Forum Declines?

I guess that we have all noticed over the past few years that the activity on our favourite forums has declined?

Why so, we ask?

Here are a few ideas you might like to discuss; please accept that as this is AO, I will mostly be posting in an AO context:)

1. PEOPLE MOVE ON

If you are now trying to hold down a job and raise a young family, you just don't have the time that you had at High-School & College. Also, a family is just that.....you cannot seriously expect to live the same lifestyle that you did when you were single?

2. Internet Growth

I can remember 9600 Baud.........dial-up.............nowadays the internet is much larger and diverse, so there is a lot more competition for people's time;and a lot more content to satisfy it?

3. Social Networking

The emergence of social networking sites in recent years has reduced the need for sites such as AO. People can go elsewhere to talk nonsense? The sheer volume and diverse content of these sites competes severely with those who run more specialised content locations.

4. Malware Changes

There is very little mindless, destructive, crap being written these days. The trend is all towards the commercial and criminal. To achieve it's objective it has to be stealthy. The implication of that is that people either know that they are infected and do something about it........or are blissfully unaware, and see no need to come to sites such as AO.

5. ICT Awareness

People are more ICT aware these days. They know how to use a search engine to find answers to their problems. If they don't.........they will know someone (or their kids) who does ;)
[Just look at AO posts from 6-8 years ago, and you will see a lot of malware and hardware problem questions that we just don't get today]

Naturally, I have a lot more to comment on the subject, but I will leave you with those 5 for comments :)

I think all of those play a role, as well as improvements in both hardware and operating systems. Windows 7 is a lot more self sufficient than its predecessors. Motherboards now have onboard audio and video that is just good enough to no longer necessitate dedicated cards for those purposes. Gamers and audiophiles will undoubtedly argue that point, but for most of us it holds true.

Here is what I see:

When I first joined AntiOnline back in 2002, this place was WAY different than it is now. People had an actual sense of humor back then, and if you made a thread about any given subject, you had a bunch of replies from multiple members.

JP was kind of a cocky jerk for the most part, but people dealt with it. Remember Nihil when you first joined how the "Images Server" for Anti Online seemed to be not working like once a week almost?

I'm sure you recall how that went, you'd log into the page, and wait....And Wait... And Wait... And finally you'd see something, but, the problem with it was that if you used a normal Web Browser with a GUI, it kept trying to load images.

JP would come on and say that the machine was down for upgrades, or updates, or, once, he came on and said that he was in the office and the thing electrocuted him, which was weird because someone else said that the Server had been taken down by someone who didn't like AntiOnline.

It was a little more on the Believable side because a Server going down literally EVERY week and then JP coming in to make up a BS story that it was being upgraded or something.... OK, once in a while, sure, that would maybe work, but what Server has upgrades EVERY week?

And it was always the same thing. I remember at one point being so fed up with waiting that I would open a Terminal up, and just look at AntiOnline from a text browser like Links, or Elinks, or Lynx.

When Jupiter Media bought this site, trouble started brewing. what is happening now, I think does have something to do with that. So many people here were so far up JP's ass that they just Believed whatever he told them. Remember that thread JP made? "Jupiter Media Screws AntiOnline Founder" and he made a huge deal about how he wasn't being paid or some bull like that?

And then before that, the new staff members and Admins and Moderators, ALL got banned when they joined because that moron forgot to give them little GOLD DOTS and a bunch of people got together and Negged them all into being banned!

I remember the first fix was they got like a couple thousand Green AntiPoints, and then after a while, they finally got their Gold Dots so they couldn't be banned again.

Basically JP would come in once a week or so, start a bunch of ****, and then fan the flames until his followers would bitch and moan about everything, even though almost every person who was up his ass didn't have a clue what was happening.

And don't get me started on how this place was being ran! JP used to say that people were Gay Bashing him, like me, he said I was a gay basher because I once brought up how he said "Well this site looks ugly now, and I guess that's what happens when you let straight people design something"...

When I brought that up later he called me a gay basher, and I basically copied and pasted the link to where he had said that and asked why he was being a hypocrite. That pretty much ended it for a while, but he still had that stupid Gold dot, so no matter how much whining he did he got to stay until finally someone took his dot away and made him have to deal with being Negged for real again.

