Soooo maybe it's me but how much has the traffic here lessened in comparison to before all the Shit that led up to now?

Hi Snake,

Thanks for your question and I hope you're enjoying your nifty new username. I moved your post with the aim of facilitating the healthy and non-acrimonious discussion that you were hoping for on the topic of DVDTalk readership numbers.

I think that readership here has probably increased markedly over the past month. Often the Feedback Forum can be a bit in the doldrums but, of late, it really seems to have perked up. Who'd've thunk it?!?

Or were you talking about the site as a whole?

If so, I gather that, after a very good 2012, the number of page views of the review part of the site, where arguably there is less scope for interactivity and which may appeal to casual/passive readers, overall readership is down.

However, 2012 was a particularly good year as compared to 2011, so I am told that this isn't (yet) seen as a longstanding trend.

But maybe the sample is skewed because there was an increase in sponsored links which some people dislike and apparently the availability of review material had decreased somewhat. Also, even setting aside Blu-ray possibly superseding the DVD format, there is also a move to all-digital which may have an impact.

For my own part I would still read the reviews even if I was going to buy a download. Which I wouldn't because I prefer to own a physical object.

All this being said, if you are talking primarily about activity within the forums, I have to say that, over the past couple of years or more, I have noticed a gradual decrease in Book Talk; likewise (but a little less obvious) in Music and, sadly, a much greater decrease in posting in International. We'll have to see if it is time to fold International back into the main/original DVD Talk forum.

This aside, it'd be for others to say what they think about their own favourite forums.

I've not been a regular reader of, say, Other for quite some time now as I tended to find less that interested me there and I needed to make the most effective use of my limited time. While tempers can sometimes get frayed when talking about Music or TV or whatever, the discrete forums seemed to be, all things considered, better behaved and more friendly places to read (and occasionally to post).

I think the fact that we have 3 days worth of last posts on the first page of Other for myself means that traffic is way down.

I used to see a page or two of new posting every day. Now it seems almost no new activity. I assume that some people splitting their time or selecting one site or the other has not helped Dvdtalk much either.

There's been a few times in the last year I've seen the main DVD Talk forum not have any posts for nearly a day. Last week was the most recent.

As younger kids hit the age where they're starting to get into media and they're doing HD, I think the name of the site will become more and more of a detriment. There's some VHS sites out now and while they may have the greatest discussions in the world on all forms of media, I'll never know because the VHS in the title kills any interest I may have had.

I've seen traffic down just from casual viewing of the various forums. It's not like it was in its heyday.

The reasons I can come up with are:

1) The media format. Streaming and other ways to store media content are becoming more popular than DVD.
2) Other social media options - This place was/is a social hub as much as a deals/informational place. People come here to socialize. There are many more outlets for this kind of interaction now (Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/blah blah blah).
3) The recent drama has probably contributed to if not lower viewership, then to less new threads being started.

Wait. What the hell? I didn't make this thread. Who the fuck made this? I asked that in a thread somewhere but what the fuck?

Edit: nvm read the post after my "op"

take your meds...

I wish Solid Snake would keep better track of all the Threads he creates. He's become a shadow of Solid Snake PAC.

How I miss him.

To answer the question yes. The forums I visit are way slower. That's what happens when things escalate to the point that many long time users jump ship for greener pastures.

Or to put it a way the OP will understand:

Fuck yes. The fucking forums are slow as fuck all. What the fuck do you cocksuckers expect when the shit fucking hits the fucking fan and all the bastards who have been fucking hanging around this bitch say "fuck it" and blow out of here faster than shit from an asshole on a shitter in a fucking taco bell bathroom!

What recent drama? New mods!

I don't know you. Who the fuck are you?!

^ He's Nelson!

Mandela?

Even before the recent drama, it seemed like the site was slowing down. Like others mentioned, after a weekend away, I would come back to three pages of new posts/threads. Now, I'm surprised if I see one.

Yup, it had already been slowing down quite a bit. The recent fuck up and bannings just brought to light some issues that had been happening for a long time. This seems to have the effect of speeding things up quite a bit. When some of your long time users, who were frequent posters jump ship, it's bound to have a significant impact. Such a shame, as it all seemed pretty avoidable and still seems to be unresolved for the most part (at least from the user perspective, as it seems the admins are happy with the way things stand)...

Users concerned about lowered readership should try to up their game in more threads, to add more conversation to areas, without trying to DOMINATE an area or any one conversation, which will shy people away. There are always ups and downs, but if the readers keep active and try to make conversations that others can actually engage in, things will perk up a little.

I would like to know more. So much useless information fires my imagination.

From a purely statistical point of view, I can say (from analysis of post counts I just did) that so far 2013 is almost identical to 2012, and the last several weeks are almost a mirror on the graph, year over year. Any perceived differential is therefore highly localized and anecdotal.

I agree that it's been down in traffic that long.

If you want an example of a once-striving forum that's now a graveyard, DVDTalk's sister site HDD is a great example. Entire areas abandoned due to being dominated by 1 or 2 users, who eventually say screw it and leave no one.

Why are you directing this at me? I am not for em, I am agin em.