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Why is this forum dead/dying?


Sam_harris_43

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I am not a veteran by any means but it's sad to see this forum has nearly died. People aren't replying much to posts, there are still people online mind you but it's all a bit quiet. 

Where have we all gone?

This place is better than the likes of crunchy roll forums as over there it seems to be like the wild west. 

If you're using something else what are you using? 

The way this is going it'll be done and dusted in a year ☹️

 

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Literally just made an account to reply to this.. I've been looking for a nice anime forum so I'd also like to know if there's any other anime forum that's still alive, other than mal, animeplanet, crunchyroll, etc.

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Indeed there has been a strong decline in engagement, sadly I'm no professional analyst to explain any of it.
I do agree it's lovely here, but I would not know where this could go to next.

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1 hour ago, merulox said:

Literally just made an account to reply to this.. I've been looking for a nice anime forum so I'd also like to know if there's any other anime forum that's still alive, other than mal, animeplanet, crunchyroll, etc.

To my knowledge no. You only get the mainstream ones which attract all kinds of idiots. Reddit is the same which is why the decline of this one is not good. 

37 minutes ago, Myouya said:

Indeed there has been a strong decline in engagement, sadly I'm no professional analyst to explain any of it.
I do agree it's lovely here, but I would not know where this could go to next.

If it dies I don't think I'll join any others. I tried a few and they aren't fun. Usually just people arguing and talking bollocks. 

I know discord was mentioned a few times here but it doesn't seem to be well received for some reason. 

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8 hours ago, Sam_harris_43 said:

I am not a veteran by any means but it's sad to see this forum has nearly died. People aren't replying much to posts, there are still people online mind you but it's all a bit quiet. 

Where have we all gone?

This place is better than the likes of crunchy roll forums as over there it seems to be like the wild west. 

If you're using something else what are you using? 

The way this is going it'll be done and dusted in a year ☹️

well seeing as i've been here for like 2 years now...it certainly has quieted down as compared to when i first join it

AF-forums also doesn't have that certain spark i see when  i first found it (maybe its due to how the guys i met back then are not logging on anymore?)

in behest to other forums though, AF-forums is pretty active, as compared to other forums (not comparing to others, e.g mal, f95, ulmf, etc)

also to answer one question....

8 hours ago, Sam_harris_43 said:

Where have we all gone?

hopefully indoors and not outside

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I’m sure that part of any falloff in forum activity is likely related to all the wackiness of 2020.  I know I’m far busier this year than last.  I don’t have nearly as much time for things like games, anime, or online forums.  I’m sure it is the same for a lot of other people.  Also all the cons that tend to generate buzz have been cancelled or postponed, as have a number of animes themselves.  Games, movies, lots of other stuff as well.  Less stuff to talk about overall.

For me specifically I also don’t see the types of anime that I like.  I’m into “hard” science fiction like Planetes or Ghost in the Shell, and I’m just not seeing those sorts of stories lately.  As a consequence I’m not posting a lot, or if I’m posting it is in a non-anime topic. I’ve posted in gaming, computers, and the astronomy club in this site for instance.  Just my anime-related chat in the other topics is likely down.  

 

8 hours ago, Sam_harris_43 said:

I know discord was mentioned a few times here but it doesn't seem to be well received for some reason. 

As for Discord, I don’t mind it.  I use it a lot in fact, mostly for games with friends as a game coordination tool.  It is great for scheduling/organizing things for an online game session with a bunch of friends.  Then during the game itself I use it as a communications tool, a-la team speak or similar.

The issue I have with discord as a replacement for forums (message boards) is that discord is dialed more towards that realtime interaction.  The attraction of forums for me is that I can drop in on my schedule.   I sometimes work nights and odd hours but no matter when a moment opens in my schedule I can browse the messages, respond, post my stuff, and move on.

To be sure you can do it that way with something like discord as well, but discord is more about the real-time chat thing.  Whenever I try to use discord as a forum I get sucked in and wind up spending way too much time chatting, or scrolling through pages and pages of off-topic chat from other people.  As a consequence I avoid logging in /unless/ I want and have time to chat.  (Which I rarely ever do.)  I don’t use it as an information source/sink like I do with a well-moderated discussion forum.

The other thing I’ve noticed about discord is that in discord I tend to interact more with people who are geographically near me.  I think it is because most people only have time for the real-time thing during certain parts of their workday so I wind up chatting mostly with people on the same schedule.  In a forum the posters’ time zone is less of a determinant of chat partner so I tend to interact more with people in other time zones and countries.  To me that’s a cool thing, so that would be another reason I might avoid discord as a forum replacement.