There are multiple members here right now who he banned for no reason. I remember a good friend of mine here told me JP banned him years ago because he sent JP a message saying that the AP system was open to abuse and those checks and balances didn't really stop it, and what happened? Instead of fixing it, JP Negged him in a post, the same post, 4 times in a row, then, banned him.

Now, that stuff was all how he ran things. Basically he had a major attitude problem, and for some reason people loved him even though he acted like an *******. He finally as banned, but then we had outcry from members who said it wasn't fair, and not only that a bunch of members left because JP made a new website, which didn't work, and then another site which wasn't even allowed to be shown here because it was porn.

Now, today, and for the past year, I've watched as AntiOnline has gone from a place people came and talked and asked questions and answered them, into a place where the big thread of the day will be whining about Anti Online.

The only thing that has changed on AntiOnline other than now having Admins and staff who don't have their heads up their asses, is that the members here LOVE to bitch and moan.

It's like, did they forget that THEY were the ones who made posts and threads that were interesting? I mean back before Jupiter, it's not like JP ever made posts about security anymore. The only time he posted anything was generally when he was talking about the old days of AntiOnline. that's it.

Jupiter Media bought AntiOnline, and then everyone acted like it was some huge deal and that AntiOnline was going down hill fast. Well of course it was! Do any of them expect a FORUM that MEMBERS make posts on, to keep going when they stop posting?

AntiOnline can still be big, but it's going to take some work. For the last week I was the only mod here until Nihil finally got back. I didn't mind watching things while everyone was waiting for emails and so on, that's no big deal to me, we don't have that many problem users anymore, except ONE who was banned (Linenoise) and then he came back as Segphault, and when I logged in today, it said he was banned too, which I don't care because it's not lik he's ever made more than 2 posts that were of any help, every other post he made was gibberish and youtube links, and then of course his rude posts to others here being an *******.

The other day, I was talking with a member (in other words, I made a post replying to someone else, and then, that got an ACTUAL DISCUSSION GOING!) and of course someone complained about that and that they were oh so offended or whatever. I cleaned the thread up myself today because I was busy yesterday and kind of forgot, but the fact remains that people on AntiOnline today are so damn obnoxious and whine so much about every little thing, it's like no wonder no one is ever here!

I saw two people saying that "Well, the reason no one comes here anymore is because of a moderator being a big meanie head, and because everyone is so on edge".... No, no one comes here anymore because all that member does anymore is bitch and whine about how we're all big meanie heads and how everyone is on edge.

How about instead of whining like a little baby, you post something interesting that someone might care about?

Also, maybe we should start having contests or something, or maybe pulling back on fun threads? I mean back when I first joined people were totally annoying about posting, and they would reply to every thread like an AOL Kiddie with "Me too!" as their only response, and it was annoying, but now, no one really does that because getting a huge post count just doesn't have any real incentive like it used to where you could get into the forbidden "Addicts" section. Which was nothing more than people talking about Beer most of the time. What kind of incentive is that? You can go to any bar and talk about that and they don't care how many posts you've got lol.

Anyway, I'm still here, and I'm still defending AntiOnline as a decent place, which is why I'm willing to fight, push buttons, and start **** if I have to, to make it survive. And I will continue to do so. I've also been thinking about getting ahold of some friends who I don't talk to very often and getting them on here.

I think one thing that's been mentioned is that AntiOnline is competing now with idiotic things like Facebook, and they also are in some ways, competing with MySpace, thought I don't think MySpace is as bad, and also moronic things like Twitter.

If we maybe made some extra forums, we could probably use that to drive up posting again. I mean, we have Cosmos, for things that aren't really Computer related, and we have General Chit Chat, and Tech Humor... Well what about making some non Computer Security Related things that aren't already there?

Gaming is HUGE right now, and every idiot with 15 dollars a month is playing World of Warcraft which I HATE, but it is VERY popular. What if we had a Gaming Section? It's not THAT much of a stretch to make an AntiOnline gaming forum. We could just moderate it like we do other areas, and people could talk about Gaming Machines, and games they play, and tips and tricks for games, and maybe get going with how they deal with In Game Spammers and account theft, and other issues that do eventually lead back to Computer Security.

