We've been hearing this for a few years, on and off, and it's being repeated again in the thread on technical issues. I was wondering what topics and threads folk think have reduced since the (apparent) heyday.
I have a suspicion that a couple of the ongoing photo threads might have reduced the one-off "see where I was riding today" threads. On the Chat side, the sensible foldering of politics topics has certainly reduced the number of threads I (mostly) choose to skip by. I'm also seeing fewer duplicate threads, but maybe that's just because things are scrolling off the font page less quickly (sort of chicken and egg thing going on there).
Are there fewer technical bike threads? Things like Dropper posts and Tubeless setups used to appear more regularly until both became almost ubiquitous.
Any more thoughts?
I remember a time when a thread would drop off the front page if there was no reply within an hour or two. Now it can stay there for a day or more.
Technical threads still exist, just in different platforms. MTBR for example, it pretty good for a technical discussion even if the rate of comments is pretty slow.
The snarky, negativity and general ****erness of most responses puts me off posting (I type replies sometimes, then just hit the back button without sending) and you can see by the number of “read” posts v the number of actual replies that that is probably the case for a lot of people. I think some people’s mindset is well, I’m on STW, I guess I am supposed to be a prick about this. Post way less than I used to (in my former forum name). And once a certain 4 letter username member has posted once of his essays, its hardly worth responding cos he’s clearly always right. Anyway, what with most of the regular posters drifting away, its just got less and less active as a place to chat.
Would be interested to see if members are posting more on other forums, or if it's more to do with people quiet quitting the internet / social media in general.
I think forums in general are less popular than they were at one time. I use half a dozen or so forums are they are all quieter than they were. Older users leave, younger using different platforms - facebook, instagram , etc.
I skim through the first page of the forum a few times a day. Occasionally I'll reply, more likely I'll give a thumbs up. But of takes so long in internet time to to see the thumb respond or to go back a page that I end up going back 2 pages in error, then I head off to the local paper to see if there is anything exciting happening.
Looking forward to the faster page loads 🚴 and quick thumbs up 👍
I'm not posting anywhere else, but spending a bit more time watching video reviews of bike stuff on the web.
It’s felt a lot quieter since the refresh happened, but that’s happened to every single forum I’ve ever used over the last 25 years so I was expecting it. Traffic almost always dies off after someone changes the look and feel of a forum and generally it never returns.
Besides it’s just much easier to get technical advice elsewhere now which didn’t used to be the case when forums were more popular.
For me, it's a case of using the Internet a bit less. There was a time that I'd sit all night on this forum, nowadays I check in a few times a day for about 10 mins.
Although very interested in politics, I avoid the politics threads here as they are dominated by tedious voices.
Thinking about it, I'm guilty of not starting many threads any more, so I'm not going to complain about the traffic or lack of.
Edit. Half of my reply was cut off for some reason. I went on to say that I'll.always be a subscriber as this place has been good for me over the years, and it's my only form of social media (apart from my Chumbawamba fan insta account, but not sure that counts 😂)
It's a lot more toxic and less humourous than it used to be.
This and just a godawful website to use now, actually just noticed I can finally view the forum on my phone after being blocked by an advert blocking the cookies for around a week.
yep I’ve sacked off my subscription (I was in the 502 club with high hopes).
It's a lot more toxic and less humourous than it used to be.
I think the opposite. I think it misses some of the stupid threads
It misses the unique feeling (presentation) that the forum used to have
It’s not encouraging ‘free’ members, coupled in with constant breaks and stupidly slow forum
Finally it’s the fact the owners are doing nothing to encourage are younger audience. It’s full of middle aged men getting older
Just out of curiosity , how’s the women’s forum doing ?
It’s slowly dying, fewer posts for sure and the classifieds incomparable to a few years ago. Out riding last night I was pondering the lack of similar local riders to myself - wrong side of 40, riding xc/trail. Many seem to have moved to e-bikes and/or gravel. Maybe there’s a parallel with the (bike) forum.
I'm on 6 forums - SingleTrack is the most depressing place of all if them . Ideologues ruined things.
Although very interested in politics, I avoid the politics threads here as they are dominated by tedious voices.
This.
I am to old for here, not interested in long low slack bikes, not interested in clothing for women or for tall skinny beanpoles. I am also fed up with being told I am to old to drive and what car for spirited driving.
I am considering my position.
Testing to see if posting let's me see Bruce's post
Isn't that just life in general though? It's like complaining that the MTB weekends you used to do with your mates have dropped way off but then you look around and people have families, commitments etc that they didn't have all those years ago...
Out riding last night I was pondering the lack of similar local riders to myself - wrong side of 40, riding xc/trail. Many seem to have moved to e-bikes and/or gravel. Maybe there’s a parallel with the (bike) forum.
That's the argument that has been swilling around the road racing ranks for about the last 15-20 years (possibly more!) as well; the decline of "the traditional cycling club", everyone has gone off to ride Sportives / race themselves on Strava...
