Reduced forum activity

[Jet Cash]

I'm starting to notice that several forums, including Bitcoin Talk, are not as active as they were a while ago. Also many of the threads and posts seem to be of lower quality. I would have thought that the lock downs would have increased activity, but maybe people are playing games and watching Netflix instead. I'm increasing my domain development, so maybe it is just that I'm spending more time on the net, and getting impatient. Has anyone else noticed a slowdown?

[1715535904]

1715535904

[jackg]

We're certainly very far from the 2017 levels, there's probably fewer bounties and stuff now too to keep people here.

I'm expecting a pot of people had ambition to start something new and then decided to put it off until tomorrow and then do that every day - I was meant to send an email in March and I'm still working on it...

I always think, whenever there's a slowdown, there's normally an advantage for people bullish on cryptocurrency to start projects and start building stuff without an immonant crash or ensuing fomo.

[BIT-BENDER]

 The covid 19 lockdown has made people available and free, social media activities would be the one rising now, people linking up more because they have become more available than they used to be.

Ponzi schemes and it likes has increased and interest has shifted towards it -foolishly aim to use the covid19 lockdown to earn that way-.

But acknowledging that, also we would appreciate the activities we have been getting, some/more has been of gain. If covid 19 lockdown has reduced spam posters, it's fine. In between I pray we haven't and won't lose good posters.

[Little Mouse]

We're certainly very far from the 2017 levels, there's probably fewer bounties and stuff now too to keep people here.

There are more than enough bounties there but they are not enough worthy to join. Very few bounties hit listing nowadays and even if they get listed, the payment is too low. This has been the regular scenerio of bounty since late 2018 which can be a reason of getting activity reduced.
Regarding quality, I think very few people are here with the motivation of learning about bitcoin, crypto, building business on crypto etc. Most people are motivated with the financial gain. That's why there is lack if quality discussion.

[KaneVWE]

Until the next full bull run it will remain slow.
When bitcoin blasts past 20k along with a lot of the top alts breaking ath
the media will be all over it again and pumpers and whales will be back to feast.

I also do not think this forum is as attractive to absolute noobs to snatch some chances as it was previously.
That was probably a necessity but I dont know if you will ever see activity here like in the last 2 bulls.

Institutional interest and activity will not pass through this board.

I would love to see this forum peak again or exceed the old peeks of activity but how to juggle the chaos and retain some quality and credibility is a tough one.

For bitcoin it will not matter for non top 20alts that could be a big problem.  They may not get the exposure this board has provided in the past. I think the gold rush days are behind us.

I hope I'm wrong and this forum blasts past old records and some great alts that have been forgotten get some needed exposure. Lets see. I dont like other mediums out there and this forum could still be a great community if the right people were to return.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Jet Cash, I've definitely noticed this and when there was a thread bumped recently about the 1-merit requirement for Jr. Member status, I posted that I thought I might have been losing interest in the forum--but it's not that.  There's been a lot less activity on the forum lately, and I've noticed it in Meta and Reputation (two of my favorite sections). 

I don't know what happened.  Are there fewer bounties/signature campaigns these days?  Maybe members find ranking up too hard and thus can't earn much in sig campaigns?  We all know how much bitcointalk's traffic depends on bounty hunters/campaigners.  I have Services on ignore--and the bounty section, too--so I haven't had a sense of whether there have been as many of them available to members as there were in, say, 2017.

There are more than enough bounties there but they are not enough worthy to join. Very few bounties hit listing nowadays and even if they get listed, the payment is too low.

Yeah, but hasn't that always been the case with bounties?  I don't think any of that ever stopped financially desperate members from participating in them before.

Regarding quality, I think very few people are here with the motivation of learning about bitcoin, crypto, building business on crypto etc. Most people are motivated with the financial gain. That's why there is lack if quality discussion.

That's always been true, at least for the entire time I've been a member here.  There has to be another reason or reasons.

[Nellayar]

We're certainly very far from the 2017 levels, there's probably fewer bounties and stuff now too to keep people here.

There are more than enough bounties there but they are not enough worthy to join. Very few bounties hit listing nowadays and even if they get listed, the payment is too low. This has been the regular scenerio of bounty since late 2018 which can be a reason of getting activity reduced.
Regarding quality, I think very few people are here with the motivation of learning about bitcoin, crypto, building business on crypto etc. Most people are motivated with the financial gain. That's why there is lack if quality discussion.

