Have any of you noticed a decrease in forum activity?

[Goty]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

I think it has to do with forums in general becoming less popular since it has to compete against web 2.0 shit and whatnot.

Yeah, every forum i have been visiting over the past 10-15 years has noticeably lower activity these days, when they're not gone, that is. Although i can say the quality of the discussions and posts is generally higher in the same forums now.

[Artful Dodger]

Yeah I agree. Part of the reason why the quality is relatively high is because forums these days consist of an older crowd who've been using them for probably ~10 years. Even if an immature member joins up, he/she is less likely to try and troll once they notice the general behavior of the place.

I don't think forums are dying out though, imo some need a better presentation, or a revamping. Lots of the popular web 2.0 social media sites are essentially forums presented in new ways.

[Marcus H.]

Web 2.0 would be the death of Animesuki. There's a reason why people held on to AS in spite of the various other means to discuss anime, and being a site that changed very little over its lifespan is one of those reasons.

[Cosmic Eagle]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

Web 2.0 would be the death of Animesuki. There's a reason why people held on to AS in spite of the various other means to discuss anime, and being a site that changed very little over its lifespan is one of those reasons.

I think the reason many remain here (I at any rate) is personal interaction with those on our contact/friend list. If there were no other form of private contact method, I don't see that changing. Anything that would affect that would indeed kill the site

[ChainLegacy]

I've remained here because I'm a creature of habit... I just got lucky that one of the few forums I ever joined was so well run by the staff and has quality discussion from the members.

As for activity, I've noticed the *type* of discussion in general chat has changed over the years (I've noticed the trend has shifted towards more regional politics discussion and less philosophy type threads since 5 years ago). The other forums are harder to gauge because, obviously, mega-popular series like Code Geass or FMA will attract more discussion and they only come along every so often.

[Owlman]

It does look less active than before to me, at least in the places i browse and/or participate. But what is the staff is willing to do about this issue? From what I understand, the site is run by them on their spare time, and isn't run for profit either(not that im condemning that). Decreasing activity can be a serious problem for a forum, and large forums can take a very substantial amount of effort to maintain and grow. What can be done about it?

[Liddo-kun]

Not really noticed much of a decrease, probably because the places that I frequent are a bit limited.. the Chuunibyou and Happiness Precure areas are still active.

It's nice to stay in this place because the moderators do a good job.

[Infinite Zenith]

I stick around mainly for keeping in touch with some members, access anime news and see the other members' Gundam models

[JPZ]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

The "New Member Per Year" stat is misleading, though, because we implemented more advanced spam controls in more recent years.

2005 blip is due to the great forum crash.

I remember that crash

I should post more actually, don't know why i never did.

[Sheba]

I think there is also the fact that most of those "veterans" have gotten, well, old. Less time for watching anime, and discussing anime. As a consequence people pick up a few anime they knows it cater to their interest and step in discussions that interest them. Once in a while you get your show of the caliber of Geass, Madoka and Attack on Titan. It's... cyclic. No need to worry.

[Haruyasha]

Web 2.0 certainly isn't entirely the reason why this site is struggling to stay alive.

You're overlooking how this website (http://www.animesuki.com) completely lost its original purpose. Of course it's going to die if there is no reason to come here.

Compare that to Crunchyroll and MyAnimeList, which both have thriving communities as a result of what the websites provide in addition to forums.

To revive the community, it would need to specialize in something. (Something that isn't indexing torrents, because aside legality, AnimeSuki lost its competitive edge in this department a long time ago.)

On top of that, it would need to integrate the community aspect into the main website. (As currently it is separated from the main website.)

[SeijiSensei]

To suggest that Crunchyroll discussions, which largely consist of at most a sentence or two, provide any real competition to these forums is laughable. I see at lot of comments at CR along the lines of this one for One Week Friends, "I can sum it in three words. I lovvvvvvvvvveeeee it."

Most online anime discussions lack depth. I'll stick with AS, thank you, where the commentators are generally thoughtful and intelligent.