We could have an area to talk about what's the latest thing in Gaming Security which I think would work because it's an area growing out of MMORPGs right now, and people need to keep their accounts safe from people who pay that game and either Steal Accounts, or Sell them, or they Spam you while You're playing.

What about that? I mean my Wife plays WoW, and I see all the time people saying "Oh, my account got Hacked" or "Someone stole my account" and it's not like Blizzard really does anything to help, so these people are STUCK, they have NO WHERE to go! I mean have you ever really looked at the Forums for World of Warcraft? They're TERRIBLE! There are Trolls so bad it makes the ones we've had seem good!

So basically they have no where to go and get help, and the people that should be helping, don't! That's a wide open market to me, and an opportunity.

Let's give that a try. It would for sure open up new traffic, new members, new target audience, everything. Heh, just because I'm having trouble finding a job doesn't mean I don't know Business or how it should work, or how it should be, and I'm pretty decent at finding an opportunity. The only problem I have is that since I don't have real world experience, I rarely get listened to.

Thoughts?

I've never understood the gaming world, but it's an app thats huge and to leave it unaddressed would be negligent. Are there any gamer gurus to mod that forum?

Another forum would be just plain hacks... not the malicious kind. I recieve email from Make magazine and Instructables and there are some ingenious people out there. I might even part with some of my bread recipes. Some of the hacks would best be posted as a tutorial to allow pics etc.

I've recieved some great advice on this board, given a couple of ideas out, blown a call or two... but it's all been good. For the most part we've never degraded ourselves to the flaming on trolling that say happens on Youtube or CNN. "I think the video is great" "well I think you suck" "well your momma" ........

What can we do to bring it back? Do we need Dr Seymour Beaver to resucitate it?

Hmmmm..........

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Remember Nihil when you first joined how the "Images Server" for Anti Online seemed to be not working like once a week almost?

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I do indeed!..................actually I lurked here for almost two years because I only had a 14.4 dial-up :D.......... I only joined when I got 28.8:D

If I might continue with my theme.................:)

6. Dial-up Connections

Back in the day, all we had was dial-up. This was pretty slow, and over here in the UK, it was charged by the minute.

We did not have free local telephony back then, so you ended up paying the ISP and the Telco. Naturally, that reduced your internet usage, and you only went where you really wanted to go.

What I am saying is that the environment tended to concentrate traffic, and people did not "surf" or "browse" as they do these days.

7. Cable, Satellite, & Broadband

This is related to #6, but I am referring to the advent of high speed connections. These allowed and encouraged people to be more adventurous; they no longer remained totally loyal to the limited number of sites that they previously visited.

Unlimited usage billing plans contributed to this effect IMO, particularly over here.

8. Online Gaming

I am glad that subject has already been raised, and I agree that it might make a useful and interesting forum for ourselves. The fact that, despite the rules, real money is often involved certainly invokes a security aspect.

Back in the day, there were precious few gaming sites and communities and if you said "LAN party" people would look at you with glazed eyes as if you had just stepped out of the latest episode of Star Trek :D

Now gaming is global, and presents an enormous distraction to younger people who might otherwise visit a site such as ours?

Please remember that back then, laptops were hellishly expensive and underpowered.............I just dug out an old one .........Casio? .......486/75Mhz, when my desktop was a PII/333Mhz, with 384Mb of RAM.

Just a few more thoughts to be going on with :)

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Originally Posted by fourdc

I've never understood the gaming world, but it's an app thats huge and to leave it unaddressed would be negligent. Are there any gamer gurus to mod that forum?

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I know of one member here who's job is programming Games. They don't on on to often, but I think having a Game section may change that if it did get the work needed to put it up.

I'm by no means a gamer, I don't go buying the best of everything to get frame rate to exactly what I want. I do however, REALLY like DooM, DooM 2, Final DooM, DooM 3, and the entire Quake Series, Unreal Tournament, and the Unreal Series (Basically first person shooters from Unreal and the id Software guys) and I like all the Wolfenstein Games.

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For the most part we've never degraded ourselves to the flaming on trolling that say happens on Youtube or CNN. "I think the video is great" "well I think you suck" "well your momma" ........

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That's more or less what I meant. My Wife goes on the forums for WoW sometimes and the stupidity I've seen has me wondering how some people manage to tie their shoes.

