Forum life

[mr tribute]

I haven't been very active on forums for a couple of years. Then starting to visit my "old" forums I noticed that they have lower activity levels than in the past, including this forum.

So, mostly out of curiosity I wonder if more users have seen this trend on forums they visit. My observation mainly relates to software forums. People get old and die and new generations may not have the same preferences, but I think the activity level is significantly lower than compared to let's say 5 years ago.

My interest in computers and software never went away, but maybe the TikTok generation never found interest in forum activity. Or maybe life got harder and more expensive and people work more. That's my working "hypothesis" for now.

[Pentium4User]

They choose other platforms.
I also noticed that on German forums.

[Potkeny]

In my experience almost every forum is getting replaced by discord/etc. servers, lots of people prefer instant messages over searchable history.

[Moonchild]

A lot of younger people also want to be able to just post with a single sign-on without all this pesky registering accounts and all that. For all the bruhaha about privacy they also really don't care about their SSO provider getting a profile of their likes and communities on a silver platter.
I get it though, it's just a lot more convenient to have everything under one umbrella (discord provides that as joining servers of different topics/communities is a click away under their single sign in to the service) and that convenience often wins over the value fora offer.

[moonbat]

In my experience almost every forum is getting replaced by discord/etc. servers, lots of people prefer instant messages over searchable history.

This is something I've never understood - how on earth can a group chat be a substitute for a forum? It's like preferring IRC over Usenet - both of them are entirely different services and use cases. Have a separate Discord by all means to just chat or for quick fixes - it can never replace a forum with searchable threads.

[suzyne]

It depends on the purpose for being online. If I want to solve a software problem or find out how to do something, I join a forum or go on YouTube respectively. Pale Moon is a good example of where a forum is ideal, there are questions and answers.

But I would have no interest in joining, for example, a discord under the banner of Pale Moon or say Browsers in general. Joining a discord for me, is totally a social activity and not as a resource related to an app or other software, but instead is usually associated with someone I am following and have a more than casual interest in from Twitch.

On the other hand, for my K-pop interest or other pop-culture fandoms while forums always existed, now the place to be is Amino because it is so dynamic, even if it is largely overrun with teenagers, who I just ignore while seeking out the more mature fans.

I think it is inevitable that with more platforms being available, the number of members on each one is likely to decrease?

[Moonchild]

This is something I've never understood - how on earth can a group chat be a substitute for a forum? It's like preferring IRC over Usenet - both of them are entirely different services and use cases. Have a separate Discord by all means to just chat or for quick fixes - it can never replace a forum with searchable threads.

You seem to forget that a lot of people want to be served answers, not search for them, themselves.

[moonbat]

You seem to forget that a lot of people want to be served answers, not search for them, themselves.

Even then it would require the person assisting to be available in real time at that exact point, not possible with a globally distributed community.

[Moonchild]

Even then it would require the person assisting to be available in real time at that exact point, not possible with a globally distributed community.

Depends on the size of the community and if a hearsay/guessed answer is considered good enough (i.e. speed over quality)

[andyprough]

I noticed that they have lower activity levels than in the past, including this forum.

Seems about the same to me as always. What data do you have to indicate that this forum is seeing less activity?

So, mostly out of curiosity I wonder if more users have seen this trend on forums they visit. My observation mainly relates to software forums. People get old and die and new generations may not have the same preferences, but I think the activity level is significantly lower than compared to let's say 5 years ago.

The forums I visit all seem about the same as 5 years ago. Trisquel GNU/Linux, antiX, Phoronix, Pale Moon, Distrowatch, a few others. In fact, they seem about the same as 10-15 years ago. People generally come to forums when they have a problem to solve, and some people hang around for awhile after that and become more of a member of the community. Probably what you are experiencing is that there are different people posting now than what you were used to previously - that happens with every forum.

[mr tribute]

Seems about the same to me as always. What data do you have to indicate that this forum is seeing less activity?

I don't have any data. I'm just guessing that the number of posts per day is maybe half compared to 5 years ago. Does it matter? No, not really. Pale Moon development seems to be doing fine. It's mostly that I was away from forums for a couple of years and when I came back activity had slowed down (maybe 50 %) everywhere. So that got me thinking. Have people busier lives these days? It's almost that I feel like a loser visiting forums these days. It's like I don't have something better to do, which is kind of true since I'm a software nerd.

One part of it might be that I'm getting older and don't really expect anything noteworthy to happen in the world of software in the coming 10-20 years. I wrote the post "End of digital (r)evolution?" here in the off topic section. It can be seen in a positive light. Everything is finished and working great these days. It can also be seen in a negative light. Everything is finished and there isn't really anything to look forward to.

But back to original topic: Mostly I was trying to understand where people passionate about software went. I guess they are still around, just in fewer numbers and posting less.

[back2themoon]

Probably not a matter of platforms, but of interests - or lack thereof.

[Night Wing]

Since I am a non-technical person, not a power user, for me on this site it comes down to "interests".

I mainly look at:

1) Annoucements
2) Browser Support
3) Web Compatibility Support
4) Pre-release Communication
5) Add-ons
6) General Discussion
7) Forum and website
8) Off-Topic

[daemonspudguy]

In general my activity is increased or decreased based on whether or not I feel like somebody is just being a dick for no reason. I often feel like a certain user on this forum (I'm not going to name names but if you go through my post history you'll probably be able to guess who) is just being a needlessly cruel person to me unprovoked, and they're a prolific member on this forum as well.