I scarcely post since the refresh. The box I'm typing in is about 15mm high, and it's half covered with a message about not attaching files. As soon as I get onto a second line of typing, it's obscured. Basically unuseable (Mac OS11.7.1, Chrome, desktop).
Also, what everyone else said about the six or so posters who persist in stomping all over most threads with their sixth form politics.
I think everyone's getting arthritic hands and can't type as fast these days.
I blame the ubiquity of free porn.
I blame the ubiquity of free porn.
That's not fair I cn stil ty
Only 6 posters doing their political willy waving? That's a huge improvement.
But yeah, not willing to pay for this now. I can only reply on my phone, as I'm still logged in. Desktop won't let me, and I have to open threads by way of right click open in new tab.
Certainly in my case (51) it's not competition from other places, I don't use any other forum, nor Facebook/Instagram etc. It's just stupidly user unfriendly. It's a shame - I'd much rather ask a dumb tubeless related question on here than on one of the Reddit subs, get a ton of wrong advice, insulted, then end up on r/bicyclecirclejerk
Actually, that does sound familiar. An image of a bloke and his track pump with spaff all over his sandals comes to mind .
Thought it was me, work has been a lot busier for the last year and my tolerance for self important posters who seem to live on here has reduced. Forum is still slow when using which means I think twice about clicking stuff. I scroll the main page but there seem to be less threads that interest me. I liked the politics threads and would credit STW with moving my views leftwards by making me think a bit harder. It's having the opposite affect these days, the constant venim spouted by the usual six or so is driving me back the otherway. Anyone to the right of Karl Marx is automatically lumped in with Reform and constantly targeted with bullying language. Any push back is greeted with a six person pile on. Even stopping posting results in where have all the non leftwing loons gone. The sad thing is I'm not sure the six even know who they are.
I've been a subscriber for over 15 years and donated a few times. If it wasn't for me missing my recent renewal (which seemed to have gone up a lot for digital) I'd probably cancel it.
Maybe I'll have a falling down style breakdown and call the six out by name for their toxicity and get banned, feeling a bit like a win / win at the moment.
The STW forum is unique among the forums I use, in that every other forum tells me if someone has quoted my post and then replied.
This place is like when the BBC opens up comments on certain articles, you can post, but then have to manually search for your entry later on if you want to see if anyone replied to you.
Not knowing what toxic replies you've had can be a good thing, but it's downright archaic, in this day and age.
I blame WCA for not spamming the forum with B qke Bike Bash stealth adverts.
Also, down to just one "Are you bored enough to watch..." thread.
The general drop in traffic might be down to a lack of new members and long termers either getting bored/frustrated with the forum, or just dying. It would be interesting to see the number of new joined over each Quarter for the last few year, plus the number of accounts that didn't post at all during each quarter.
The STW forum is unique among the forums I use, in that every other forum tells me if someone has quoted my post and then replied.
This place is like when the BBC opens up comments on certain articles, you can post, but then have to manually search for your entry later on if you want to see if anyone replied to you.
Not knowing what toxic replies you've had can be a good thing, but it's downright archaic, in this day and age.
if only there was away to switch on notifications.
I scarcely post since the refresh. The box I'm typing in is about 15mm high, and it's half covered with a message about not attaching files. As soon as I get onto a second line of typing, it's obscured. Basically unuseable (Mac OS11.7.1, Chrome, desktop).
There's a control at the bottom right of the text input window. Click and drag it to mak eth etext window as big as you like.
Oooh! So there is.
I’ve not seen that on any other forum.
I blame e-bikes. Really. No one starting mtb wants an analogue bike anymore. It’s a different sport now, and not as good. Bikes are too good, too expensive. It’s not the forum that’s dying it’s the sport.
if only there was away to switch on notifications.
You see this doesn't help.
You could have written "When you post, there is a box under the reply box which you can tick to get notifications when someone has replied. " Instead there's a snarky response that just makes people think bollocks to this place.
I think 20 years ago MTB's were new, every week there was a new bonkers suspension design that got us all chatting, no-one knew how to do anything or what worked with what and that generated discussion. Then we had the 29er debate followed by the 27.5 debate with droppers and tubeless pros and cons. Now bikes are all pretty much the same and they all work brilliantly, what is there to discuss.
So:
Bikes - nothing to discuss
Politics - as above, tediously dominated by the same dull people.
Destinations - we all know where to go now, there's nowhere new to be discovered.
You can only have so many car/garden/neighbours/work dispute threads.
I've been here since the start and I'll be gutted if it dies, but I think it's inevitable.
I liked the politics threads and would credit STW with moving my views leftwards by making me think a bit harder. It's having the opposite affect these days, the constant venim spouted by the usual six or so is driving me back the otherway. Anyone to the right of Karl Marx is automatically lumped in with Reform and constantly targeted with bullying language. Any push back is greeted with a six person pile on. Even stopping posting results in where have all the non leftwing loons gone. The sad thing is I'm not sure the six even know who they are.