I've seen some MAJOR stupidity, and one time my Wife had a problem with the game, and guess what? Instead of listening to me outright saying it was a server issue, the tech support person, who was stupid as a box of ****, said that She had to use some scanning tool, and take a screen shot showing the results.... And apparently, my Router may have been another problem! I couldn't even grasp that kind of idiocy, and of course the scan showed nothing, and it turned out I was right that it was on the server.

I can't even tell how many times I've seen people who were told to do a traceroute, and then copied and pasted EVERYTHING... And by everything, I mean their own IPs too.... It's THAT bad.

And if you ever do look you'll also notice a question like "So this new patch seems to break something" ends up with, on the first page sometimes, posts like "My dog Waffles likes to eat Pan Cakes!" and it's like WTF!

But yea more or less the trolling that you see on Youtube is what I was talking about, and how we don't have that here.

Hello gore :)

You asked for this:

http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/knots.htm

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has me wondering how some people manage to tie their shoes.

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Detailed instructions on the interwebz?

:D:lildevil:

EDIT:

Perhaps the people you are talking about should go here?

http://www.silkysteps.com/family.cfm...ie-a-shoe-lace

lol i miss the good ol days too gore.
I believe i joined a year before you did, or few months before.
We had the forums we had IRC. we were all over the place.
I recall we even put BRAD on e-bay.

These days, been too busy with work and family (yes i got married to angelic_ky and we have a wonderful daughter who is turning 3yrs old this year)

When im not doing work and family, theres house work (bought a house too but needs a fair amount of TLC)... and i play MMORPG, no not WOW.

so yeah... life always gets to us all ey.

Yea, I know. I'm Married now too. But at least Mario and Luigi aren't bugging me with Magic Mushrooms that make me think I'm a giant right? ;)

I miss those old Sonic games, I should find a Sega.

Gore was telling me about this thread the other day and how he brought up the world of warcraft forums. The only experience he's had with that black hole was second hand, mostly from hearing me bitch about it. If someone has an actual issue with the game, forget about it, you ain't getting help from there, you'll have 20 people telling you the same thing and if you even try saying you've already tried that, you'll just get treated like an idiot. I went through that a couple of months ago, I had an odd problem that just wouldn't go away no matter what I tried, I ended up fixing it on my own. When the problem first happened, I went to the forums, got told to try everything I'd pretty much already stated I'd tried, any in game ticket I opened clearly stating what I'd done ended up getting closed with a lame canned response, I even bothered to call their tech support twice, the first guy at least tried to help, but he pretty much wasn't knowledgeable enough, the second time I called, I got hung up on, apparently the girl at the other end did not appreciate my sense of humor. I ended up trying something that was somewhat unrelated to the issue and somehow it fixed it, I guess it was just dumb luck.

Anyway, the point is, where do you go to get an intelligent response to a problem when the official forums make a rock look smart. Then there's security issues, Blizzard's response to that was to offer the authenticator, which you have to pay for. Every time I browse the forums, I see people who end up with stolen accounts and can't figure out how it happened, sure Blizzard will help them get the account back, very slowly and painfully, but they're not really the best when it comes to prevention. Considering how popular online gaming has become in the recent years, I think there is a need for a place where people can find good and reliable information.

I think it's all in the title of this thread, forums ARE in decline, you will be hard pressed to find any that are improving year on year,

and it IMHO, all comes down to that great human falibility, of the grass always being greener, and as pointed out earlier in the thread, it is SO much easier to be online nowadays, malware aside, there are now in excess of one BILLION PC's using the internet, all due to broadband helping to make the experience so much more immersive,

and forums are anything BUT immersive, here we can ask, and answer questions.
two dimensional at its most annoying

Social networking sites will too, have had their day in the sun soon, as the latest and greatest comes along, as people are fickle in the extreme, the only things I believe any human can be reliably expected to stick to come what may, are cigerettes :shock:

but they have allowed an entire generation to get online and generate absolute GARBAGE, things that we [forums] will routinely delete as SPAM or worse, with usernames and accounts also being chopped away to help keep the forums FOCUS on ..........

