Is it just me or is everything getting too quiet in this site?

They are not "healthy now". They're on Reddit where they get immediate engagement. Feel seen and heard by millions. And get constant dopamine and alerts from the upvotes.

🫂

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I find it ironic that a thread about the site being slow has taken off.

Seesaw mentioned lurking here. I've been doing the same. I pop in every day and look around. If I think I have something to contribute I reply, otherwise I just log back out.

I initially pulled back from here when I started pulling back from the world in general. Given the political atmosphere in the US I disengaged from MSF, the news, all of the nonsense in the world. It was a long struggle to reach a place of peace between my ears. I was not willing to give that up. I've started to poke my head out of my cave the last few weeks. Been posting a bit more, but admit it is frustrating to post and get few replies.

Several others mentioned another site that has a lot of activity. I seem to remember the guidelines here discourage talking about other sites by name. Could be wrong, but I'm not going to use the name of the place
I am more active there than I am here lately. There are about ten zillion different subs/forums there that cover any topic you can imagine. I'm active there with topics that don't come up here. It's not about a rush from immediate answers. It's about topics that don't come up here.

there ya go. Treasure it. Remember this moment. Take it to the grave with you. This smiley will be your roommate in heaven.

Guidelines schmidelines. First book banning, then a railroad gets shut down, then not being able to mention other forums, then being forced to pray and being watched to make sure you are, then the intense parts of Orwellian compositions come to life and if you don't praise Big Brother...well...

It's a combination of factors that has slowed traffic to our site (and our sister site, Neurotalk).

- Primarily it's a result of Google's ever-changing algorithm. They have a special (expensive) deal with Reddit, so will always show those "organic" search results above other forums like ours. It's beyond a shame, but there's nothing we can do about it.

- Social media, for better or worse, is where most people choose to spend their time online nowadays. Since people have finite hours in the day, that means less time on traditional websites like ours.

- Social media is also competing directly with us, in terms of Facebook Groups and similar features that allow you to build & run an online community exclusively on those sites.

- Some of our traffic was driven by our large mental health website that received over 6 million users/month. With that association gone with the sale of the site, some of our referral traffic got taken away.

I know other forums that have shut down because of a long-time dip in traffic. Hopefully it won't come to that for us, as I'm committed to keeping the forums running for as long as possible. Despite the dip in traffic for our community, we have no plans to change anything.

(Yes, in threads like this, you can mention other forums or online communities.)

Thanks for the clarification about naming other sites DocJohn.

This was clearly the kindest answer. Thank you.

I see why no one is here.

Thank you so much @DocJohn for your dedication to keeping this site running despite the slow traffic - I am on other forums around the internet too and some of them have shut down, and it's also because of social media and people's time being finite.

But as @lizardlady said, it's kind of ironic that this thread has gotten so much attention, and it's interesting because some of the members I thought have long gone have popped up that I never expected to see again so it's a nice surprise.

I have a long-time lurker too, just posting on the bipolar check-in or the threadwars, for years even, but also as @lizardlady mentioned there are a lot of topics just buried in the sub-sections of this place that just need to probably be brought back into the mix. Some really good topics too - this site is HUGE and there are a lot of sections worth exploring. I also remember all the Social Groups I am a part of, that used to be so active other than the political ones I have missed, it might be nice to have them come back too.

One of the nice things I like about communities like ours is the very fact that you can be as anonymous as you want here, and it won't interfere with your real-life social media accounts or your other online profiles. Once people are invested in contributing to another site, it can be hard to open up and be honest about your thoughts and feelings, knowing they may be used in unintentional ways in the future. Here, you don't have to worry about that so much.

We're a little nook of the internet. For people who find us, I hope they find some helpful support and positive vibes, as that is all that we ever wanted to offer in the world.

Yes, @DocJohn , such a good point! I know I have gone back and looked at threads and posts I had made in the past on this site that I would have NEVER been able to post publicly about. I have always loved the fact that we could be so anonymous here so much, and that for the most part people here give very helpful, supportive, non-judgmental advice and support. This place is a very special nook indeed, and I am beyond grateful that its here for us, we absolutely need it.

