New users might be attracted to different media: Twitter, Telegram chats or Reddit. All those forums are quite different, but all 9fcthem, bar reddit, are prone to a very short attention span. Search functions are very limited and I can’t see JJG posting one of his wall of texts on a Teegram chat, where it would be immediately spammed by users asking “when lambo?” Or “I bought shitcoin DEN and I have been scammed!”.
Largely this.
Younger generations probably think this looks old. But this forum is a rich historical artefact, with a slick interface. It brings together experts that you may not see in other places.
Forum are more of a slow rhythm, deep tought, knowledge intensive conversations (yeah WO thread included), while other media look to me more like instant gut-feeling dominated brawls.
You probably have fewer trolls due to the way this forum is set up. In other media, you are contending with that you have single day accounts that can dominate conversations, which could be a normal user or paid by a corporation to do so.
To me this is what our forum has to offer:
- longest serving bitcoin forum on the internet
- world class list of users. Not only satoshi, but also @gregmaxell, @achow101, @elwar or @theymos himself are the first came to my mind
- Ideal platform to knowledge exchange. Allowing to pondered, well written and formatted post, without the need to abide to the prevailing short attention span (160 chars on TW, almost instant like reaction time needed for TG chats
- world spread userbase, providing a diverse approach and omnicultural experience about bitcoin
- ability to integrate/link other media into the forum. You can add link YouTube videos, tweets or external website as a reference, and discuss their contents on the forum (they are called hyperlinks, I know. Not a big deal in 2021, but still..)
For your list of users, you could do a brief survey with them and ask them what sites they use the most. It probably isn't bitcointalk, except when big news hits.
Why are reddit, twitter, etc attracting users away from forums? A large single account can be used to talk about many different topics with a large userbase. A bit like core, you can replicate software but you need to replicate that dynamic. I don't think it's doable as is.
Really to have a broader userbase and forum that doesn't 'die', you'd have to solve the social media issues. While this forum may still decline, it's active. It may come to an equilibrium level. There are regular posts every day. Perhaps it hasn't been advertised in a while -- but do you really want to do that? Would it help? I don't know?
- mobile theme. Allowing decent navigation from mobiles (something I already expressed in my interview
- ability to relaunch your posts on different social media. I have tried to “shill” Bitcointalk.org trough my Twitter @fillippone1. All I got are 51 followers, I suspect half of them are bots. Same on the Italian bitcoin TG chat, where I continuously mention Bitcointalk.org: same result, no apparent effect on the local board. Maybe it’s just the fact I suck at PR
- Do I really need to mention? New software?
What do you think? Do you think forum is losing userbase and this is a bad thing? Are there other reasons this is happening and other solutions?
I look at this forum on mobile, and it doesn't work perfectly. Ok to see interesting topics, but could be a lot slicker for browsing. A mobile app as well?
Ability to launch to other social media is ok, but social media will change. It's not a deal breaker IMO.
What would new software do? It seems fine as it is.
I don't think it's a bad thing to lose userbase. This community should be preserved due to its historical information, and due to the consolidated expert knowledge that you cannot find in other locations. It's also nice to have a location that isn't controlled by the people who have bought the most stock in a public company and thereby influence it.
It's active and rich of knowledge, so I see no real issues other than enabling a better mobile experience.