I am admin on several forums, each one different in style content size and popularity, but all connected by the downturn in forum usage

something that will never now, be returned

Oh yeah, been away a year :( and what a shitty year it has been too, now sitting here with a badly fractured knee, and a trashed motorcycle, single handedly trying to up the post count on every forum I am on :D

I Hope you get well soon. And maybe get rid of the Crotch Rocket. (Street racer in me sorry) But either way, Get well soon! No crash is something you want to be in, I've been in my share.

I joined AO back when i was like 15. I found this site off the back of some book about ethical hacking, cant really remember. I was new to the computer world then, and had alot of questions, and problems for that matter. Once you guys pointed me in the right direction, I kinda went off and did my own thing and every now and again id pop in and help with someone elses problems, or put my 2 cent here and there. I view these forums as gold mines for information. I view the community, at leasts its most active and oldest members, as the guruus of the computer world. I can honestly say if not for most of you guys here i wouldnt know nearly as much as i do now or have solved as many problems as i have solved thus far. I would love to personally sit under you guys and learn everything you know. I appreciate these forums and the members in it and i would hate to see it go.

This is the only place I go to find the answers to my problems. I would hate to see this place go, too. It's been fun and it still is fun to be here. God bless this forum and those who post here too. :)

Well, posting more helps ;)

I've currently recommended we institute a "Gaming" section for the people who play games and have issues. It's not ALL Security based obviously, but some forums for that, are so crap it's not worth looking at them. My Wife plays WoW, and those forums are like "Hey y'all! Come on in dis heer internetmajiggy and powst ur dog waffles' favrit soop"....

In other words some of the dumbest people I've ever had to look at, go there. Also, the forums have a bunch of unwashed miscreants who want your account password to sell off. My Wife gets messages all the time, which are links to click on at risk, because it steals account info. Basically, people click on a link they saw like "Hey, click on this link and go look at our WoW stuff, and sign in with your WoW account to enter and win prizes!!!!!!!!!!!!@!@!#@!@" and of course, it just steals the account log in information, and takes all your crap.

People will say on there all the time their account was "hacked" and that Blizzard is taking forever to fix it. Basically, they sell something you can buy, that SHOULD come with the game because it uses a random number of some sorts to help make logging in more safe and secure, but they charge for it, and it should come with the game.

It doesn't, so, a lot of people have security problems with it, and it's not like that is the only game where people run into security problems... I also figured people could post their specs for their Gaming Machines, and talk about Upgrades / Tweaks/ Other stuff Computer Related or Gaming Related.

We could also have cheats on there since a lot of non online games allow cheats so you can see advanced levels, or, just test out a new trick. Sort of like DooM and Quake Speed Runs. Just that they'd be under our jurisdiction.

I think we need to reach out with more Media style stuff too, which would easily get people posting about a new song they like (Most Hackers Love Music, and Making it, so understanding how Music Creation works isn't all that far stretched from us now) and being that I too make music, and so does my Wife, I wouldn't have any issue uploading some stuff I've done.

We also have a lot of people here who like Video stuff. Not just Video Editing, but Video production too, and that could be tapped as well.

And right now, the same Buzz Words we've heard for a decade about "MultiMedia PCs" are still there! Why not tap into it? Everyone who has a computer talks about Multi Media and so on, why not take advantage?

Anyway, those are some changes I'm recommending. I'll also be moderating them with Nihil, and Joe, and even though I'm no Game guru, we have some here Believe me!

The first thing I want to see changed is the look of the site. Secondly, I want you to host exploits I find in a fashion similiar to exploit-db.com

And thirdly, I want you to run a web based vulnerability scanner I've written in php. Putting it up for download isn't enought. I want it to be a feature in everyone's user control panel here.

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Originally Posted by The-Spec

The first thing I want to see changed is the look of the site. Secondly, I want you to host exploits I find in a fashion similiar to exploit-db.com

And thirdly, I want you to run a web based vulnerability scanner I've written in php. Putting it up for download isn't enought. I want it to be a feature in everyone's user control panel here.

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There's been a big push to the new owners about changing certain stuff around the site.

i'm very doubting the owners would be open to hosting exploits or even having an active scanner running from the site also.

maybe you should grab some hosting and a domain name and link to it in your signature or something Specialist?

they probablt WON'T want exploits in any way shape or form, same for the scanner, but that is no reason not to make the request ......
Gore may have some good points as to the future, in that it has to encompass more, but it still comes down to the forum, it could be the best forum out there, but it is just a forum, and there days are past now.

