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When did it die?

Posted: Mon May 07, 2018 12:50 am
by Smile Awhile
When I first joined this site, there would often be several posts made per day. Now it seems as though hardly anyone comes here. I stopped coming so often a few years ago because I got extremely busy, but I recently came back and found it practically dead. When exactly did this happen? Was it gradual, or fairly sudden?
Also, btw, can you think of any ways to bring it back to how it was in its heyday?

My suggestion would be setting up a planned date & time for many people to all join at all at once. Maybe remembering how fun it was when it was active would bring people back here more often (it probably wouldn't work, but it's an idea at least).

Re: When did it die?

Posted: Mon May 07, 2018 6:20 am
by Blitz
Hmm pretty slowly. A lot of the current members are now older and busy like myself. Its pretty difficult to be consiste now adays.

Re: When did it die?

Posted: Mon May 07, 2018 9:33 am
by SirWhit
Membership is aging and losing interest in AIO, there aren't enough new members to compensate, and forums in general are less and less active. It's a natural process and I think the Soda Shop is just entering the decline part. We had a good run and I think we definitely have time left, but I'm not sure that we'll ever be as active as before.

Re: When did it die?

Posted: Mon May 07, 2018 10:47 am
by GJFH
I think one of the problems may be the gap between generations of fans. I mean that, considering the younger fans tend to want to listen to any album after the most recent re-launch, from the mid fifties up until the present. So generally speaking, the older fans tend to want to listen to anything before the fifties.
My younger sister has listened her whole life but there's a five year difference between us, and she prefers hearing the newer ones now, because she still relates to a lot of things and she can count on their stories being continued regularly. I don't mind them, but given a choice, I usually go back and listen to ones with Tom, or Jack, or Trent and Mandy, because nostalgia. Discussion on aio has been close to non existent here, now.

One way I can think of bringing it somewhere, is starting up topics about anything and everything aio that we have strong feelings about (good or bad.) Having topics that aren't that serious, and others where we can discuss the gap.

Re: When did it die?

Posted: Mon May 07, 2018 11:11 am
by shnoodlec.
Ooh, nice, a "FORUM'S DEAD" topic. Is it September already? :D

I was most active around here in 2013/early 2014. I remember fondly the activity you're talking about. Now it seems that we can't even get a Mafia game started, something that once seemed to be one of the most active parts of the board. It's striking how activity dropped in such little time. The ToO has been around for much longer than the SS, and though their activity has been dwindling for a while now, it did not fall as fast as the SS's.

I wasn't really here for this decrease in activity on the SS, but it seems to me that the slow in activity was fairly gradual. As for the culprit, I would agree with Blitz and SW that the members are aging, and becoming busier. I think one of the key things that kept people consistent in visiting was that so many were homeschoolers. They didn't really have much to do during the day, and wanted to talk to people, so they could log into the SS as part of their routine. To be fair, I wasn't a homeschooler and I was on every day. Then again... I also only returned to the board when I started doing online school part-time back in January.

I think what SW said about forums being less popular is also a key part of it. When someone is looking for a fanbase or community, in 2018, they simply don't come to forums. I don't know anyone my age who uses them, really. The younger audience goes to Tumblr or Instagram, and the older audience goes to Facebook. Reddit is another popular site, but the AiO community there is incredibly inactive. Forums are just kind of outdated now. Not completely, but again, I don't know anyone irl under the age of eighteen who uses them. Social media is much more convenient. You don't have to come up with a login for every single community you wanna visit. You're already familiar with the site's format, so you don't have to get used to a new layout for every site. It's just so convenient.

I'm not sure these sites will be able to replicate the community found here and the ToO, for several reasons. The lack of a "general discussion" makes me wonder how well friendships will be formed between users. Of course, I could be totally wrong about this. Before the SS existed, I saw friendships be forged in comment sections.

I don't think the activity of the SS during its first couple years will be coming back any time soon, but I also don't think it's dead quite yet. The ToO chat is also quite active, mostly in the evenings. There's a good amount of SS people in there. We talk about AiO, play Apples to Apples, and discuss random stuff. Come check it out, if you haven't. :)

Re: When did it die?

Posted: Mon May 07, 2018 11:16 am
by Helios
I do think a lot of the negative discussions in the Debate Room (and I'm not pointing fingers, I promise) is part of the reason the majority of users have drifted. That, at least, is part of my reason. I face enough problems IRL without entering into drama on the internet. If I'm doing anything online these days, it's as a form of escape from the pressures of reality. The Shoppe doesn't really provide that anymore.

Honestly though, I think SirWhit hit it right on the nose. We're growing up. Not a bad thing, by any means, but it means we'll be transferring our time and energy to other pursuits. So I guess this is the part where we leave behind childish things.

Re: When did it die?

Posted: Mon May 07, 2018 1:00 pm
by Smile Awhile
I see... my friends and I irl never really liked the idea of growing up, especially since we're almost adults now, so we've tried to make our childhood last as long as possible. I suppose as long as possible still needs an ending point, though. Thank you for your time and responses.

Re: When did it die?

