[baskentt]

I see allot of threads not getting as much help as say last year, it seems there's less people willing to help people out with their questions, dunno what's up?

[Gubocang]

Honestly, MO days were the best. Yes, the forums have gone mainstream like everyone said, and the losses like newman, macci, DJ and others who were here to get a competition going like the ones DJ used to have with macci, on who get higher OC's.

Computers are too mainstream now, and the internet as a whole for the average person has been mainstream for almost 16yrs now, MO rode the dotcom wave in the late 90's and left us with mainstream OC'ing and watercooling options that couldnt be done before without being a brain and figuring it out for your self instead of buying kits.

We were a tight knit group with not a lot members, but now the closes has been lost

[QuidQuoPro]

It is primarily due to a few things IMO:

1. The shift away from lower cost skill based OC, with a real need to do so...to spend mega bucks and cream everyone for almost no games. I stopped PC gaming almost entirely outside of flash and simple games. There is only so long that the thrill of comparison and doing it for doing its sake world will last...particularly when you can just bring out $$ and smash others.

2. Spawning of sites like NeoGAF. That place is a piece of crap, but active. One issue I see is that the more you break things down to subforums....the less likely people will stick around, people want that addictive "what is new" element. Something like NeoGAF fosters that by having only two areas, General Discussion and Gaming. The difference is that it is all useless drivel (for the most part) with some good breaking news. FM is about being a place to test your stuff, and get good technical feedback. When my item #1 went downhill for external factors, gaming and discussion got a bit bigger on FM...but the structure doesn't foster the same free for all and continued posting.

Agreed. The forum category structure here has become quite ridiculous. When there are so many categories with so little content, everything becomes diluted.[no]

[StampNews]

Honestly, MO days were the best. Yes, the forums have gone mainstream like everyone said, and the losses like newman, macci, DJ and others who were here to get a competition going like the ones DJ used to have with macci, on who get higher OC's.

Computers are too mainstream now, and the internet as a whole for the average person has been mainstream for almost 16yrs now, MO rode the dotcom wave in the late 90's and left us with mainstream OC'ing and watercooling options that couldnt be done before without being a brain and figuring it out for your self instead of buying kits.

We were a tight knit group with not a lot members, but now the closes has been lost

Where the hell is Mr. Sami Makinen now?

[gabbaman]

Agreed. The forum category structure here has become quite ridiculous. When there are so many categories with so little content, everything becomes diluted.[no]

While I would agree with anyone who thinks that some of the forums can be pruned (e.g. the sales chart and blogs sub-forums aren't necessary anymore), the fact that there's a range of forums has nothing to do with the overall level of traffic on a forum. For example, Tom's Hardware's boards have 35 sections with even more sub-sections and that's hardly a ghost town of a forum. And yet it has parts with considerably less threads in them than compared to others (e.g. look at their Entertainment and Digital Camera sections).

I've honestly no idea what the traffic figures are like for these boards now but if they're noticeably less than, say, 3 or 4 years ago, I'll make my own stance on the reason why: whining. The FM/YG boards seems to foster an increasing number of moaning and miserable people who are never happy, never content to just "get on with things." Don't like how quite it is? Then do something about it! Start more topics, invite more friends over, use the reviews section more often and then direct other websites/people to such reviews, form a small help group of people who will try to solve anyone's PC problems - the list certainly isn't endless but there is always something that an individual can do. It is, of course, easier to just put on the rose-tinted glasses and pretend everything was great in the "good old days" and the only thing to do now is whine about it.

It's like the average age of FM/YG visitors is 75 or something...

[baskentt]

Yeh I aggree ^ , but the traffic might be better then it was years ago there's just less positive people and people willing to help each other out at any given thread of I need help or just a nice thread to talk in.

[lXwVlTgO]

I honestly think the quality and effectiveness of FM's products has gotten worse over time, so less people use their products and ultimately less new users join the forums. but all the other points made above are at least equally important.

[oemcheapdownload]

While I would agree with anyone who thinks that some of the forums can be pruned (e.g. the sales chart and blogs sub-forums aren't necessary anymore), the fact that there's a range of forums has nothing to do with the overall level of traffic on a forum. For example, Tom's Hardware's boards have 35 sections with even more sub-sections and that's hardly a ghost town of a forum. And yet it has parts with considerably less threads in them than compared to others (e.g. look at their Entertainment and Digital Camera sections).

