think that the format is now kind of out of date, and as it doesn't mesh with everyday life in the way that say Facebook does people tend to gravitate away to similar groups on that platform. It's a one stop shop over there for all interests.

The big downsides of FB with respect to this kind of community is that the posts are not searchable in the same way, and the sheer membership size can make being in one of those groups overwhelming, especially if you foilow them in your feed. I joined a few but my FB feed then became 100% old house posts immediately...and not to mention the adverts.

This site is much quieter than it used to be, but we do get a steady stream of signups. I removed the digest emails as they had mixed reactions but also got in the way of upgrading the site. They did used to bring a few folks back from time to time.

I really think the only way we can grow this site is to post more, and spread the word that it is here. This is of course coming from somebody (me) who rarely posts here anymore

[mjt]

I don't think forums are a dying thing. I think lack of activity is a reflection of a number of things, mostly related to the current situation. It's not unique to this site nor to "forums"; I see the same on other forums I frequent and it's also true with some email DLs for some clubs I belong to. Many folks have lost jobs or are otherwise tightly managing their budget as a risk management strategy, so they aren't able to do as much. Therefore they aren't posting as much. In summary, life gets in the way sometimes and at this time it's getting in the way for all of us simultaneously.

Re: Facebook: delete your account. I did and I couldn't be happier. Facebook is a doomsday machine that amplifies hate and reflects it with laser-like focus. For profit.

[phil]

I noticed a remarked difference in the post count but also the quality of posts seems improved over the last few months.
Less drama and more about houses and restoration. Facebook is one big advertising gimmick, collecting way too much personal data. Some have time off and are sunk into projects. A lot of people have made changes about how they spend their days with Covid 19 casing so many disruptions to what people "normally" do.

[Eperot]

1918, I'd say you are probably right on about one part...I myself post less these days and usually only when I have an update to the Jacob Beaty House.

I also wholeheartedly agree about Facebook...I've never had it and never will. That's rare for a 42 year old. Everyone looks at me like I have three heads when I mention it. But it really is a net negative for people...a time waste, targeted advertising, data collection, creates poor self esteem and feelings that everyone of your "friends" is living a life more fabulous than yours...There's really very little positive about it.

The only thing I have found helpful is that in some cases it is the only way to get info you need in a timely fashion. My other interest, the boat I just bought (see my most recent post on my thread in "Intrroductions" if interested) at one point had a very active online forum for Glasspar boats. Now after spamming issues and such no one has posted in literally over a year. They've all gone to Facebook, so I will use my Fiance's FB acount just to ask questions there.

[phil]

I guess we all have a part to play in supporting the forum. Mick has been looking after the costs of webspace and domain name ( thanks Mick). The rest of us can help keep it going through participation. I've posted often, maybe at times too frequently. Its fun to help and to learn from others, and it's free. It's as good as WE make it.

[Lily left the valley]

As much as I don't like saying this, I agree it's partly a sign of the times thing. There's also so many different and ever the "hottest" or "killed after bought by competition" social medias. Social media and the immediacy and constant notifications (which I personally find annoying!) are the new pace of the internet despite forums being, as has been said, being less cluttered and much better organized than any search this site window could ever hope to be in other formats. Worse, some formats "close" discussion threads after a set time (in one case as quick as 48 hours from the first post--not talking about that one app, this is a news aggregate site I haunt) so you end up with multiple threads with essentially the same topic making searches even more maddening. Even mailing lists organized like the old BBS and listserves are shedding users.

I do think, though, that some who seek out the sorts of info that specialized interest forums like this offer will be very pleased to find they exist, and will at least post as they can fit it in if they don't turn into a regular.

I don't use FB although I do now use yet another new social media site NextDoor. Honestly I was more than a bit concerned when the District started a FB page because I've seen how that can leach away membership on other narrowed interest sites I haunt. The gaming communities in particular have seen giant drops in some forums because now players only want to discuss/learn about the game on FB/Twitter/YouTube/Twitch.

But I do think, as has been said, that day to day life has changed a lot in recent years too. Some folks that had hoped to be retired could not. Some now have no job and so spend time looking for one or three part time jobs trying to cobble together what used to be one 40 hour week income, minus the benefits because...*poof* You're an independent contractor now! (Even though you're doing the same job you used to with more secure pay and bennies.)

I also agree about personal funds are a potential issue. Despite the crisis payments many countries have made during Covid, many have been battling against foreclosure or eviction, some are now homeless. Some have had to drop internet access. Libraries that used to be their only portal to the internet are now closed to the public even if they are doing curbside service for the "tangible" loaners like books and media. Then there's the question about if your kids are teleschooling. If you can't afford computers for everyone, or have to supervise what your kids are supposed to be doing, that's less time to use the computer for leisure or research activities on the web. Then you have the essential workers like my spouse who sometimes works 7 days a week for many weeks on end because of Covid and it caused whatever your job is to require more hours/days. In a case like that, I have less time to be here because I'm picking up a lot of his usual house chores or they simply don't get done because he's too tired in what time he does have off.

So lots of reasons to not have the mental head space to be here.

FWIW, I am also a quality over more frequent content kind of person.

Should we be promoting the site more elsewhere as others use social medias to lure folks to their sites? Perhaps. I have shared this site info with a few folks on other forums (like city-data), but only recently started using Twitter again after a break of almost a decade I think? when politics just went insane and it was one way to try to keep up with the news. So maybe I could occasionally tweet about something interesting going on here? Same with NextDoor, FB and tumblr and instagram? Maybe all of us that have blogs should put a link to the District on them somewhere? Not sure how much traffic that would get us but we could try. Oh! And for folks that do make YouTube videos, maybe they could add a link to here in that "more info" section just below the video? My