Posted: Mon May 07, 2018 1:07 pm
by Kungfunaomi
Helios wrote:I do think a lot of the negative discussions in the Debate Room (and I'm not pointing fingers, I promise) is part of the reason the majority of users have drifted. That, at least, is part of my reason. I face enough problems IRL without entering into drama on the internet. If I'm doing anything online these days, it's as a form of escape from the pressures of reality. The Shoppe doesn't really provide that anymore.
Agreed. I'm not pointing fingers either, I just don't get on the Internet to fight with people. I have enough of that in my own life.
Also, my number of real friends has increased a lot because I moved again and made a lot of new friends, so a lot of my "forum" time is actually spent texting them.

Re: When did it die?

Posted: Mon May 07, 2018 6:46 pm
by Stella C.
Life happened. I used to spend hours in the chatbox with people I considered good friends. Since then, all of us have gotten older, gone off to college, gotten married etc. I myself will be starting my internship very soon and will be graduating college. It's crazy, but like Helios said, we are transferring our energy elsewhere. That's what happens when you grow up. It's bittersweet, but yet exciting at the same time.

Re: When did it die?

Posted: Mon May 07, 2018 8:55 pm
by Katie10
Smile Awhile wrote:When I first joined this site, there would often be several posts made per day. Now it seems as though hardly anyone comes here. I stopped coming so often a few years ago because I got extremely busy, but I recently came back and found it practically dead. When exactly did this happen? Was it gradual, or fairly sudden?
Also, btw, can you think of any ways to bring it back to how it was in its heyday?

My suggestion would be setting up a planned date & time for many people to all join at all at once. Maybe remembering how fun it was when it was active would bring people back here more often (it probably wouldn't work, but it's an idea at least).
It's quite sad. I like this site a lot be some times it's really hard to check it every day or 2, 3, every one seemed to get super busy. I like the idea about the one day to get every one together but to get it to work you will probably need to pm bella. We could even have everyone met in the tOp chat if we set up a separate link as in #sschat

Re: When did it die?

Posted: Mon May 07, 2018 9:21 pm
by Doll
Once upon a time, a group of teenagers frequeted these boards. They were young, foolish, but created a lot of fun and fond memories on this board.

But something called life came along, and the teens began to grow up, go to college, and even get married. They found they didn't have time for the boards anymore. Now those teens are in their early 20s, with jobs and houses. If they return to the boards, they notice things are different. There are new people, and the old ones are barely around anymore, or they do not post.

Re: When did it die?

Posted: Tue May 08, 2018 5:24 pm
by Smile Awhile
Belle wrote:Once upon a time, a group of teenagers frequeted these boards. They were young, foolish, but created a lot of fun and fond memories on this board.

But something called life came along, and the teens began to grow up, go to college, and even get married. They found they didn't have time for the boards anymore. Now those teens are in their early 20s, with jobs and houses. If they return to the boards, they notice things are different. There are new people, and the old ones are barely around anymore, or they do not post.
Oof... That hit me hard.

Re: When did it die?

Posted: Tue May 08, 2018 6:32 pm
by PennyBassett
I think there were originally a lot of fans who grew up listening to the best of Odyssey. Since Odyssey's quality has deteriorated and said original fans got older, there aren't as many new fans to fill the gap.

Re: When did it die?

Posted: Tue May 08, 2018 6:41 pm
by Tsukuyomi
Id like to say that I don't see these boards as "dead" or "dying" by any stretch of the imagination, though.

Some of my favorite forums get posted on once or twice a WEEK. Now, that's a death sentence.

Re: When did it die?

Posted: Tue May 08, 2018 8:45 pm
by Katie10
Tsukuyomi wrote:Id like to say that I don't see these boards as "dead" or "dying" by any stretch of the imagination, though.

Some of my favorite forums get posted on once or twice a WEEK. Now, that's a death sentence.
This thread picked up and got posted on very fast and a lot.

Re: When did it die?

Posted: Tue May 08, 2018 9:54 pm
by shnoodlec.
Katie10 wrote:
Tsukuyomi wrote:Id like to say that I don't see these boards as "dead" or "dying" by any stretch of the imagination, though.

Some of my favorite forums get posted on once or twice a WEEK. Now, that's a death sentence.
This thread picked up and got posted on very fast and a lot.
Funny how a place'll be pretty quiet, and then someone makes a "FORUM'S DEAD" topic and suddenly everyone's got a lot to say. :lol: :lol:

Re: When did it die?

Posted: Tue May 08, 2018 10:33 pm
by PennyBassett
Haha I was thinking the same thing! Maybe we just need more interesting topics! Everyone go read my fanfiction! The suspense of the Meltsners slice of life- life. Pretty exciting.

Re: When did it die?

Posted: Tue May 08, 2018 10:51 pm
by Kungfunaomi
PennyBassett wrote:Haha I was thinking the same thing! Maybe we just need more interesting topics! Everyone go read my fanfiction! The suspense of the Meltsners slice of life- life. Pretty exciting.
Shameless plug, Penny! ;)

Re: When did it die?

Posted: Wed May 09, 2018 8:18 am
by PennyBassett
Haha yeah... thought I'd get in a lil free advertising while everyone's here. :lol:

Re: When did it die?

Posted: Wed May 09, 2018 9:15 am
by Katie10
Kungfunaomi wrote:
PennyBassett wrote:Haha I was thinking the same thing! Maybe we just need more interesting topics! Everyone go read my fanfiction! The suspense of the Meltsners slice of life- life. Pretty exciting.
Shameless plug, Penny! ;)
Lol but she has a point it is pretty good.

Anyhow the game topic is really dead no one has posted in it for around two weeks.