This is the main reason why there is reduction in the number of posters in this forum. Maybe, others have an alternative way to earn in cryptocurrency while others have stopped following crypto because bounty campaigns nowadays are not worthy and just a waste of time. Quality posting is still exercise in forum, there are still campaigners or posters which are eager to post quality reply or threads. We just admit that financial gain is part of the motivation that drives every user in forum.

[Eureka_07]

It's probably because they are already tired. Countless efforts on participating on different bounties but will not receive any good amount of profit from their work. Who's not gonna get tired if this kind of a not so good faith keep happens to you? Bounties that are not worth to put any effort keeps on popping, no good return on the bounty hunter leading them to a conclusion to leave this crypto space.

I really hope that some worthy bounty to come up and atleast give those bounty hunters what they deserved.

[mk4]

Definitely noticed this too in the past few weeks. It became a habit for me to refresh certain subforums that I'm interested in, and I'm frequently ever-so-slightly disappointed to not see a new decent topic posted.

If my memory serves me right though, I think we had a decent spike up in activity in the first few weeks of the lockdowns? Correct me if I'm wrong.

[friends1980]

I guess a lot of people also arrived in 2017-2018 because BTC was seriously hyped and "new" or "unknown" to many people - call it FOMO if you want.

Even though current prices of BTC (and altcoins) are doing fine, interest seems to slow down (edit: or stabilize), and I think it's quite simply because the period of "hype" has made place for a period of "oh bitcoin, wasn't that a thing of the previous decade?". I guess you're expecting too much of people's general attention span, JC.

[Upgrade00]

I have noticed a drop in activity over the past months, although I think it could be a case of me finding fewer threads that interest me in the boards I frequently visit.
I looked at https://sitechecker.pro/traffic-checker/ to monitor the traffic on the forum over the last 6 months; can't confirm how accurate the chart is, but it shows an increase in traffic from last month after a drop between May and June;

If the chart is accurate, I would assume there was a spike in activity before May in anticipation for the halving and most people lost interest after that, as there was minimal change in price, leading to the drop in activity (this also coincides with the onset of lockdown in many countries as suggested by @mk4 above).
The current spike in traffic (last updated in August) could be a result of increased interest from institutional investors, such as the microstrategy purchase. The public may be getting bullish again about Bitcoin and renewing interest in it.

[lovesmayfamilis]

It's probably because they are already tired. Countless efforts on participating on different bounties but will not receive any good amount of profit from their work. Who's not gonna get tired if this kind of a not so good faith keep happens to you? Bounties that are not worth to put any effort keeps on popping, no good return on the bounty hunter leading them to a conclusion to leave this crypto space.

I really hope that some worthy bounty to come up and atleast give those bounty hunters what they deserved.

Frankly speaking, participation in bounty campaigns was not limited to one account in the past. Each bounty hunter had several alternatives. Today, bounty requirements have become tough, and a lot of people on the forum are tracking cheating. From here, you can calculate the real number of people that could have been on the forum in the past, if by that time you apply today's conditions.

[cryptoaddictchie]

I would have thought that the lock downs would have increased activity, but maybe people are playing games and watching Netflix instead.

This inevitable mate. Some users are probably busy enjoying themselves by doing netflix and other fun stuff on the web. Also I think, the lack of signature campaign opened make some users bit lazy. To be honest this is one of the reason that a user post frequently and we do seldom find some users posting without signature.

Also you can say they are busy playing on uniswap with a lot of shitcoins around investing on defi shitcoins that can go to the moon.

[tranthidung]

I'm starting to notice that several forums, including Bitcoin Talk, are not as active as they were a while ago.

Actively does not equal to same or better quality. Sometimes it cause worse things like what forum has circa 2017 and lasted till nearly end of January 2018 when merit system was kicked off.

Also many of the threads and posts seem to be of lower quality.

I agree with you on this, totally. They created threads probably to beg for merit. Honestly, chances to earn merits nowadays are much easier than in 2018 and before May or June of 2019.

Has anyone else noticed a slowdown?

How do you define your active variable?

From data, for last 2 months and a half, levels of activities -- for new posts, topics, members daily, are very stable. I don't have data for previous period so that I can not compare. At least you did not provide which period you want to compare current activity with.

