What the hell happened here?

[Huggybone]

So...revisiting RedRiverClimbing after many years away. What the hell happened? Used to be new posts in every category every single day. Now multiple categories are weeks old without comment, the trad category looks all but abandoned...did the conversation move somewhere else? Used to be full of trip reports, etc...did zombies come?

[ynp1]

I agree! This place is dead. It use to be so much fun with a lot of people talking shit. Now, nothing. I guess everyone is to busy climbing... Yeah right!

[Mark W]

Interesting question. Forums in general seem to have really declined in activity over the past five years or so . . . definitely not a phenomenon unique to this site.

I've been active in a lot of forums over the past decade (kywilderness.com, bicycling forums, skateboarding forums, Backpacker magazine forum, etc.) and have seen participation in all those drop off significantly. It's really disappointing because forums can be great resources for trip planning, improving skills/techniques, unbiased gear recommendations, discussions of esoteric topics related to specific activities, story-telling, etc.

Forums (more accurately the people using them) ultimately create a history of events, people and places that would a few decades ago have been primarily destined for the dustbin of history (or just boxes full of old letters, magazine articles, photographs, hand drawn maps, annotated guidebooks, so on and so forth). Forums are the digital equivalent of those "archival" materials in many ways, at least in my opinion, and are accessible to anyone with a computer and internet connection. It's really pretty awesome when you think about it.

I suppose a lot of the decline of forums can be attributed to people using Facebook for most of the same things that forums used to be primarily used for. However, I think this leads to way too much fragmentation of community dialog and encourages superficial exchanges of information simply due to the nature of the software and medium of communication. I've seen some great posts on Facebook and some compelling "intellectual" debates about various ethical or access issues, but overall it's just like a fast-food version of what forums used to be.

It takes effort by participants to keep forums going, and they wax and wane giving what's going on in the participants lives, but I think a lot of people just stopped putting in effort on certain forums -- this one included. There have been a few great trip reports on this site in the past few years (this one in particular stands out: http://www.redriverclimbing.com/viewtop ... =4&t=15801 ) but overall it seems to have stagnated.

Which is a bummer -- it's a shame to see all the development that is occurring but without any publicly accessible (at least as far as I'm aware) documentation of it -- especially any writing that has a more thoughtful, reflective theme to it as well as documenting the development. Not sure why this is . . . I guess people just don't feel compelled to share their stories, and there's no one out there really asking people to share their stories. Which is a huge loss for this community and culture. But a lot of people simply don't care about community or culture, at least in any conscious, meaningful sense and don't contribute to it or encourage others to. You can't find what you're not looking for, I guess.

See also: there's no money in it. And you have to really put yourself out there. For no money. Easier to just post on Facebook and "like" what other people are doing.

Anyways, I think most internet forums will continue to fade and will see as many posts in a month as they used to see in a week.

Well, I suppose instead of just analyzing, critiquing and rambling on I'll put some effort in (actually I'll just recycle earlier effort, I originally posted this on KyWilderness.com in July) and post a trip report from the last time I climbed:

http://www.redriverclimbing.com/viewtop ... =4&t=16395

[krampus]

Its simple. People started getting all butthurt because of all the smack talking. the best trash talkers gave up leaving an empty boring hole of a forum that no one reads. Now you can't even get usefull information

[LK Day]

Some didn't give up easily, but they still gave up.

[Rotarypwr345704]

Its simple. People started getting all butthurt because of all the smack talking.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This. This site is chock full of pussies now. I blame Obama.

[clif]

hey Mark W-thanks for sharing your thoughts, i'd add some but can't really take the time at work and cancelled the home network cause i'm cheap and want to think I have better things to do than troll around

[krampus]

Some didn't give up easily, but they still gave up.

can't even ramble about polotics without a bunch of winey crying
It's terrable, no wonder international trade will be done with currency other than the american dollar for the first time in almost 50 years. No one even knows it's an issue, and only Lary can tell us why it is in fact Obama's fault.

[LK Day]

Nailed it, Krampus. I loved the arguments, the smack talk, the HATE. All good clean fun. But, man, I had it up to here with the whining.