GREY:BIOAF - Post by User
Post by
Boomskidon Feb 11, 2023 10:20am
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Post# 35281329
Beenthere's Question
Beenthere's Question beenthere has asked where everyone has gone. I think the new SH format is discouraging both reading and posting activities.
First, readers are not clicking through to "Comments". A top level post is attracting four or five hundred reads or clicks. Responses to the top level posts are getting only 20 or so reads.
Secondly, posters can't be bothered responding if all they're getting is 20 or thirty reads.
The real action on SH forums has always been in the replies to posts. But the replies have always had a lower "read" rate because some readers ignore some posters.
Now, readers aren't bothering to click on "Comments", at all, and therefore aren't reading the replies.
I'm not going to be bothered to write anything for only 20 reads. And creating a new top level post in response to a previous post loses the thread connection.
I don't think this is a matter of people being set in their ways. This new format simply ignores the fact that a forum's posters are a subset of the forum's total readership. The members of this subset all know each other. Together they create a tension and experience that defines the forum. This dynamic has been disrupted by isolating conversations and hiding responses.
I will respond to anybody, often with good information and considered opinion. Even if readers ignored the top level post, either formally or by just not reading it, they would still read my post to see what I'm talking about.
That isn't happening with the new format so I and many others, obviously, are not going to waste our time posting into oblivion.
jd