The Flat Earth Society
The Flat Earth Society => Suggestions & Concerns => Topic started by: Ghost Spaghetti on October 21, 2015, 09:10:48 AM
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I've noticed that the amount of posts per day has been going down for some time recently, but I hadn't realised just how much of a decline it has been. From about 5,000 posts a month in January '14, we're now down to about 1,500/month. This isn't a case of quality over quantity, either, the vast majority of those posts are in Complete Nonsense.
Following a linear trend, we'll be down to 0 posts a month by about January 17, but I predict that we'll be effectively gone long before that as posts beget posts and the fewer we have, the fewer replies in a self-defeating feedback loop.
Daniel's site is also in decline, but it's doing healthier than tfes.org. I don't know whether merging the sites would save either, but doing nothing looks like forum suicide.
(http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll232/chrissetti/Flatdemise_zpsl87zk3gs.jpg)
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And what do you think we can do about it? We can't merge because Daniel has effectively disappeared. The most we can do is pull traffic from his site as it's becoming increasingly unusable.
It's also worth noting that casual conversation has been shifting more towards IRC, given that it's currently more active than ever before. So I don't know what you're suggesting. Force people to post more?
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I don't know what the solution is, I'm just pointing out a potentially fatal problem. Perhaps there are people who've dealt with this kind of issue before who can solve it.
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I don't know what the solution is, I'm just pointing out a potentially fatal problem. Perhaps there are people who've dealt with this kind of issue before who can solve it.
I've dealt with this issue before.
The solution is quite simple:
There is none.
Let the site die. All things die, web forums are no exception. I've mostly moved on to my rp group's site.
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Your graph does a pretty good job at explaining the flaws in your analysis. You chose to go with a linear plot for Daniel's site, even though the plot doesn't even try to fit the data (which can't be reasonably approximated linearly). If you had performed this analysis in September 2014, you would have concluded that Daniel's site would die off in a matter of months. You also chose one metric of success and decided to ignore all others.
Visits to all our sites from unique users are on a constant (albeit slow) rise, we're catching up on Google rankings, and our Facebook page is doing pretty well. Might it be that tfes.org isn't dying, but rather changing, and that you're not liking that change?
Yes, the past half year has seen a decline in posts. That's largely to be expected given the emergence of several new FE communities and a relative lack of attention from the media. Also, many of the regulars found other ways to communicate. The best thing that can be done to counteract this, as you yourself pointed out, is to produce new content. If you post something interesting and engaging, you will likely get responses. It will also get indexed by search engines, which means others might also find your content and join the site because of it.
Only you can stop forest fires, etc., etc.
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It's also worth noting that casual conversation has been shifting more towards IRC
My God! Why didn't anyone see this coming?
http://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=2653.0
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It's also worth noting that casual conversation has been shifting more towards IRC
My God! Why didn't anyone see this coming?
http://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=2653.0
w0w god forbid people communicate however they want
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It's also worth noting that casual conversation has been shifting more towards IRC
My God! Why didn't anyone see this coming?
http://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=2653.0
w0w god forbid people communicate however they want
Not at tfes.org they don't! >o<
You'll bloody well communicate the way I want you to. >:(
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Your graph does a pretty good job at explaining the flaws in your analysis. You chose to go with a linear plot for Daniel's site, even though the plot doesn't even try to fit the data (which can't be reasonably approximated linearly). If you had performed this analysis in September 2014, you would have concluded that Daniel's site would die off in a matter of months. You also chose one metric of success and decided to ignore all others.
This wasn't an in-depth analysis. it was a way to waste ten minutes of a slow morning. I just found it interesting.
Yes, I chose that metric because an increasing number of visits or Google ranks doesn't necessarily do much for content, as is evidenced here.
The sharp decline and resurgence in posts at Daniel's site is interesting. What happened to bring posting back up again?
Visits to all our sites from unique users are on a constant (albeit slow) rise, we're catching up on Google rankings, and our Facebook page is doing pretty well. Might it be that tfes.org isn't dying, but rather changing, and that you're not liking that change?
I don't particularly care that much. I do miss the stronger community I think we once had here and the debates and discussions which just don't seem to happen any more, but if times have changed, then fine.
However, if new people visit the site and see that there have been half a dozen posts in the last few days, they're probably less likely to stay. If people do want the site to continue, then it's something that they should be trying to address.
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This wasn't an in-depth analysis. it was a way to waste ten minutes of a slow morning. I just found it interesting.
The problem isn't that your analysis is not in-depth. The problem is that your analysis is misleading due to a very flawed approach.
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My analysis is that the post count at both sites is declining. If it carries on, the site won't exist. ::)
My opinion is that this is a bad thing.
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Right, well, if you're not willing to discuss it, I'm not sure what the point of this thread is.
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Right, well, if you're not willing to discuss it, I'm not sure what the point of this thread is.
A reply to every post suggests that I am willing to discuss it.
But since your posts have simply been 'who cares? The site is changing, all the casual chat moved to IRC. Unless you have a solution, shut up.' I wonder what the point in your involvement in this thread is.
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Again, it's not that your analysis is not worth caring about. It's that your analysis is incorrect. I've pointed it out numerous times, but you're focusing on all kinds of things that don't have to do with fixing your original failure.
Discussing a problem that is only apparent due to a botched statistical analysis won't take us anywhere. Adding strawman attacks to it doesn't help your case.
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I wonder what the point in your involvement in this thread is.
It's to be an abrasive dick, which is nothing unusual for him. Just ignore him.
On topic, IRC is largely to blame for the forum's decline, but the best solution to that doesn't lie with "killing IRC," but instead making an effort to move more discussions here. IRC is really best for casual chatting. Discussions about movies, video games, or, God help me, political issues would be better served here. It's just something for my fellow IRC regulars to think about - next time you want to start picking someone's brain about such and such, consider doing so here instead? We can hardly enforce this, but, you know, consider it.
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While this may be an unpopular opinion, I agree with Saddam somewhat. Most A&E, P&R, etc. discussion seems to have moved to IRC. I don't think there's a problem with that at all, I prefer communicating in IRC in real-time, I do think there would be some benefit from trying to move certain discussions here. In particular, bigger subjects.
I mean, in IRC you sort of have to divide things into smaller "posts", sending one or a few sentences at a time. Whereas I think certain subjects, particularly anything that requires getting in-depth, would benefit from being able to make large, thought-out posts that can then be responded to once the other person formulates a longer, just as thought-out post in response. While many discussions go just fine in IRC, and I think it's a much better communication tool than a forum in most circumstances, I honestly think the quality of some of these discussions has gone down due to the immediate, more concise nature of IRC.
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Back to the original point: TFES.org WAS dying until I came aboard.
You're welcome.
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For what its worth? the IRC thing started shortly after I got here and the quantity/quality of threads has severly diminished accordingly. Due to personal incompetance I could never get it to work but even so the forums, with the ability to check back, resurect, quote, gloat or simmer and loath is their strength.
It does also seem that the "old" FEers have left much of the FE discussion to the new breed of faith based more fanatical new bloods, so the humour level has dropped too, maybe out of combat fatigue, but hey things change, life is meaningless and everything dies.
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Simply out of curiosity, was there a single event on Daniel's site which could account for the massive influx of new posts around about this time last year?
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Simply out of curiosity, was there a single event on Daniel's site which could account for the massive influx of new posts around about this time last year?
VSauce released a video about the flat-earth last Dec. Also, Eric Dubay maybe?
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And what do you think we can do about it?
Post more, obviously.
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Post moar shitspam in CN obviously. That generated a 100 comment discussion.