My two cents for what it’s worth to anyone:

I haven’t started threads since 2019 due to drop in activity and other stuff that happened in real life. I come for interaction not to practice my typing. But online communities are for the thick skinned. I’ve viewed threads on both Reddit and Quora on what I thought were harmless topics. Stuff like why hyperlinks suddenly don’t work in Outlook and people got condescending about it. Not everyone is tech savvy.

The social groups on here used to be pretty active and members could create their own groups! And forums! It could even be private. I miss that. It hasn’t been active since 2018.

This site used to have dozens of new members in 24 hours, now it’s just one or two. I don’t know if the name change made a difference. For me the solution is to come less often and don’t expect or hope for replies. Or hugs or thanks. Even on Goodreads I stopped posting much or writing reviews because I don’t know if anyone is even reading them. I tried to start a buddy read and nobody responded. So I gave up on that.

People are hot and cold online, nice to you one day and mean the next. I don’t need that kind of inconsistency since I have that in real life. For example the apartment manager sometimes sends long winded emails and other times tells us nothing.

What keeps me coming here is the few nice old timers still left and the games threads. I miss others who were also long time members but haven’t logged in for years. Seems I can’t escape loss, even online.



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I always love seeing you @nonightowl ! I see a lot of the old timers on the game threads too and in the Coffeehouse or General Social Chat - a lot of people pop in and out in their favorite parts of the forum, kinda like I do. But yeah, I used to leave reviews on Yelp or Goodreads too, but I don't think anyone really cares.

Hot and cold seems to be leaning more towards cold on the internet - it all seems like we're all out in outer space here, kind of floating around. Lol.

I enjoy your posts too and have seen you in the games threads and others. People say stuff online they wouldn’t say to their face. That’s not me but it seems to be a lot of people out there. I mean what I say and say what I mean, online or not. Yelp has rejected some of my reviews because it doesn’t comply with their “guidelines” but Google accepted them. Still I write few reviews. And how do some people have 137 friends or followers on Yelp? Anyway I take reviews with a grain of salt since some can be bogus. And they don’t even count everyone’s reviews in a rating. There’s a link that says other reviews not recommended. What’s the point of a rating if everyone doesn’t get counted even if some could be bogus?

Goodreads has fake reviews too and is getting spam like everywhere.

If I had anyone in real life that cared about me or to talk to, I wouldn’t be online hardly at all. I don’t even have an emergency contact. I have found some nice people but it took time and some disappeared just like real life. So it’s not a panacea but better than nothing. I have a reminder set to alert me when I’ve spent enough time on here too.

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Over the years I’ve seen a pattern of online connections who just disappear into the ether, so I get what Owl is saying.

For me this site ought to be about anyone being able to post and receive support from anyone at anytime from any member. Of course there’s various bumps along the way as we’ve all seen. But there’s been times for me when I have posted and I’ve received some absolute gems of replies from members I don’t even know and will likely never meet, that’s pretty special and it’s meant more than I can say. I try to do the same for others. Of course as it’s got quieter it seems like there’s less of us around to do this - I do hope this site will remain.

Reddit and Quora have both seemed so cut and thrust and mean to me, it seems like there’s no code of behaviour there, maybe because all the site owners are interested in is traffic idk.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DocJohn One of the nice things I like about communities like ours is the very fact that you can be as anonymous as you want here, and it won't interfere with your real-life social media accounts or your other online profiles. Once people are invested in contributing to another site, it can be hard to open up and be honest about your thoughts and feelings, knowing they may be used in unintentional ways in the future. Here, you don't have to worry about that so much. We're a little nook of the internet. For people who find us, I hope they find some helpful support and positive vibes, as that is all that we ever wanted to offer in the world.

DocJohn, I wish could give more hugs and thanks. Your last paragraph is so powerful and speaks volumes about what kind of person you are.

Thank you for MSF. Thank you for all the safe places you've created online. Thank you for being who you are.

Tbh I’ve been experiencing this on many forums. Not only here but even here in German Forums nothing much is going on, and hasn’t been for months or maybe over a year. I didn’t get much input here.. but I guess it’s just how it is.