I've honestly no idea what the traffic figures are like for these boards now but if they're noticeably less than, say, 3 or 4 years ago, I'll make my own stance on the reason why: whining. The FM/YG boards seems to foster an increasing number of moaning and miserable people who are never happy, never content to just "get on with things." Don't like how quite it is? Then do something about it! Start more topics, invite more friends over, use the reviews section more often and then direct other websites/people to such reviews, form a small help group of people who will try to solve anyone's PC problems - the list certainly isn't endless but there is always something that an individual can do. It is, of course, easier to just put on the rose-tinted glasses and pretend everything was great in the "good old days" and the only thing to do now is whine about it.

It's like the average age of FM/YG visitors is 75 or something...

You know I honestly have to agree with you...I have noticed that myself. I think YouGamers is actually kind of neat and I prefer FM's reviews over most. Yet people whine and complain about it, I must not be in on the "know," as to why some must boycott YouGamers....As far as people getting over it, I agree, lets start posting/ doing activities again to make this a fun community. Just because overclocking as a sport is "dead," and now "left to the proffessionals with money," doesnt mean we cant do something...

I honestly think the quality and effectiveness of FM's products has gotten worse over time, so less people use their products and ultimately less new users join the forums. but all the other points made above are at least equally important.

I would have to disagree with you completely. From a purely numbers standpoint I bet FM has more sales/traffic/users than ever before. I personally believe that the products have gotten better over time, just with less "freebies" to the community. Although Vantage is a bit disapointing...sorry FM, but it is less than what most people thought it would be.

[Gulauur]

Most people on MO/FM/YG playing World of Warcraft or Wrath of the Lich King beta possibly which is the reason for the quietness.

[NodePark]

Most people on MO/FM/YG playing World of Warcraft or Wrath of the Lich King beta possibly which is the reason for the quietness.

Shame on them!

[occurrini]

I haven't been around much here over the past year or so (work and life getting in the way of having fun again) but I still rear my head occasionally

Anyway, it seems to me that there is significantly less traffic than there used to be a couple of years ago. Not as many threads, replies etc.

Anyone else noticed this? I'd be interested to see site traffic figures, page views etc. if someone has them.

[Sowsunese]

Summer in the Northern hemisphere, typical IMO.

[occurrini]

Summer in the Northern hemisphere, typical IMO.

No, I meant more long term. Like the last couple of years.

Maybe it's just because I'm less active than I used to be though...

[nobodyhere]

I've noticed the same and I think the reasons are rather obvious.

[gabbaman]

No, I meant more long term. Like the last couple of years...

The patterns peak and trough as for any other site, and the forum always reflects what's going with FM in general - if they're quite, so are the boards and vice versa. This month FM are planning to show more about their first game at Leipzig, so one may well suddenly see a lot more newbies turning up and causing flamz and warz and banz!!!1!

[Sowsunese]

To quote what I've been hearing on these forums for the past eight years " They're not the same as they used to be"

[bensabath]

I think the community's gotten larger, but people are less involved. MO was a small town, where everyone knew everyone and everyone knew what was going on, but now FM is a huge city and you're not even sure who your neighbours are.

Analogy of the day! [surrender]

[hapasaparaz]

The patterns peak and trough as for any other site, and the forum always reflects what's going with FM in general - if they're quite, so are the boards and vice versa. This month FM are planning to show more about their first game at Leipzig, so one may well suddenly see a lot more newbies turning up and causing flamz and warz and banz!!!1!

This pretty much covers it, also a lot of the die hard regulars seemed to have gotten busy else where.

[immoceefe]

I dunno about you, but I feel that overclocking isn't as popular anymore so it's sort've added to the quietness maybe?

Back in the days, this forum used to be crowded with everyone asking questions about overclocking and what not and it used to be very involved

Now it seems to have slackened a bit.

[oemcheapdownload]

1. Its summer....better things to do outside than inside.
2. Nothing going on in the gaming/computer world.
3. Benchmarking/overclocking ruined by the ability to score 10x higher score than the average computer by having money compared to the old days where skill was the mean determining factor.
4. The internet community as a whole is larger and being a computer geek no longer makes you cool because you have internet buddies because everyone in the world has internet buddies.

Thats my general opinion....Things wont be like they were back in 2001-2003 ever again, but things should at least pick up after september/october.