Have you noticed less traffic on forum sites?

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I think the forum format will be around for a long time, but the personnel involved will always be changing.

I think they will be around for a long time yet, I just do not know if it will be in the same level they once were. There has been a lot of talk about GS here, but it is not just GS. Forum sites as a whole seem to be much less busy then they once were.

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I have noticed we have virtually no women posting anymore which is a shame , there was a sort of breakaway last year where many good members left after certain things happened with the running of the site etc, that was a shame but things come in cycles and im sure an influx of chatty new posters would change things - I do miss the chat room though - I spoke to many lovely people in real time and that was fun

I don't know why it is, but even forum sites that are not gay, sites that are geared to some sort of general interest, seem to be dominated by men. Maybe the draw just isn't there for women like it is for men.

This isn't the only site where I've seen people say they wish chat was they way it used to be, but chat was something only used by some members, not most of them and when there is a smaller number of active users overall, I think chat is going to suffer.

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Definitely noticed it, also many of them (not so much here but FB and Instagram) are diluted by barely-disguised advertisements and the picture-full-of-words memes which are cute but not the same as actual conversation.

That said, I posted text on my FB three times in the past few weeks that got over 50 likes and a long thread of conversation between people from different aspects of my life. That is always cool to see.

I have been on a journaling site for 14 years; it went very quiet around 2007 when Facebook really took off, but I'm still there, and recently been very devoted to it and attracted some new people to my friends list. A few people who had given up on their blogs have returned because, as Twist said they missed the more in-depth posts, vs. silly memes.

I don't think Facebook is the main culprit though with gay baords...the "dating apps" are the culprit.

This is already starting to happend with Facebook as well. People are leaving or no longer interested. In my own circle of friends (I have alot of friends).....I would say maybe 3 in 50 are even on Facebook. I read an article recently that addressed how many younger users were abandoning FB.

I have a FB page, no twitter, instagram or any of that.

I still like forums, and visit the ones I'm a member of as often as I can. I do think that FB and other social media have cut down forum participation.

I think Facebook and Twitter have certainly contributed to the loss of interest in forums sites, but I think sites like Reddit have done more damage. The idea is not exactly the same as forum sites, but it is similar. For any general interest forum site, there is probably a Subreddit of the same interest.

One thing all these sites like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Tumblr, etc, do better than most forum sites is being able to personalize it to see what you want to see on your newsfeed/front page. On many forums sites you see the same thing everyone else sees and there is nothing you can do to personalize to your interests. You can also block people and you really do not see them again and they do not see you. On most forum sites when you block someone they can still see your posts and you still sometimes see theirs in quotes and usually the stuff you did not want to see when you blocked them is the stuff people are most likely to quote. Forum sites could probably get some of their cat fights under control if they had a block feature that truly blocked people.

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The same fate is now happening to gay clubs...they are dying out...fast. The one I worked at the longest was a landmark...in business as a gay club for over 50 years....and it closed finally last year.

It happened to antique stores too...we had 14 in my town....now we have 4. I stayed in business because I knew that change isn't always as bad as we fear it will be. There will ALWAYS be new doors and windows open when the other ones close...you just have to look for them. I had to change as well...and it is faster than ever now...but I am up for the challenge LOL...and we are alive and doing well...

The internet has very much contributed to the decline of the gay bar and we tend to think it has only affected gay bars and not so much straight bars, but it has had an affect on those bars as well. Almost very gay bar and nightclub is basically a hook up bar, so they have suffered from the internet. We tend to think of a straight bar as every bar that is not a gay bar, but for a better comparison it should be to straight bars and clubs where the purpose is to pick someone up. Other straight bars are there because on an interest in a certain genre of music whether live or by dj, a sports bar, or somewhere to dine and drink. You don't see as many ads for the straight hook up nightclubs, those places that advertised "ladies night" (advertising that was actually geared to guys) or "ladies get in free before midnight" with hope the ladies would come so the guys would come. Those kind of straight bars suffered from the internet as well. Gay bars also had a different hurdle. Back in the 70's and 80's in the days of the gay clubs, many downtowns and inner cities in the U.S. were in shambles and rents were low so that is where gay bars and other gay businesses like bookstores moved to and then gays and lesbians followed bringing back those. Now the rents are higher and gay bars need to bring in more people to pay the cost at a time when they are bringing in less. Part of the gay bar demise is thanks to the success we have made American cities that are now the place to be, not the place to flee.

The antique shoppes are gone because they cannot compete with ebay and craigslist. A storefront on ebay is cheaper than brick and mortar and it can run itself when you are not there. You do not have to hire someone to be at your shop when you are not.

[ShiftyNJ]

TGay bars also had a different hurdle. Back in the 70's and 80's in the days of the gay clubs, many downtowns and inner cities in the U.S. were in shambles and rents were low so that is where gay bars and other gay businesses like bookstores moved to and then gays and lesbians followed bringing back those. Now the rents are higher and gay bars need to bring in more people to pay the cost at a time when they are bringing in less. Part of the gay bar demise is thanks to the success we have made American cities that are now the place to be, not the place to flee..

That is true in NJ... we used to have over a dozen gay bars, almost every one of them in a shitty neighborhood you wouldn't otherwise be caught dead in.

Today, there are four or five. And the crowd is maybe 50% gay as far as I can tel.

[Borg69]

When trolls take over a site it can be the death of it. [MENTION=20947]MikeW[/MENTION] mentioned moderation on sites and there are some people who are against any kind of it, but the problem is without it a site owner can lose control of the site and when it gets to that point it makes it difficult because if you start eliminating the trolls, you're banning the only people left.

Trolls and lack of moderation was what killed gay.com, IMO. As was their hunger for advertising. They didn't care who was visiting their sites as long as they had site hit numbers to show their sponsors. Something that I suspect JUB of falling into. Quantity over quality. Unfortunately the squatters who lived there never had any intention of buying the porn or services advertised by the site and scared everyone else off with their drama and social ineptitude.

[Albie]

Well I cannot speak for other posters, but I do not plan on leaving this site anytime soon.