[Haruyasha]

Well sure, that's the younger generation. You can't deny that most of us were like that at one point.
(Have you seen the 15 and 16 year olds at anime conventions? - That line matches them pretty well.)

I'm sure the website can do something to satisfy the existing members by creating a secluded area for them to talk, one that would require less moderation. I'm just saying that this forum will die out if the website doesn't find a way to attract and embrace new members. As nice as it is to have "intelligent discussions", a lot of people in their 20s move on in life.

[relentlessflame]

Honestly, the most likely probability (and I say probability because it isn't a sure/fully-decided thing) is that the forums will simply become AnimeSuki -- a place to have (hopefully intelligent) discussions about anime, manga, light novels, and other related media and topics. That will have its value to some people, and not to others, but as long as we continue to have a community of interesting people who love to discuss things, that can sustain the site for at least a while. Even as some people "in their 20s" move on, there will always be a new group of people who are looking for something more than what is offered elsewhere on the Net.

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Honestly, the most likely probability (and I say probability because it isn't a sure/fully-decided thing) is that the forums will simply become AnimeSuki -- a place to have (hopefully intelligent) discussions about anime, manga, light novels, and other related media and topics. That will have its value to some people, and not to others, but as long as we continue to have a community of interesting people who love to discuss things, that can sustain the site for at least a while. Even as some people "in their 20s" move on, there will always be a new group of people who are looking for something more than what is offered elsewhere on the Net.

I can only speak for myself but I have to say that I hardly ever used the tracker myself. I've always came to this site for the forum and the quality of discussion found within it rather than for the downloads.

[Triple_R]

IIRC, I discovered Anime Suki a long, long time ago due to doing a Google image search for Nanoha Takamachi. It brought me to the image thread on the Nanoha subforum here on Anime Suki. From there, I discovered the wider forum, and not long after that I chose to become a member here.

If the goal is to simply draw more eyeballs to this site, then perhaps there's ways to make search engine searches bring up Anime Suki more often. In fact, wasn't that part of the aim behind the tag system we have here? Or am I misremembering there?

[Sackett]

I too came here only for the forums.

However, if the forums are going to be the main attraction perhaps there needs to be more done to keep retired show sub-forums more available and alive. The limitation on new threads is a big block to new discussion. In active sub-forums it's okay since the moderators are pretty active and can create new discussion threads.

Perhaps retired sub-forums should allow a greater number of members to create new threads?

This would allow the meatier discussions to continue on as they develop. For example instead of a single Rebellion thread in the Madoka forum there would be threads on Rebellion symbolism, and another on Homura's motivation. This kind of division would allow for slower discussion progression.

That would be a way to try and keep the current user base more involved and would feed off the most popular and analytical anime.

The other option is to expand animesuki to things that are symbiotic with the forums.

Image threads for example right now are just a list of posts with images that are hard to organize. Perhaps a booru or some other image organizer that can integrate with the forums?

So there would be an image thread with images, but you could also go to that image and track just the responses to that image - both in comments and in other images posted in reply?

That would attract the fan work crew who are a dedicated fanbase. The differentiation being that we would focus more on discussion and community of artists rather then just a collection a whole bunch of pictures. Organization by shows would keep the art more community based? I'm thinking more of a place you go to get criticism and bounce ideas off each other instead of a display location.

Another possibility would be a place to post reviews of completed shows. Perhaps with some kind of voting/reputation so the community can identify the reviews they think are the best. (Non-spoiler and Spoiler categories?)

This would draw on the skills of the older fanbase that is available here at AnimeSuki, while also attracting newbies who are curious about an anime they've heard about but want to know more.

Or perhaps we formalize the AnimeSuki Choice awards with an actual form for entries and a better way for users to browse through the winners and runners up when looking for a new anime to watch. Again benefiting people seeking new shows to watch.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Sackett

Perhaps retired sub-forums should allow a greater number of members to create new threads?