I'm very sad and distraught about the slowness on here. It's practically come to a halt - I could really use the community's help, and so many members here have been true Angels to me, helping me so much over the years. I am truly grateful for all the support I've received. There is so little activity on here that it's hardly worth coming back, but I keep checking almost every day to see if it's changed. There's also one member that I especially miss, and I worry I offended that member, which breaks my heart and makes me feel bad.

I miss the way this place used to be.

I logged in the other day and there were only 8 members on
when I joined, 90 something

There used to be dozens of new members every time I logged in up until about 6 years ago or so and now just one or two. I have pages of threads where most have just a handful of replies. So every now and then I have to clean them up. I mostly stick to my subscriptions that are moving, even if not daily.

Kahapati thanks for saying its like that in Germany too. I’ve always wondered about other countries and if their forums are busy, if people are mean, etc. And that’s another thing I noticed: I don’t see as many members from other countries as before. I really miss that.

Tapatalk touts thousands of forums but I never tried it as I expect to find more of the same. Guess I’ve gotten skeptical about all this. The site I go to for make up and skin care talk has dozens of forums about everything else. And I’ve seen the same toxic behavior as Reddit and Quora. And it seems to lack moderation, there’s not even a report or flag button.

Discomb is right that one can get kind words from people they wouldn’t get in real life, whether on here or elsewhere. And the opposite is true, given the anonymity of the internet.

My bs radar is much better and I’ve gotten more skilled at avoiding mean or inconsistent people. The uncertainty in my life is off the charts so I don’t need it here.

Recently my next door neighbor moved and he was a nice quiet guy. And he left me a note saying he was moving and I was a great neighbor. I saved that note as it’s the only kind word I have gotten from anyone in months.

Ironic that this thread is busy….when it’s about the site not being busy. But it’s reassuring because it proves it’s not just me. I thought I was being gaslit on this subject.


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I think I joined in 2012, gosh that's a lot of time gone by. I remember counting how many members were on in the evening, and it was often over 100. It was bustling with activity and I never felt alone. I came back and am kind of shocked how slow it is. I enjoyed it back then for a couple years, got to know a few people really well. It does make you wonder, some of them, what happened, thankfully 2 close friends then I knew what happened as they told me they were leaving the site... I think changing the name and making it harder to find this forum was partly responsible for the loss of members, but it's still nice that there is a forum for people to get some help.

I can't help wonder if it's more to do with the rise in the number of users that use social media (facebook, reddit etc)

there are always going to be people like myself who don't use such sites, so yeah... these forums will hopefully either pick up, or if not the regular posters will stick around

I don't think it's just the change in the site name / URL.

I was a member of another place that was overwhelmingly active. They invited me back recently, but it was like a ghost town; frankly there's a lot more activity here.

And when I went back there, they ignored all my posts except for one that someone made a snide comment about.

Speaking of international forums, I am on a forum for foreigners living in this country. It used to be managed by a guy who has a business advising people on relocation to here. During Covid some antivaxxers targeted him for his posts and made threats (yes, really!) so he shut it down.

A few members set up a new forum. The other forum shut down so fast, it wasn't possible to let everyone know the new address. I had contact with someone through another means, so I was informed of the new site. I also think the new forum is less visible in web searches because there have been few new members.

Anyways, it has always been less active than the old forum, but it's even slower in the last few months. It's winter here, so you'd think people would be inside more and more likely to post.

It's so funny as others and @nonightowl have said that a thread of about how slow this site is has gotten so many replies. I have two threads that I post on that are constantly busy and people posting on, so that's what keeps me coming back as well as the games thread. I found a way to go back and resurrect some game threads that may have gotten lost, so in bringing some of those back, I am glad to see them being used again.

Maintaining subscriptions I have on some of the threads I have created helps because when I post on them even when others don't post on them keeps them alive; it's what I have been doing since being more active here in recent months. This is still an amazing community to be a part of and I am so grateful @DocJohn and his dedication to keeping this site alive and going.