This.
But this...
I blame e-bikes. Really.
...is part of the problem. Get over it already FFS.
I think 20 years ago MTB's were new
20 years ago, MTBs had been around for more than 20 years. The raging debates were:
Disk brakes: A solution looking for a problem?
Suspension: A solution looking for a problem?
Dropper posts: A solution looking for a problem? (To be fair, back then, the GravityDropper was the only game in town and wasn't particularly great compared to modern droppers.)
Tubeless tyres: A solution looking for a problem?
I think there's just so many sources of tension between people on the internet, that we're all just slowly loosing interest in attempting to communicate with each other online. It's not this forum, it's the internet, the novelty has worn off. Large numbers of forums didn't make it this far.
FFS.
also part of the problem 😆
id definitely say younger people just don't use forums so much
I've been here since the start and I'll be gutted if it dies, but I think it's inevitable.
There's still half a million people coming to the site every month. And while I get that there's issues with the forum that we still need to work through, to be fair the posts that the forum is dying have been a regular topic for over 20 years. I'm not being complacent but there's a lot to be optimistic about the future of Singletrack. Right now as I type there are 604 people active across the site. 458 from the UK, 43 from the US and the rest from other countries. It's Saturday and this is the quietest day of the week for the site. Typically on a monday evening around 9pm we'll see well over 1000 people actively viewing pages across the site - daily figures are typically 20k+ people on the site. I'm not saying nothing is wrong and all is hunkdory.. It really isn't. It's never been harder than right now to keep a niche media company afloat but there's still a lot to be optimistic about the future. There are very few forums left that are run by media companies now - certainly a lot less than several years ago. MBR closed theirs around GDPR time and BikeRadar shut all theirs down in March of this year. Road.cc is going strong but everyone in this space is struggling and we are doing our absolute best to keep going. You all know how hard it is for the team here and you all know our limitations - Your support has always been appreciated and I don't take that for granted for a second - But... please be patient. The forum is a vital part of what we are and we know how important it is to many of you. There is no complacency at our side and every day we look to make improvements. A forum of 10 million posts is massive. It's a battle everyday to keep that going and especially so alongside a full magazine membership system. The two are intrinsic to each other and they cannot be separated. One cannot exist without the other now. We work every day (7 days/week) to keep improving it.
And we do listen to what you have to say - always and we try and act on it as best we can.
Is the forum dying? IMHO no it isn't. Is it different to how it was? Most certainly. Forums are changing everywhere. How people interact with websites is constantly changing and Singletrack is constantly changing too. That's why we are still here a quarter of a century since we started.
We'll keep at it for as long as we can doing the best we can. It's what we've always done.
You see this doesn't help.
Fair point I forget my humour doesn’t always work.
That’s the box.
Back to the topic.
Very much part of the problem as mentioned before is the growth of platforms like facebook, then there’s people move on elsewhere so the little friendship groups change. And of course there’s the ones who have to be heard on every post constantly, which puts pressure off.
Stumpyjon has nailed it.
These types of comments aren't exactly encouraging of participation. Maybe it's just me but I see "this one person said something of value, all the other responses were worthless". Okay then, bye nice chat!
I notice I only come on here to post now with VERY SPECIFIC issues that probably very few people care or know about, so generally not contributing much to the lively/interesting side of things.
I was committed to trying to do more ride reports but these days when I'm riding I'm less inclined to mess about taking photos etc. and the photos I do take (usually just fumbling the GoPro from the back pocket and taking 4 or 5 snaps on the move, hoping 1 or 2 come out) aren't always very good and often not trip report worthy. Plus I get an occasional twinge of guilt posting about gravel so much given that there are probably a few MTBers still on the forum 🤣
Posting about politics here or anywhere else just seems to futile these days, it might be worth it for a vent but otherwise most topics can be reduced to 'look at this politician, what an arse'. Same reason I cancelled my Private Eye subscription, there were only so many reminders I needed of how corrupt so many politicians/councils/people(!) can be.
Naaah. It's the forum hamster that's dead/ dying - struggling to drag itself off its little cushion and fire up the wheel when you want to post a response/ check a thread/ open up the forum.
Although I will say the forum threads do ebb and flow; the last couple of weeks there's been less of interest to me, but I think it's seasonal. People away on holiday/ outdoors/ not stuck inside griping on the internet
wrong side of 50 here and riding xc/trail - trying to keep up with the ebikes is excellent for fitness.Out riding last night I was pondering the lack of similar local riders to myself - wrong side of 40, riding xc/trail. Many seem to have moved to e-bikes and/or gravel.
The sad thing is I'm not sure the six even know who they are.
Oh I bet they do. and they probably revel in the fame.
