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

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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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Sent from my iPhone

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.

As long as there’s at least one nice person left on this site to talk to, it will keep me coming back. Only a few of my threads have regular activity. Thankfully the book thread on here is more interactive than the one on Goodreads.

I’m reluctant to resurrect old threads or repeat/repost things as have “gotten beat up” for it. Some people don’t want old stuff brought back but there’s no pleasing everyone.

A couple of games threads died just this past spring or early summer. That’s because just 3 of us were posting, including myself, and both of those members haven’t logged in since. I miss them and the threads.

It’s hard to know what threads to remove from my subscriptions because I never know IF they could be brought back by someone. The thread on Matthew Perry had just a few responses, then when news broke that suspects in his death, it got revived. I have seen an apparently new thing with a message at the bottom of years long threads. It says you PROBABLY shouldn’t post in it as the OP is unlikely to see it.

Personally I don’t notice dates as they are so tiny. I notice content and titles of threads. Whether the OP will mind that a thread was revived is such an individual thing and a tough call.

I still think of members I haven’t seen on here in 5 years or longer. And I’ll never know what happened to them since I don’t know them in real life.

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Sent from my iPhone

And.......now that I can literally get on here anytime since I finally have a smartphone, I don't want to. Figures. And I used to make special trips to the library to get on this site (spending hours on it in one sitting, several days a week), but after 16 years of doing so, I can no longer access it there. That's for both the city and county library computers. They didn't know why and said they "would look into it". Told me that twice so far. Just lip service I bet. Why care about one site for one patron?

It might work on the laptop I get to check out and take home, but my turn in the queue isn't up yet. Last time I was on it in June, it worked.

I get an error message, but a different one, on all 3 of their browsers: Firefox, Edge, and Chrome. Yet it works on Safari on my phone. So it's not the site but something to do with their network. I thought I'd try it at the senior center which I forgot about. I haven't been here in 8 years I think. It works here! But I don't want to come here just for this. Good to know it works here though, if something happens. I don't know what, but $hit always happens to me.

SO it will be the phone mostly now. It drains the battery so fast because I don't have a strong signal.

If you happen to get a screenshot of the error message, I might be able to help.

An error that complains about the Domain Name might be circumvented by replacing MySupportForums.org with 67.222.147.118

For example, https://67.222.147.118/ would get you to this site. But your browser would report a certificate error. In fact it looks scary and daunting...

Thanks Square but I’m not sure if it’s worth the trouble for either you or me. I take lousy pictures so not sure if I can take a good picture. Even a tech savvy friend will just close the window and try later.

The error messages varied: This site can’t be reached, site didn’t send data, site unexpectedly closed, your connection isn’t secure, etc. Next time I go I’ll see if I can get a sample from each browser. Neither library system uses Safari unfortunately. But since it won’t work on any of the other browsers……

Those security certificate errors are scary for sure! I did try it both with and without the s in the url, like http instead of https.

Thanks for offering to help. Rare experience for me.

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Sent from my iPhone

One large content filtering provider has mis-classified our website. We reached out to them to correct this. That is likely why you may have trouble accessing our site from an organization that employs content filtering. Hopefully they'll fix this shortly...

Edited to add:

They've approved the change for our site, so at least for that content filtering software, we should be accessible once again. If the library would share what service or software they use with you, I can make sure we're clean with that service as well. (The service that just fixed its listing of us is called Palo Alto Networks.)

As a long-time member, I miss the busyness here, too. But I also come back because of the few people here I interact with and the hope I help someone some time. And I get help, too.

This site is the only one I "belong" to. I sure hope it never ends. Thanks, DocJohn, for your working with us and for starting this site. Many people have been helped here.

A . too, for everyone here.

I agree: it helps to help people. There's always the hope that something you say will help another user. I don't see that much at all in other corners of the world.