The big crowds are into different things today, and we may not WANT the masses here, but we do NEED them :(

a possible alternative is to call an end to AO as is, and start off afresh with a new front end, with the old stuff, specifically the tutorials, being accessed via links to a 'sub-forum', the new face of AO to be set out in a more 'user friendly' 'intuitive' design, with 'portals' for media / music / IT in ALL its guises, so that WOULD require a little give on the part of the bill payer, as exploits, and their creation, discovery, use, detection, protection from are ALL required reading.

on a side note, I would keep the AP's :D
mainly cos I got a HUGE pile :P
but also because it is a sign that this is still AO

As for how this would be implemented ............. feck knows. BUt it would have to see AO up and running as is until the very last minute, then getting a few of the more senior members to 'beta' run the new set up. see if they have issues, It would not be good to be down a week as they were for the last 'upgrade'

Will it happen :?
doubt it
because in this 'brave' new world, noone wants to put pennies into a virtual world, that appears to have had its day

so it would appear we have to alter that perception first

THEN we can ask for exploits :D

Hi there foxy~

Sorry to hear about the knee, and the bike..........the bike can be repaired or replaced, but as we advance in years the healing process certainly slows down :D

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it could be the best forum out there, but it is just a forum, and their days are past now.

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That's pretty much how I see it as well.................the dedicated remain but the fashion fans have moved elsewhere. Basically the novelty has worn off, and I don't see it coming back.

one thing I don't get though, the social networking sites don't really have much in the way of conversations. I mean if you look at most people's Facebook or similar, there are usually no more than a few responses in each little string of conversation. There are no protracted discussions about anything. I think one aspect of their success is novelty based, and that will wear off also.

True
but at least the social sites keep these places clearer :?
but even when they DO wane, the users there, are NOT the type interested in IT in any way shape or form, so are a lost cause for our purposes

and to attract the upcoming gneration, you will need to offer them something that isn't just IT tech, it MIGHT be media / music etc, which is TBH IT Tech too, but for now, it isn't :D

and to do so 'we' WILL have to adapt to the new familiar, social sites are the way that people do utilise the www today, each day on FB they get more LOG INS than AO has had VISITS in AO's entire history
at present they [FB] are getting up to 300 MILLION users actively using their accounts daily
AO's biggest online, before the upgrade was 5000 .........
it IS a new phenomenom, and one that can no longer be ignored

I am also part of the TAZ forums, we too, would like more members, but for us, it is not too vital, as we do it just for the 'fun', any income generated would be nice ...........

but here .......... it is VITAL to AO's future as ANY type of web presence the it adapts to what we HAVE, NOT what we would like .......

and for that, I point you to my earlier post.

it may too, just finally exorcise JP's ghost from here too, as he would no longer be able to say that this was all his 'concept'

my 0.02c

[edit]
adding pic of me poor old knee, no work for a year :) but no income either :(
[/edit]

I'm not ignoring them, but I just don't get the allure of them. Especially twitter. Just an avenue to spout at the world? Who needs that?

Not only that, you can catch shameful diseases from them :eek:

http://www.antionline.com/showthread.php?t=278842

:lildevil:

:D

I didn't read the entire thread to be honest but this is a factor which might contribute to the decrease in posts which may or may not have been mentioned.

I believe that the new layout (way back when) partly contributed to the decline of AO, don't get me wrong I love the new layout (partly because I forgot how the old one looks). One feature I do remember was that we each had a tutorial count under our avatar. My number was 0 but writing a tutorial (much like the reps) gave you a sort of reputation or respect among the community and encouraged people to write more tutorials.

Many people stumbled upon AO (As I did) through Google and read information (possibly from a tutorial) that helped them. Some users registered, others just read what they needed and left. I notice that the tutorials in the tutorial forum are months apart in latest posts.

This is just my theory at least and I think this feature should return to AO in order to bring back AO to where it once was.

Possibly, but there was no choice. That version of the software had long since been abandoned by vBulletin.

Well, for what it's worth, I admin another (non-tech) forum that's also in decline relative to its golden old days. As I said in the other thread on the exact same topic (:P), forums in general. Pity though, I love this old place. I've been here since college -- It was thanks to you guys that I was able to go from a know-nothing to being able to get on my own two feet in the IT world. Seriously.