Sources:

• Time Series on monthly statistics of forum (new users, new topics, new posts)
• Assumed monthly statistics on registered accounts of bitcointalk.org (2009-2019)

Raw data for period from 01/7/2020 to 19/9/2020
In the plot, I used multiplier at 10 for n_mem, n_topics to have better comparative plot.

Code:

     +----------------------------------------+
     |      date   n_mem   n_topics   n_posts |
     |----------------------------------------|
  1. | 01jul2020       .          .         . |
  2. | 02jul2020     333        184      5551 |
  3. | 03jul2020     393        164      5523 |
  4. | 04jul2020     421        178      5532 |
  5. | 05jul2020     335        135      5091 |
     |----------------------------------------|
  6. | 06jul2020     316         85      5585 |
  7. | 07jul2020     501        148      5300 |
  8. | 08jul2020     391        172      6368 |
  9. | 09jul2020     361        202      6724 |
 10. | 10jul2020     418        133      6448 |
     |----------------------------------------|
 11. | 11jul2020     417         82      6455 |
 12. | 12jul2020     361        123      6025 |
 13. | 13jul2020     277        111      6377 |
 14. | 14jul2020     369        166      6615 |
 15. | 15jul2020     404        154      7369 |
     |----------------------------------------|
 16. | 16jul2020     437        158      7049 |
 17. | 17jul2020     398        176      6929 |
 18. | 18jul2020     398        136      6500 |
 19. | 19jul2020     351         96      6228 |
 20. | 20jul2020     471        151      7534 |
     |----------------------------------------|
 21. | 21jul2020     384        153      6698 |
 22. | 22jul2020     399        155      6870 |
 23. | 23jul2020     376        176      6511 |
 24. | 24jul2020     345        100      6567 |
 25. | 25jul2020     372        166      6532 |
     |----------------------------------------|
 26. | 26jul2020     312        130      6262 |
 27. | 27jul2020     286        145      6948 |
 28. | 28jul2020     388         59      6536 |
 29. | 29jul2020     382        175      6773 |
 30. | 30jul2020     391        171      6403 |
     |----------------------------------------|
 31. | 31jul2020     402        196      6175 |
 32. | 01aug2020     401         69      6810 |
 33. | 02aug2020     320        135      5925 |
 34. | 03aug2020     325        132      6523 |
 35. | 04aug2020     355        118      6000 |
     |----------------------------------------|
 36. | 05aug2020     422        141      6316 |
 37. | 06aug2020     423        161      5606 |
 38. | 07aug2020     445        127      5929 |
 39. | 08aug2020     419        114      6577 |
 40. | 09aug2020     356         90      6068 |
     |----------------------------------------|
 41. | 10aug2020     660        123      6413 |
 42. | 11aug2020     635         58      5968 |
 43. | 12aug2020     490        183      6147 |
 44. | 13aug2020     390        187      6381 |
 45. | 14aug2020     407        144      6398 |
     |----------------------------------------|
 46. | 15aug2020     352        150      6820 |
 47. | 16aug2020     313        132      6227 |
 48. | 17aug2020     312        111      6370 |
 49. | 18aug2020     352        184      6414 |
 50. | 19aug2020     443        187      6475 |
     |----------------------------------------|
 51. | 20aug2020     349        155      6089 |
 52. | 21aug2020     327        132      6414 |
 53. | 22aug2020     353        131      6689 |
 54. | 23aug2020     344        173      6101 |
 55. | 24aug2020     284         85      6533 |
     |----------------------------------------|
 56. | 25aug2020     424        177      6100 |
 57. | 26aug2020     420        137      6203 |
 58. | 27aug2020     386        176      6299 |
 59. | 28aug2020     403        218      6062 |
 60. | 29aug2020     333        110      6247 |
     |----------------------------------------|
 61. | 30aug2020     494        150      5826 |
 62. | 31aug2020     327        150      6460 |
 63. | 01sep2020     446        172      6064 |
 64. | 02sep2020     510        215      7628 |
 65. | 03sep2020     471        144      6897 |
     |----------------------------------------|
 66. | 04sep2020     445         77      6659 |
 67. | 05sep2020     376         67      7460 |
 68. | 06sep2020     311         94      6470 |
 69. | 07sep2020     416        -46      6678 |
 70. | 08sep2020     485        175      6662 |
     |----------------------------------------|
 71. | 09sep2020     469        170      6799 |
 72. | 10sep2020     426        130      6366 |
 73. | 11sep2020     377         91      6593 |
 74. | 12sep2020     464         73      6712 |
 75. | 13sep2020     306         73      5776 |
     |----------------------------------------|
 76. | 14sep2020     256         22      6206 |
 77. | 15sep2020     307        166      5943 |
 78. | 16sep2020     455        135      6312 |
 79. | 17sep2020     411        106      6107 |
 80. | 18sep2020     454        105      5961 |
     |----------------------------------------|
 81. | 19sep2020     484        167      6529 |
     +----------------------------------------+

