Re: Is Movie Forums DYING?
 

That was straight-to-video starring Judd Nelson, Dean Cain, Alicia Silverstone, Bronson Pinchot, Ray Walston, Lindsay Wagner, and Henry Silva.

Re: Is Movie Forums DYING?
 

So bad Alan Smithee took his name off it.

Re: Is Movie Forums DYING?
 

RIP

Re: Is Movie Forums DYING?
 

RIP indeed. Reelin' in Posts.

Re: Is Movie Forums DYING?
 

"Here comes the Judd."

Re: Is Movie Forums DYING?
 

It's okay - I know CPR

Re: Is Movie Forums DYING?
 

I wouldn't say it's dying, especially not compared to other forums. The amount of iconic members that disappear for one reason or another seems to grow larger though. I've only been here three years, and I've already seen big ones like Dani8, lenslady, Camo, Beatle and Sexy Celebrity (Until he makes another surprise comeback) leave or get banned. While a few like Mr. Minio stay on, but with a largely reduced presence.

There have been several decent-sized groups of regulars that have rotated out over the years.

When I first landed at MoFo, you have the likes of LordSlaytan, Caitlyn, Aniko, The Silver Bullet, OG, ILuvtoViddyFilms and Django...wonderful Django. ;)

McClane, Yoda, and Holden were here already, but all of the people above are long gone at this point. This patterns repeats itself every few years it seems, except for us extremely old school vets that will probably be here for the life of the site...

Re: Is Movie Forums DYING?
 

Yeah, Sedai's quite right. A lot of people freak when there's turnover, which I get because for most members there's a group that they kind of "came up" with, and it'll never really feel the same to them after. But I've been running this place for almost 21 years now, and I can tell you that's just how forums go: there are generations, people cycle in and out, and I'd say we had maybe the most significant rollover, culture and activity wise, that we've ever had, around 2019 or so.

It's always a little sad, but at least for me it's always mitigated by all the new people who inevitably fill that vacuum and put their own stamp on that place. But then, I've got a different perspective and, in some ways, a bit more distance from the comings-and-goings. But it very much follows a pattern, and a cycle. Stick around long enough to live through a few and the whole thing starts to look very different.

Re: Is Movie Forums DYING?
 

If anyone is bad at leaving a place permanently that's me. Another forum I'm on grew so toxic eventually that I got fed up and decided I wanted nothing to do with it anymore. Yet one year later I came crawling back. Right now it's, uuuh... acceptable for the most part, but still has issues it needs to work on. Luckily this forum is still fun and lively, and even though I don't post here quite as much as I did in the beginning, I'll stay for as long as I enjoy it. There are some really lovely people here I wouldn't want to say goodbye to.

Re: Is Movie Forums DYING?
 

Holy crap, I've been here FOUR years, not three. Time goes so awfully fast.

You would have known that if you checked this.

I also am a member of a local sports team forum. Been a member there since 1999. Still going strong...

Re: Is Movie Forums DYING?
 

Considering that the originator of this thread, Sexy Celebrity, is no longer on the Forums, I'd say there is some truth to the thought that the MoFo is dying.

P.S. I miss that dude.

Re: Is Movie Forums DYING?
 

I got no where else to go =\
I lived in Rotten Tomatoes waaaay before they screwed up their forum structure. That didn't last. I spent a LOT of time in the Macromedia Flash forums and the then popular Flashlight site for developers. That's gone. I'll jump into the Warcraft forums if I'm bored enough just to see what's going on, but I don't spend more time there than enough to scan over the list, read a few, and maybe post something useless. There's one evil political forum I lurk but never registered. I may have posted at Slate when there was a forum though. For a year or two I spent a good bit of time in the PDF 508 forums over at Adobe helping new users out on that topic, but haven't been there in months. Oh, and I spent the better part of 2019 in Articulate forums complaining about how trashy their 508 support was at the time.

That's about all I can think of.

I imagine that I'll linger here for as long as the site lives. I can't imagine pulling out for a long period of time unless traffic just stalls for 6 months or more. Even then, I know I'll pop back in at some point.

I wouldn't, because that implies a forum lives or dies with specific members. If they did, they'd die all the time, and usually pretty young.

A forum is just a culture and mass of activity: it's constantly in flux, with overlapping tenures and attitudes. It's only really dying if people leave and nobody comes along to replace them. And by replace, I just mean contribute to the culture, since "nobody can ever replace <whoever>." When longtime members are gone, that incarnation of the site may be dead, but the forum itself is only dead if there's no new group, with is own culture and attitudes, coming in after.

Where things get kind of interesting, theoretically, is trying to figure out what makes the forum a single entity over time. The individual members and the vibe changes, but it's usually got some throughline that connects them. That's pretty tough to parse out, but it's simultaneously true that today's version of Movie Forums is different than the version five years ago, but also still of-a-kind. My best answer is that, over time, the forum is a set of ideals and aspirations, and within that each group brings more of this aspect or that aspect than the one that preceded it.

Re: Is Movie Forums DYING?
 

Alright everybody get your forum-sociology thoughts in quick, wanna close this perpetual fret zone today. ;)

Re: Is Movie Forums DYING?
 

*Frets*

I better type fast then:p...

I can sense the changes in MoFo since I joined 6 years ago, and it's only gotten better as far as I'm concerned. I like the way MoFo feels moderated to be friendly, but not restricted. To me it seems more of a friendly safe place to be in than ever before. I've been posting on internet boards for almost 25 years, way back in the day it was Usenet. Then on to other boards that were way too toxic! That's why I left them and came to the friendly shores of MoFo land. Long live Mofo!

Re: Is Movie Forums DYING?
 

The moderation is definitely an underrated part of some of the shifts: when it reached a certain level of activity, both because of that and because of general life stuff, I definitely was less active myself and let the site coast on its own a bit more. This was good in some ways and bad in others, but it also coincided with a lot of political polarization, which means the whole place felt a lot harsher than it used to. Over the last six months or so 've been making a concerted effort to reverse that, reestablish some things, and have that coincide with some new features and events, too, to sort of reboot and refresh the place.

Hopefully, today, we have a bit more of a happy medium, but these are the dials you fiddle with basically forever.