This would allow the meatier discussions to continue on as they develop. For example instead of a single Rebellion thread in the Madoka forum there would be threads on Rebellion symbolism, and another on Homura's motivation. This kind of division would allow for slower discussion progression.

That would be a way to try and keep the current user base more involved and would feed off the most popular and analytical anime.

I like this idea. Opening up more thread creation on older series/retired series subforums might be a good way to breath added life and dynamism into those subforums.

I also think it would reflect Anime Suki's "competitive edge", if you will, over a lot of other anime-focused sites. And it's a competitive edge that could easily play well to dedicated fan communities for particular anime franchises.

Basically, Anime Suki has become a place for long-form, long-term, specialized discussion. It's philosophy strikes me as almost the complete opposite of Twitter, and so it would naturally attract people who want something meatier than what Web 2.0 tends to provide.

[relentlessflame]

In general terms, we have gone precisely the opposite direction in terms of older shows, keeping our focus on newer content, and gradually allowing older franchises to phase out. (This is why they get even more restricted once retired.) This is partly because the communities for older franchises tend to be very "clique-ish", and they tend to want to play by their own rules which aren't necessarily compatible with our general policy and forum philosophy. They often seem to basically become Social Groups that keep on debating endlessly about the same topics (often shipping-related) and tend to favour creating increasingly inane topic suggestions just to give people "something to do". They are also hard to moderate because they're older sub-forums and aren't visited as often by the moderation team, despite being visited regularly by a core team of regulars. Increasing the emphasis on older series would mean that the amount of sub-forums that need active moderation would only ever increase with time. So, basically, my experience is that trying to manage communities for older series is something that has consistently gone badly on this forum, so it would not be my first choice in terms of an area to "specialize" in.

The other thing is that I've tried splitting out topics into their own threads, and tried to encourage people to create more creative threads. But most of the time people end up with very similar options to what we already have, and people even complain when comprehensive threads get split up into pieces. So it's still open to debate whether loosening the policy will result in more interesting threads, or if it'll just result in more stupid and duplicate threads (which means more things to moderate in areas of the forums that are less visited). And if people do have suggestions for interesting threads for older series, why not just suggest it now as it is? There's no reason why interesting, useful threads couldn't be created now, just because a mod has to approve the idea first. So although I'm not opposed to trying ideas that could increase the variety and uniqueness of threads in sub-forums, I suspect that it'll require much more active moderation to manage the process, and older series isn't necessarily where I'd want to put that effort.


As far as the other suggestions:
- Image threads require a lot of storage to host, a lot of effort to moderate, and are already done extensively elsewhere. Plus they also have certain conventions/standard practices that are not necessarily compatible with our moderation philosophy.

- There are also a number of anime sites that tie forums to reviews, including a few rather well-known ones. Plus, becoming a repository for reviews is sort of like some sort of organized blog aggregator, which has its own dynamics. I'm not really sure what the big differentiator here is, or what need we could serve better than what's out there.

- As far as the choice awards go... basically it would take someone on the staff who has a passion and vision for that, along with the time/ability to do the needed work. I certainly appreciate that the are some very dedicated and passionate people who have helped the project grow over the years, and I hope it continues to grow. But I'm not sure that the current staff have anything really beneficial to contribute at this point regarding the running of the contest itself, and it's probably better if the people who are already passionate about it keep doing it.


So I'm not saying that there aren't areas where the site could grow and expand, but none of these really stick out to me as a need I think we're uniquely-positioned or well-poised to fill.

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

- As far as the choice awards go... basically it would take someone on the staff who has a passion and vision for that, along with the time/ability to do the needed work. I certainly appreciate that the are some very dedicated and passionate people who have helped the project grow over the years, and I hope it continues to grow. But I'm not sure that the current staff have anything really beneficial to contribute at this point regarding the running of the contest itself, and it's probably better if the people who are already passionate about it keep doing it.

The only thing that could help when it comes to the choice awards was to give the results sticky status for a year or even a subforum in general anime. That way it would be simple to point people to the results. But that's just a bias on my part (since I find the yearly event particularly well managed and interesting).