I remember Nihil mailing me copies of Win95/98 all the way over the pond for me to toy around with back when I was getting started. I STILL have them. :D

Anyway, two reasons I'm not on much: One, I don't do general IT anymore. I work at Oracle and focus on mostly one specific software program. So I no longer have my various and sundry odd issues to report here like I used to. Second, the folks I usually sought help from aren't around anymore, so usually when I do start a thread, it promptly dies. At least Nihil, Foxy, gore, and a few others are still here to bug.

All that said, a gaming section would be wonderful. Mainly because I am rusty nowadays, I'm spending time building my own custom gaming rig and learning my way through the ins and outs of the hardware (something I've never been good at). Heck, I've had a video card problem I've been fighting with over the past 6 months that would've made a great discussion topic. So if you start a gaming section, I'm all over it.

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If you are now trying to hold down a job and raise a young family, you just don't have the time that you had at High-School & College. Also, a family is just that.....you cannot seriously expect to live the same lifestyle that you did when you were single?

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Except many of the posters had full time jobs. Quad, Juridian, myself, etc. I actually stopped showing up so much after I lost my job :P

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And then before that, the new staff members and Admins and Moderators, ALL got banned when they joined because that moron forgot to give them little GOLD DOTS and a bunch of people got together and Negged them all into being banned!

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Now see, you should at least get the story right before you complain about JP not giving them gold dots. The ONE person that got banned this way REQUESTED that he not have gold dots. He said he didn't need them and didn't want to sperate himself or some crap (that was years ago, I don't remember his actual wording). It was at that point that I decided to ban him, and got a few people together to ban him. I think it took a total of 6 people to pull it off.


As I stated somewhere else today, the downfal of AO for a lot of people was the loss of IRC. Even though not all the members used it, the people that posted the most often were on IRC all the time. It was a natural flow between IRC and the forums.

Social networking has nothing to do with it. If I have a problem trying to fix a blue screen error, I'm not going to go on Facebook to try to fix it.

And it "used" to be, you would type in some bug or error, and AO was always one of the first few links to show up. That is how we got a lot of our members also. It wasn't because AO advertised, it was because the ammount of discussion and activity the site had pushed it up in the google and yahoo rankings.

Internet Filtering

Job Survival mode

General decline of forums to Facebook My Space etc

Outsourcing Security

Professional Pay Sites

Just ****ING Busy



Hi...

the site declined because I ceased having xmas nights out.

Mark,

I am sure that the local feline population are well pleased that your particular death threat is no longer around :D

New members may like to check on Mark Boyle's earlier posts........in his old account.

:drink::lildevil:

Haha, by some funny coincidence, I just happened to stumble across this old bookmark thought I'd peek in... I guess I'm not the only one that had forgot about AO..!

Hi there Ammo, long time no see, how are you keeping?

And what happened to the avatar.............it was a big fish with a machine gun as I recall?

:D

It was the OpenBSD Mascot. I remembered lol. Only member here who really knew anything about OpenBSD was Ammo.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ammo

Haha, by some funny coincidence, I just happened to stumble across this old bookmark thought I'd peek in... I guess I'm not the only one that had forgot about AO..!

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Lol me too! Well, i decided to google my username and see what sites i could find and this was number 5 on the results and I thought "Aww i miss that place, why did i stop visiting it in the first place?". So i decided to hop on by again (After a year or so!) and put my 2c in about why I disappear for years at a time. :(

When i first joined, i was (as already mentioned by nihil) in college and had many hours to spend on here. When i come here, i cant just skim some topics and be happy, i have to find the topics that i want to follow and will usually chime in with my opinion. This usually leads me into spending a lot of time here. Now I have a full time web design job and a part time design job for another company and have practically 0 time for anything else. Not even for my precious MMO's!

Also, I have a lot of colleagues at work that I can discuss security, programming, etc. and needing to post those questions online becomes less required to get my answers. Not to mention, people are way better at googling things these days than they were 5 or more years ago. Also back in the day here, if someone asked a question that they could answer on their own, the general response was (GOOGLE IT) -- and I think they did and they realized that its easier to do that then wait for someone that can help them on their specific topic. Hindsight, right?

