Is this forum dying?

[Lost Egg]

One thing that could drive up posts would be to change the notification settings so that you always get instant emails when a reply is posted to a thread your following. I think it might prevent some discussions from fizzling out.

Something else that might have contributed to the move towards social media from forums could be the GW sales thing of always focusing on the new and shiny, this seems very much geared for FB and the like; GW build up hype to pre-order, drop the product and a few associated bits then focus on the next new and shiny...Warcry is being talked about a lot now but give it a few months and the focus will be on something else.

Back in the day a game like Kill Team would still have its starter set for sale but GW sold out and aren't producing any more...at least until they wish to reinvigorate it to sell more Kill Team stuff.

[Little Joe]

That is why I do not follow social media, too fast, no continuation. This hobby takes time and commitment, a forum fits so much better.

[Lost Egg]

Facebook and whatnot can be useful but yeah I prefer a forum...it mostly avoids the same questions being asked every week

[Commissar von Toussaint]

We've mentioned it before, but fewer forums would help a lot. I think newer people simply can't find some of this stuff.

Collapse the site structure and people will be driving into closer proximity. Even at its height, Warseer didn't have all these partitions. The fact that I have to check multiple sub-forums makes it harder for me to stay current. It'd be nice to have one big fat 40k forum for a change.

[Lost Egg]

Agreed. I rarely check the actual boards as its takes ages to go through them so I just go to the new posts tab. Sometimes with so many tabs it can be a little confusing on which board to post to.

[Commissar von Toussaint]

Agreed. I rarely check the actual boards as its takes ages to go through them so I just go to the new posts tab. Sometimes with so many tabs it can be a little confusing on which board to post to.

As a case in point (for any mods reading this) I only saw Lost Egg's post because it was in his signature. The display is too cluttered and subdivided for me to find it otherwise.

And it was a post I was interested in.

Take out the partitions!!! Free the threads!

[Lost Egg]

Is it me or are things getting even slower around here...?

Now when I pop in for my regular visit there are usually only a half dozen threads that have been updated...if that.

Nothing seems to have been done about reducing the number of sub-forums, despite a fair bit of conversation on a thread dedicated to the subject.

[Arnizipal]

You're right
I posted a new thread in one of the subforums. 23 views, no responses.

And for me, page loading times are slow as well (already notified the admins of that).

[Lost Egg]

When I post a comment it keeps trying to double post for some reason.

I do post the odd image on a couple of FB groups and have had threads on LAF but Warseer is always my first choice...but with the slow down on Warseer I find myself tempted to put less and less on here...

[Captain Brown]

That has been reported. I believe a change is being planned in the next few weeks for an upgrade.

Sincerely,

CB

[Lost Egg]

Thanks CB

[Commissar von Toussaint]

Another point I've brought up before: get rid of the landing page. Either do a pure redirect to the forums or put some actual content there. It used to have feature articles and such, which would draw people in.

Having a welcome/click-through is really odd.

[Lost Egg]

You could have something showing off the most recent or popular posts or discussions.

[Irisado]

The fact that I have noted at least three topics in three different boards discussing the same issue is something of a concern in of itself. That seems to reinforce what others have been saying about a disconnect between the different sections of the forum. Coming back from a long hiatus, I find the layout and categories to be very confusing and hard to follow. For example, why it the introduction board hidden away so far down the forum? Surely, you want new members to see that board before any other? There also seem to be a lot of boards which are overly similar and could be merged (e.g. WarSeer news, The Future of Warseer and Bug Reports). The Community section seems very strange too, with all sorts of boards put into that section which do not necessarily relate very well to each other. It just all seems very difficult to navigate to me, even compared to the pre-crash forum index, which, while lengthy, had a more logical flow.

Activity is a problem for all wargaming forums that I know, that I moderate on, and that I visit. Facebook, Twitter, and other social media have taken the vast majority of young players, and once older players stop playing they don't necessarily come to forums any more, unless they have other responsibilities. I am a case in point. I have not played for a number of years now, so there is little reason for me to visit, as I rarely have anything to say and, unlike other forums, I have no responsibilities to fulfil here.

Combine the two problems above with the server crash and it is pretty clear, to me at any rate, why there is an activity issue. Whenever a site goes down, members look for alternatives, and WarSeer's problems were protracted and there were issues after the forum was resurrected as well. All of this most likely resulted in some members never returning or returning less frequently. Note that I am neither pointing figures nor complaining, I am just making an observation. In the past, the lack of competetion from other platforms would have meant that the damage to activity would have been less serious, but these days, there is so much more competition. In addition, there are other wargaming forums too (probably too many to be honest in the face of so much competition from social media), and I do concur with the points made here that WarSeer seems to have lost its way somewhat.

Essentially, WarSeer was meant to be a forum for discussing GW and its games. If it is no longer going to be that, this is fair enough and it is for the administrators to decide, but there are other sites out there which have been discussing wider wargaming for much longer, are well-established, and have a loyal following. I am not sure whether WarSeer is going to be able to compete with them. There is also still probably the perception, rightly or wrongly, that this is a forum for debating GW's games and if, like me, GW holds little interest these days, the perception will be not to check on the forum. It is most definitely un círculo vicioso (catch twenty-two).

Finally, I will make a couple of brief, and unrelated, points. First, Vbulletin's forum software is, in my opinion, awful, and seems to get worse with every update. I think that it is difficult to use, it is clunky, it has issues (e.g. the online/off synbol next to display names is still missing), it has an offputting layout and functionality, and that an opportunity to change to a different forum software was missed during the lengthy downtime, although I do understand that the administrators probably had other things on their minds. Second, if anyone still remembers me from when I was actually active here, please be kind, as the past for me, at least here anyway, is very much over .

[Arnizipal]

I remember you Irisado.
Welcome back

[Commissar von Toussaint]

Coming back from a long hiatus, I find the layout and categories to be very confusing and hard to follow. For example, why it the introduction board hidden away so far down the forum? Surely, you want new members to see that board before any other? There also seem to be a lot of boards which are overly similar and could be merged (e.g. WarSeer news, The Future of Warseer and Bug Reports). The Community section seems very strange too, with all sorts of boards put into that section which do not necessarily relate very well to each other. It just all seems very difficult to navigate to me, even compared to the pre-crash forum index, which, while lengthy, had a more logical flow.

Agreed on all the above.

[Irisado]

I remember you Irisado.
Welcome back

Thank you .

I'll see if I can rustle up a few posts to help with traffic around here, but I make no promises. I'm still finding navigating the boards difficult and not playing is a massive handicap for contributing to discussions.

[Commissar von Toussaint]

Only three members online. Hard to create much discussion with three people. Lots of guests, need more members.

[Commissar von Toussaint]

I see five members on and 410 guests are currently on the site. That seems crazy.

[Arnizipal]

Yeah, our visitor numbers are way down since we came back online