***6,000,000th Post Contest***

[Muhammad]

@Muhammad

Thanks for those statistics.

I agree that post reactions could have alot......

IF we are averaging ~800 posts a day, and likes are over 1000.....certainly not hard to think that 20% or even more of those "post likes" have taken over people posting that they agree with someone.

And I think forums are going to continue to decline as things age and evolve.
How many people under 25 even know what a forum is? Too much Facebook, twitter, tickock, etc.

There will always be a need for the good content and information sharing that goes on here though.

Maybe as young people mature into functioning adults, they will seek out the more technical information found on forums.

My biggest concern is with what I call fluff content. That could be blogs, sites, or YouTube channels just filled with nonsense designed to get views to make money. When you need to go in depth on a specific issue, where are you going to ask that question?

Most of the good forums I was a member of over the past 20 years got sold off and changed significantly and most of the members left. Or just new forums popped up and diluted the audiences to the point that the key element of critical mass was no longer there to provide consistent quality of replies. We're lucky to still have a great active user base here. Obviously it would be even better if every member still signed in every day and contributed as much today as they did at their peak level of activity, but then they probably wouldn't have much time to use their equipment.

 

[dfkrug]

My biggest concern is with what I call fluff content. That could be blogs, sites, or YouTube channels just filled with nonsense designed to get views to make money. When you need to go in depth on a specific issue, where are you going to ask that question?

Yeah, we have all seen the decline and eventual demise of forums that went in-depth and got very technical on almost any subject. Some of us used to go to "newsgroups" and other pre-Web forums, too.

Utube is a great, but very limited resource. Not anything like a forum that allows, and preserves, in-depth content, with useful back-and-forth discussions that include photos.
Case in point: there has been an explosion of Chinese mini-excavator imports into US, Europe, Oz, Canada, etc. Lots of Utube postings now, but very little technical info or repairs/modifications. Thru comments, I have tried to steer interested parties towards TBN for that. But 90% of comments are fluff as well.

 

[two_bit_score]

There will always be a need for the good content and information sharing that goes on here though.

I hope so. It’s a good place to gain knowledge.

 

[dstig1]

Thanks for the stats. Very interesting. Do you think the drop in posting with the upgrade was real or some artifact of how things were tallied before and after the change?

I think most people have seen the general decline in activity on forums over the past 10 yrs as you have noted. But they are still pretty much the best resource out there for serious technical questions. If I get a new car or piece of equipment or start delving into some new technical area I typically make my first search out to be "<topic> forum" to find forums on the specific area as those are usually the best resources. Who knows if that will maintain, given the demographics changes to "all those durn kids and their InstaTiks" but hopefully there will still be a critical mass to keep these things going as they are such a valuable resource.

 

[Yander]

FB groups probably are cutting into some forums numbers. I was on a backyard chicken FB group for about a month. But I like the anonymity that a group like this offers. I don't want someone who uses a web crawler to dredge up every comment I ever made in any forum or FB Group.

People don't think about that but that data is not going anywhere once you put it out there.

 

[Jstpssng]

FB groups probably are cutting into some forums numbers. I was on a backyard chicken FB group for about a month. But I like the anonymity that a group like this offers. I don't want someone who uses a web crawler to dredge up every comment I ever made in any forum or FB Group.

People don't think about that but that data is not going anywhere once you put it out there.

Tracking was the biggest but just one of several reasons I haven't been there and won't go back. Plus a lot of keyboard warriors are completely different than when you are talking in person, I just got tired of it.

I had to wonder about people though. One relative used to post pics of her husband's JD tractor, his sawmill, their house, their snowsleds and ATVs... then you would see a post "*.* is at Getty's"

To me it was just like placing a classified telling what you had... then announcing to every thief that you were out of town.

 

[bmaverick]

FB groups probably are cutting into some forums numbers. I was on a backyard chicken FB group for about a month. But I like the anonymity that a group like this offers. I don't want someone who uses a web crawler to dredge up every comment I ever made in any forum or FB Group.

People don't think about that but that data is not going anywhere once you put it out there.

FB is like a scrolling stream for a group posting. If you ever need to scroll backwards its very painful at best. And FB will in fact glitch in the process causing more headaches finding stuff posted months or a year back.

I myself prefer forums, GroupsIO listserv (old Yahoo and GeoCities) and reddit.
No pain in finding anything or anyone.

 

[bmaverick]

@Muhammad

Thanks for those statistics.

I agree that post reactions could have alot......

IF we are averaging ~800 posts a day, and likes are over 1000.....certainly not hard to think that 20% or even more of those "post likes" have taken over people posting that they agree with someone.

And I think forums are going to continue to decline as things age and evolve.
How many people under 25 even know what a forum is? Too much Facebook, twitter, tickock, etc.

There will always be a need for the good content and information sharing that goes on here though.

I too will also hit the LIKE on some older postings. Just maybe TBN will send out a notice to some person who needs to come back and participate again. This helps to bring back members activity too.