Have people's increased expectations for site activity made forums look inactive?

Okay, this is a difficult concept to explain in a title. But let me try and say what I mean here:

In the older days of the internet, a lot of sites were arguably less popular/active than they are now. Forums usually had a fairly low amount of total posts/members, sites got less visitors per day and generally things were less active on a statistical level.

But people seemed to consider sites then 'active enough'. They considered them as not dying.

Nowadays though, forum activity tends to be higher. Sites can gain activity faster, with hundreds of members in days and tons of people online. Many more big boards seem to exist than once did. But now, something interesting has happened.

People seem to consider forums as 'dying'.

However, why is this? More interestingly, is it possible that this 'thought' of 'forums being a dying tend' has been brought about due to a difference in community member/admin mindset rather than statistical or actual differences in site popularity/activity?

I think so, and I think social networks might be responsible for this perception. Look at Facebook and Twitter and how often things get posted. Every second or so. Much quicker probably, it's hard to count. How many people are online at once.

That could well be why people think forums are dead, because they're comparing their sites to big social networks and communities. Because people's general benchmark for 'active' has gone up, rather than the actual activity of a certain website or type of website going down.

We're so used to the rapid fire activity on sites like Twitter and Facebook that we think something that doesn't measure up to this (mostly unattainable) high mark is 'bad'. In the older days, Facebook and Twitter not existing meant that people had nothing to compare forums too in terms of activity, so they ended up with the misperception that back then, forums were more active rather than that their own standards for 'active' has changed significantly.

Is that why forums might be seen as 'dying'? Perhaps it's not the forums dying, it's people expectations of an active site getting too high.

 

I totally agree.
A forum today with 1000 members is probably not seen as alot when you've got other forums having 100,000...

Although, every niche is different and it all depends on the age and usefulness of each one.

 

You don't judge a forum on how many members it has, anyone can add tons of fake members on a board to look good, or import another database into your site to boost member count. You judge one based on how actively getting used it is.

 

I agree it all depends on how much activity the forum has. Which is really hard to tell these days because of paid forum posting. Anyone can have forum activity as long as you open your wallet.

Greg

P.S. Personally I dislike the people paying for forum posting and then claiming their website is active. I don't think there is anything wrong with paying for posts, but don't try and pass it off as real forum members!

 

I'm not saying that. I'm saying the higher level activity on social networks makes forums look less active, member count be damned.

A forum getting posts every say 10-20 minutes was great about 5-10 years ago, but compared to say Twitter or Facebook and posts every second or so, it looks kind of inactive by comparison. And that's extreme stats, most forums have always had maybe a few hundred posts a day tops (outside of certain big boards). Compared to Facebook/Twitter, of course it'll look inactive.

 

I suppose they do, yes. Same way using an official forum like XenForo can make other forums seem dead places. Thing is people who use forums, do generally like using active places (otherwise what's the point )? So I'd be much more likely to spend time posting on XenForo, simply because there is a good flow of discussion taking place I can get involved with. Quiet forums feel more like you're posting on a blog. You might be waiting 5-6 hours before seeing another reply made, even longer. And there's really no appeal about using a forum like that.

We look upon discussion forums as being what the "name indicates". Places you can use for good discussion, why we don't spend as much time posting on Blogs instead. We use forums expecting a certain flow of discussion will take place, if it doesn't you lose interest.

 

You're right. People do use forums for the discussion.

All I'm saying is that a while back, people arguably had lower standards for forum activity (and I'd say possibly a higher amount of patience) because Twitter and Facebook and stuff like them didn't exist. Or maybe it's because the type of people who used forums back then were pretty much the old guard/semi geek type crowd who didn't mind waiting longer for a reply and didn't care much for things like 'what's my friend doing/eating in every minute of their day'.

 

Well if you're going way back, like 10 years ago. I can't really say because only used large forums back then to post on. Gaming forums and such, official ones though. Or large gaming server forums. They was always very busy and 2 minutes after you posted a reply - you could refresh and see another reply made. That's how it was for me then, mainly because of the forums I used.

 

I have to agree with GTB, I like posting and then coming back 15 minutes latter and seeing more posts or replies on a forum. And I think other people like it as well which is why its so freaking hard to get a new forum off the ground. I am frequently checking my website through out the day to see if any one posted. If it was a active forum I would be on it 24/7

Greg

 

I get somewhere around 300-400 hits to my forums a day, but it's not enough. So yeah, as the technology has advanced and more people are active on internet than they ever were, the expectations will increase proportionately.

 

I agree i now don't state a forum getting 200 posts a day as active as others get like 20,000 etc its kinda mad but my forum gets like 500 and i still don't state it as active.