Edited by efaardvark
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there are many reason could be because of what is happening and for your question regarding if there are any other forums theres mirusubete and I mostly think forums could be drifitng into a new era we have to wait and see there have been further developments for software for more mobile friendly i believe also discord is a huge factor to why some people pefer more live chat instead of posting and waiting for a reply but only time can tell 

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I think forums, in general, started slowing down awhile ago. There’s so many different ways to communicate now, and many of these are instant (or at least nearly instant), which might make forums feel slow or archaic. 

I think it’s worth it to stick around or pop in every once in awhile though. Sometimes older members will stop by after an absence. Or you’ll see the occasional spike in activity. It’s not much, but it’s not quite dead yet! 
 

 

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As a member who's been here for nearly 5 years I can say that this forum has gone through so many phases and changes, the community has slowly gotten smaller throughout the years and as Kohloo said the need for forums has just died off because of things like Discord, but I do feel like this forum always will have a core group that stay active with maybe the 1 in every 10 new members staying active. 

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I think we have a lot of lurkers these days and less people talking. You see a lot of logins of people dropping in to check posts, but never responding. A big part is time. People have less time and money due to governments shutting down the economy (both nationals and locals). You'd think that'd make more time, but without income you can't afford anime, anxiety and depression rates trend upwards, which compounds the lack of interest in activities that used to interest a person. It's a downward spiral.  As soon as this nonsense is over I think we will slowly see an uptick in traffic and actual conversation on the forums again after economies bound back.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I would not say AF is dead, butt it is small community ti began with. The pandemic certainly has not helped either I guessing its a lot of members who lost access to internet, or more likely just focused on other priories as mentioned. The digital decide has grown since all this COVID-19 stuff too for many reasons both social, and economic.  Though the biggest reason is forums are just a niche thing these days. Mostly older folks, or geeky people are using them still where's platforms like discord have largely pulled the majority away from forums in favor of faster more immediate communication even without taking any of the other factors into account.

Personally I am happy with AF being a small close community where we all know one another, and post when wee want to. Though who knows crisiss like these tend to bring change, or even reversion so forums like this way see a surge when the dust settles who knows.

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Sadly forums have been declining in popularity for the last 5+ years. Especially Discord, which I think has the most to do with this, people just stopped visiting forums. You usually have more people on a Discord server to interact with, servers can be very different from each other considering how they can be customized with bots and various roles (not saying forums can't be unique too!) and they tend to be fast, in real-time which apparently more people like. Personally I favor forums but don't have the time to be on here for a lot of time for the last year or so.

Browsing forums on the phone is often kind of a pain (even though there are apps for this) and I think many people browse the net on their phone for a significant amount of time. I think if forums in general want to gain in popularity again they'd somehow need to reinvent themselves to cater to a more "fast-consuming" audience, which would piss off the older members and they'd probably lose many of the veterans.

 

That being said, in terms of anime forums AF is pretty active and a cozy place with great members and it's fairly unique, not one of those copy and paste forums that have the same layout but with different colours. Another thing I like about the more traditional forums. Since they tend to be "slower" they usually don't attract trolls anymore, since they migrated to discord or whatever. Don't know how often I've seen people getting banned on Discord for purposefully annoying people only to reappear a few minutes later under a different name. Obviously that'd also be possible on here, but still...

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2 hours ago, leinwandname said:

Browsing forums on the phone is often kind of a pain (even though there are apps for this) and I think many people browse the net on their phone for a significant amount of time. I think if forums in general want to gain in popularity again they'd somehow need to reinvent themselves to cater to a more "fast-consuming" audience, which would piss off the older members and they'd probably lose many of the veterans.

I think it is more about having the time.  I don’t have time to spend just hanging out doing real-time chat in discord.  I can’t spend a lot of time in forums either, but I can check a forum from my phone whenever I have a couple minutes.  I can type pretty fast too so what I often do in forums is make a pass with my phone to find anything interesting, then if I want to reply I come back later after I’ve had a chance to think about my reply for a while.  I can read just fine on my phone but I don’t like typing on those tiny on-screen keys so often I’ll wait until I get to my desktop system to bang out the reply, which I can do in just a couple minutes since by then I know what I want to type.

That kind of thing doesn’t really work in discord, which works better for socializing/chat but tends to be less focused, topic-wise.  I only go to discord when I have a lot of time to kill, which lately is basically never.

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  • 3 months later...

I think the decline in activity is due to new anime fans who search a place to share their thoughts are often recommended to go either discord or reddit by major "influencers" from other media like youtube and twitch. Which means publicity wins. I particularly don't have the knowledge to resolve this problem, so I'm sorry for not being helpful. The reason I came here was running away from the toxicity often found in places like discord and reddit (not every place is bad, but the bigger ones very often are).

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  • 11 months later...

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