Future of boards.ie lack of young blood

Boards is just facing the same issues that all "old school" traditional message boards are facing. They've become superseded in popularity by the likes of Reddit and newer forms of social media. The issue of moderation is just a red herring.

The user base is getting older, doesn't spend as much time on-line as they used too and go elsewhere for what they used to get from Boards - theres not as much dynamisim around here as there once was. There might be still a fair few people on here in their early twenties, but there's less and less of them as time goes by. Long term the writing is on the wall.

I think it still does pretty well, for now, in the face of this, for an internet forum it still gets plenty of traffic, though once you get beyond the busier forums - After Hours or Soccer and the like - it has become gradually quieter and quieter over the last few years. Even a relatively busy forum like Films is noticably less alive as time goes on. And the entirety of the music section is absolutely nothing in traffic and activity terms compared to the past - I'd love to see some form of amalgamation of forums for that section, it might breathe a bit of messy life into it again - it certainly couldn't hurt. The Galway City forum used to be hopping but it's barely alive now. And most of these forums aren't that heavily moderated, so you can't blame that aspect of boards for everything, as many are wont to do.

Arghus wrote: »

Boards is just facing the same issues that all "old school" traditional message boards are facing. They've become superseded in popularity by the likes of Reddit and newer forms of social media. The issue of moderation is just a red herring.

The user base is getting older, doesn't spend as much time on-line as they used too and go elsewhere for what they used to get from Boards - theres not as much dynamisim around here as there once was. There might be still a fair few people on here in their early twenties, but there's less and less of them as time goes by. Long term the writing is on the wall.

I think it still does pretty well, for now, in the face of this, for an internet forum it still gets plenty of traffic, though once you get beyond the busier forums - After Hours or Soccer and the like - it has become gradually quieter and quieter over the last few years. Even a relatively busy forum like Films is noticably less alive as time goes on. And the entirety of the music section is absolutely nothing in traffic and activity terms compared to the past - I'd love to see some form of amalgamation of forums for that section, it might breathe a bit of messy life into it again - it certainly couldn't hurt. The Galway City forum used to be hopping but it's barely alive now. And most of these forums aren't that heavily moderated, so you can't blame that aspect of boards for everything, as many are wont to do.

I completely agree. Most internet message boards seem to be getting quieter and the user age profile getting older. I’m an admin on another Irish web forum and compared to a decade ago when it was hopping it barely gets 5 posts a day now.