I too miss the old AO days and trying to pick out the members that i would soon see on the banned list and reading through it(was my favorite thing lol). But times, they are a changing and I think the people that are into security, programming, etc already have their favorite places to learn about current practices and such so their need to discuss anything is not really needed as much. Today, the only forum i really use is MSDN and that is about it. I think a lot of people are the same way... Ok, occationally i'll read a cracked article or two and post on their forums.. =-O

I guess I could also bring up SEO -- I had originally found this site (if memory serves me correctly) by googling something and seeing this site on the first page. Now when i google something, i rarely see AO on the first page and im guessing that could have an impact too. I don't think that there is much that can really be done about it but it could be a possibility of why less people are finding AO.

Also, I kinda disagree about people replacing forums with myspace and facebook. About 99% of the people i see on either of those sites are talking about themselves or sending the typical "Hey, how have you been! Its been years!" messages to one another. No real discussions of any kind that i usually see.

Im adding ao to my bookmarks so i wont forget to pop by more often!

Edit: to back up my earlier mention about how i spend hours on here. Just typing this post and thinking of the areas I brought up, took me about 45 minutes lol.. I used to do that to like 4 or 5 posts a night.. Now im all worried that I should have been working! Good thing i had today off :D

Hey!


Please be sure that you do :D

I actually joined after AO was sold and IRC was no longer affiliated to the site and I thought it was great. I wasn't even around for the "good old days", but I still loved the site. I got a lot out of it before I discovered IRC, and when I finally did find IRC, my frequency of posts declined dramatically. I visit AO off and on every few months, but almost never post anymore.

We had some really bright people posting some great tutorials and giving good advice for a while. Something scared them off or they just got too busy or a combination of the two. I know when I was in college I fooled around a lot more with tech stuff so I needed a site like AO more. Now that I have a full time job, I just don't have time to mess around like I used to. I still check out security sites every once in a while, but not nearly like I used to.

It's probably just a generation thing. We had a good generation providing great content, and we got overwhelmed by the new generation with a mixture of people sincerely wanting to learn (not very common), and people just needing to get something to work, or trying to hack hotmail.

I'm just spitballin though, It's probably a combination of a lot of different things. I know for me it was mostly moving on with my life, but had a few key members stuck around I probably would have stuck around longer and used the site more often.

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Originally Posted by souleman

Except many of the posters had full time jobs. Quad, Juridian, myself, etc. I actually stopped showing up so much after I lost my job :P


Now see, you should at least get the story right before you complain about JP not giving them gold dots. The ONE person that got banned this way REQUESTED that he not have gold dots. He said he didn't need them and didn't want to sperate himself or some crap (that was years ago, I don't remember his actual wording). It was at that point that I decided to ban him, and got a few people together to ban him. I think it took a total of 6 people to pull it off.


As I stated somewhere else today, the downfal of AO for a lot of people was the loss of IRC. Even though not all the members used it, the people that posted the most often were on IRC all the time. It was a natural flow between IRC and the forums.

Social networking has nothing to do with it. If I have a problem trying to fix a blue screen error, I'm not going to go on Facebook to try to fix it.

And it "used" to be, you would type in some bug or error, and AO was always one of the first few links to show up. That is how we got a lot of our members also. It wasn't because AO advertised, it was because the ammount of discussion and activity the site had pushed it up in the google and yahoo rankings.

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Souleman, it's been a long time amigo. We never opened our women only spa and health club we talked about so much. :D

The last time I even looked at this site was a year ago, before that - who knows... years likely. When I stumbled upon this thread it was like a blast back to 2001-2002. I can't believe I'm posting on AO now, it's weird.

AO used to be a real community. Love or hate JP, he brought us all together with technology, to talk about technology. We all made AO what it was back then, and even somewhat of what it is today. I don't read AO anymore and haven't for many years but it seems to be just a corporate run shell of a once great site. People knew each other outside of IRC or the forums. People got married, hooked up, wanted to kill each other, etc. It was a lot of fun. I just went back and read some of my archived posts; man I was a real dick. Now I'm an old man, no longer full of fire and vitriol that used to be normal on internet forums.

-Quad

Meh... change happens whether we like it or not.


This site still has hope.

Anybody for antipoints?

When they were prominent the site was much more active; as soon as they faded into the background, activity declined markedly ;)