[Jet Cash]

I would have thought that people would have been interested in ways to earn money online, and that is why I started my domaining thread in serious discussion. I've only had one intelligent reply, and one for my regular troll, who I have on ignore. I'm assuming that is an ill informed attack on me,but of course I haven't read it. I guess it was handy though, as it bumped the thread, and allowed me to post without having consecutive posts.

We are in a period of massive change, and this forum seems to be focused on crypto and defi. Well that is understandable, but there are many more changes, and new business opportunities. My example domain is intended to take advantage of the increase in guard dogs and associated services resulting from housing repossessions, and civil unrest, but there are many other niches. One of the strangest in my opinion is the "flights to nowhere". You book a seat on a flight that is basically a round trip which lands back in the airport of departure. I suppose that it is an aerial mystery sight seeing tour. I'm surprised that the greenies haven't jumped all over that concept.

[DdmrDdmr]

From a local board point of view it’s definitively palpable. The Spanish Local board counts amongst its assets with a dozen or so accounts that create content there with some regularity. As of late, the dozen has dropped to a handful (regular type hand, or hexadactyly at best), and that has it’s noticeable effect over there. I barely notice new accounts there that are not simpleton shillers.

I thought it was just a summertime thing, but the trend seems to persist for now. In general terms, local board net post count looks like this:
https://public.tableau.com/views/BitcointalkMeritDashboard/PostCountEvolution?:language=es&:display_count=y&:origin=viz_share_link

[crwth]

I thought that it's always better to use the number of online members in the forum rather than seeing the post count, new topics, new members, etc. Maybe that could form a better perspective on it. Maybe a lot of people as well have been focusing on other things that is necessary for them to continue on living especially with the economy today and just read. When I'm AFK and on my mobile phone, I mostly read topics but too lazy to type on my phone because I'm slower compared to keyboard typing. Maybe it's just me, lol.

It's also possible that since you have been more exposed to the forum (spending more time on the net) that you think that the activity lessened but in reality, you just noticed it more but it's still the same.

Maybe tranthidung could provide also the members online or something. For additional data and variable.

I would have thought that people would have been interested in ways to earn money online, and that is why I started my domaining thread in serious discussion.

It's definitely the aim of people now but what I think what hinders them is themselves. they want it fast or just too lazy to do it and doesn't believe much that you could earn money online.

[tranthidung]

• Same data above, but I played a bit and categorised them by weeks.
• No multiplier in those plots.
• Statistics fluctuate but not actually in a downtrend (as shown by the time-series plot in previous post)

[notblox1]

I'm starting to notice that several forums, including Bitcoin Talk, are not as active as they were a while ago. Also many of the threads and posts seem to be of lower quality. I would have thought that the lock downs would have increased activity, but maybe people are playing games and watching Netflix instead. I'm increasing my domain development, so maybe it is just that I'm spending more time on the net, and getting impatient. Has anyone else noticed a slowdown?

I also noticed exactly the same thing and I would agree with you. Sometimes I have really hard time finding some good quality topic or discussion to join.
Post quality is way lower than usual, maybe because of multiple things like covid or some people just don't use forums like before, and they switched to telegram and twitter.
Maybe it is time to shake things up and change some forum rules.

[LoyceV]

I would have thought that the lock downs would have increased activity, but maybe people are playing games and watching Netflix instead.

Maybe they used to use the forum in quiet hours in the office, and now they're stuck working from home with the kids around. This must be valid for at least some people, I have a hard time being productive when they're around.

I thought that it's always better to use the number of online members in the forum rather than seeing the post count

I check active users occasionally, and I didn't keep exact records, but it seems to be quite stable.

they switched to telegram and twitter.

And Discord. I don't like either one of those platforms. It's all just a big flow of messages without the structure of different boards and topics.