Shard

Is is my perception or is the trusty BE Maple Leaf far less busy than it used to be? Admittedly, I haven't been on as much of late as before, but when I do come on there seems to be not a lot happening. Has everyone returned to real life or something?! The choppy page loading of the site upgrade doesn't hep either. Just what you need when traffic is declining, making the site less navigable...

BristolUK

The leaf has blown away

It has definitely become quieter over the last couple of years. In my early days I can remember typing responses and and by the tie I was ready to post there were sometimes 4 or 5 posts added in the time I was typing.

But I've never seen anything like the lack of activity since the upgrade. And people on the other country specific parts report the same lack of activity too.

What's noticeable is that profiles show people have actually been "active" - checking in - but not posting, so it's not like they've gone off to do something else.

JamesM

It's a bit of a rinse and repeat to be honest.

I see "new" threads and its a case of been there and done that.

No genuinely interesting new blood in recent years.

Lastly the new format of BE is a god damn nightmare and eyesore. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the beginning of the end.

cheeky_monkey

i rarely post in here anymore..i didn't post at all when i was back in the UK for 2.5 years..when i came back it was still the same core people and the same topics... there was and is nothing new to post about

Oakvillian

The user experience is now so horrible that I mostly can't be bothered. Thanks, Internet Brands, for making me more productive at work. I'll often have a browser tab open to BE and flick through the forums during "thinking time" but don't feel motivated to post very often.

dave_j

There are times when you need to acquire a thicker than normal skin when posting on this site.
There are some posters who abandon debate for the more abrupt avenue of personal insult.
Only recently I've been called a 'nutter' and the tenor of my posts have been ignored completely in favour of rudeness.
Fortunately I do have a thick skin and I never see the need to descend to personal abuse but there are some out there who slip over to the dark side all too easily and I can understand why many simply say 'I don't need this' and... well 'Bye Bye poster' is the result.
I post to this site because I like to argue and I like to attempt to be amusing, it doesn't always come off but I do try.
I used to tell my colleagues that 'It costs nothing to be polite' and I think that some posters forget this at times.

BristolUK

When it's Canada related, perhaps.

Frightened off by flippant responses I shouldn't wonder.

There's certainly the feel of "let's kill it off" about it. Like BBC putting a show out in a known graveyard slot and then cancelling it through lack of interest.

Again, Canada related, although some things change. But ML is supposed to be off topic and Trump and Brexit alone should provide many talking points. Like the NFL stuff just announced. One doesn't need to like or know anything about American Football to have an opinion on this new rule about having to stand for the anthem.

The advantage of stuff like that being discussed in ML (or equivalents over the forum) is it's not too busy to follow and take part in.

But there are always new people asking questions about Canadian stuff and that's probably how must of us got onto BE. Other forum activity was presumably what made us hang around and there's no reason why others shouldn't follow - providing there's the same level of activity there used to be. And a user-friendly format of course.

BristolUK

You are a nutter though. But a very welcome one and long may you post

scrubbedexpat091

Forums in general seem to have lost traffic. Every forum I read (post on vert few) has dropped in traffic in the last 10 years.

Pollyana

Not to the extent that BE has lost traffic in the last month.
The Aus forums have been dying for years. Now I feel we may as well just put up a headstone and walk away.

Unfortunately I am thinking the same thing. The lack of progress with fixing the bugs is further proof I feel.

Shard

+1 +1

magnumpi

dbd33

It's slow, ugly and clunky now. If I happened upon the forum for the first time I wouldn't wait for the first thread of interest to load, I'd be gone. I imagine the only users now will be those who joined when the site worked better and, of course, only a subset of those.

Piff Poff

The most interesting thread for a while lol I don't like the upgrade either

Jerseygirl

Why not try to inject a little life into BE? If you are bored with the same old, same old threads...then why not try to open new discussion threads?

The phrase used for the UK Post Offices springs to mind...’use it or lose it’. Let’s not lose BE...