Is MLP Forums Dying?

[Starlight Serenade 3,111]

26 minutes ago, Iforgotmybrain said:

Tbh even on other platforms it really seems like G5 just doesn’t have that big of a fan base either. On the MLP subreddit it’s basically non-existent save for the almost daily posts of someone asking “is G5 good?” followed by arguments in the comments, because it’s Reddit.

Twitter is definitely a lot better, popular G5 artists and content creators usually easily crack several thousand likes. And there’s just a lot more G5 content posted there in general. Definitely not as big as G4 once was but it’s something. YouTube is in the same vein, I've seen G5 fan animations get into the 6 figures pretty easily.

I do agree that leaning more into G5 is needed, and I feel we're kind of heading in that direction with the recent events which I like!

I don't really have other social media and went off the analytic data that I saw a year ago, G5 seems more popular elsewhere than here. I see a lot of G5 vids as well. Though I have been recommended some of the "G5 hate" vids and ignore those. Too many people just ranting for the sake of ranting instead of being respectful and giving valid criticisms(which I have a few for G5 but that's another issue).

That's why I based my OC, Starlight Serenade off of G5 with the idea of Skyros in mind. I had my own little idea that the alicorns were similar to Greek Gods, but something happened and they all spread out.

30 minutes ago, Iforgotmybrain said:

Making it so the birthday wall only shows more active accounts is a really good idea imo. Have it be like a year or more of inactivity for the cutoff. Seeing a huge list of accounts that haven't been online in years as a new user can definitely give off the air that the forum is empty or abandoned even if that isn't the case.

Yeah it's a bit sad to see. This and the threads idea of keeping conversations fresh instead of reusing threads from inactive accounts as well. Oh on the topic of threads, what about if there was something similar to freeze pane in Microsoft Excel/the quote system here for the OP's questions/posts? This way you can see what the original poster put in regards to a question/post without scrolling to the top or to the beginning at times. I see some people go off based recent comments at times and then the threads become derivative from the original topic. There are a lot of little quality of life updates that I think could be tweaked a bit.

34 minutes ago, Iforgotmybrain said:

It really was lightning in a bottle. The first half of the seasons especially. I think I remember stats from somewhere that said the fandom, popularity wise, has been on a decline since season 6 or so. Which I think makes sense. Even with G4's later seasons the fandom just wasn't nearly as big as it used to be.

I saw that there was an minor exodus of fans around the ending of the first 3 seasons and the start of season 4. I assumed the peak years went all the way up to around 2014 or so since Lauren Faust's involvement early around S2/S3 and the writing started to decline. There were a lot of fun little moments in the later seasons, but there was definitely a decline with recycled story lines and ideas for later episodes.

[Deae Rising Shine~ 55,336]

The forums, will last, foreverrr, muahahahahaha...wait, that's not evil sounding at all, that's actually good!

[Luna the Great of all the Russias 2,984]

9 hours ago, Iforgotmybrain said:

Yeah, Discord servers really hit forums hard. Which I personally dislike just because I'm not a fan of the Discord server format, it just gets so busy once you're past a few dozen users. Not to mention it's impossible to search for information from Discord servers via something like Google. Reddit at least has that going for it.

I do not mind Discord. In a way, it strikes me as being an evolution of older instant messaging means of communications. Forums, in contrast, are a slower means of communication: it is more normal for far greater lengths of time to pass before a reply may be expected, which allows for greater thought and organization for a given post. This is far more limited with the faster pace of something like Discord.

[Fluttershutter 2,447]

57 minutes ago, Luna the Great of all the Russias said:

I do not mind Discord. In a way, it strikes me as being an evolution of older instant messaging means of communications. Forums, in contrast, are a slower means of communication: it is more normal for far greater lengths of time to pass before a reply may be expected, which allows for greater thought and organization for a given post. This is far more limited with the faster pace of something like Discord.

That's why I like forums and I really kind of hate discord. I don't want instant messages, I want to log on once of twice a day and relax while I read what people are saying, not have things popping up constantly.

[Mirage 24,763]

There's quite a bit of lurking with respect to only a trickle of participation. I'm not sure why that is. I've come and gone a couple times and I'd say the overall friendliness is high compared to past years.

But I've burnt some bridges here, so it's definitely not the same for me. It hurts to see members I used to be friends with just ignore me now, but it's mostly earned by my own emotional flaws. In the cold I will suffer.

And it doesn't help that I'm just a mirage...

I try. It's all I can do.

Edited March 25 by Mirage

[DubWolf 17,262]

I've seen other forums die. This one is far from it. Albeit those communities were much smaller to begin with.

But, this website is far from being that small community.

 

Indeed, this was a "G4 forum" which was a result of a huge Boom in fans/viewership. Has G5 done the same? Doubt it. I saw G4 everywhere on the internet around the time I joined the fandom. I have yet to see G5 do anything of that kind of scope.

That's just from my perspective. The forums ain't dead.

[Flew Away 932]

Well, I don't think so.

New users still comes, old users returns, many have been here for a long time. Many just lurks around too.

For my part, it's a way to keep pony contacts and pony interest going. I'm incredibly "media" tired and doesn't actually use much of it otherwise. Life is so much more than online.

Forums are a great way to live slowly online. Nothing is in a hurry, what ends up here becomes like a diary of our pony lives.

I really hope it stays for a long time. Gets a little worried only when Poniverse is not updated, or renewed. I guess interest is waning for some involved. Really hope this can stay and that if something were to change, that they take the chance to pass it on to owners who want to keep it for an indefinite future.

[Evil Pink One 13,506]

As Long as our "sponsors" dont leave... Nothing to worry about the forums dying.

[Flew Away 932]

18 minutes ago, Evil Pink One said:

As Long as our "sponsors" dont leave... Nothing to worry about the forums dying.

Only money doesn't help, there must be interested ponies who keep everything alive after all. Now I don't know if the server is run by "Invision" or if they bought the application and run it on own servers, or hosting somewhere? The Poniverse login complicates the whole thing a bit compared to "Invision's" normal login. So I HOPE there is interest in developing and running Poniverse for a long time to come. Worrying is when it crashed last time for several days and no info goes out to normal users?

 

[StarHeart333 1,764]

The post was made 4 years ago and we're still here I think we're good.

[Flew Away 932]

10 minutes ago, Samuel L Changeling said:

The post was made 4 years ago and we're still here I think we're good.

Politicians say so too

[Dreambiscuit 9,691]

On 2024-03-25 at 10:08 AM, Fluttershutter said:

That's why I like forums and I really kind of hate discord. I don't want instant messages, I want to log on once of twice a day and relax while I read what people are saying, not have things popping up constantly.

Agreed, completely.

 

It doesn’t feel to me like the forums are dying. There aren’t that many online forums like this anymore so it fills a gap that nopony else seems to be taking care of anymore. There are a lot of people who like this format of social media and interaction and on that basis alone I think this forum fills a niche that should keep it in circulation for a while. At least I hope so.

[Misty Shadow 7,861]

It's obviously true that this forum has lost activity with the general decline of interest in forums, this place will never be as active as it was back in 2012. However, compared to what it was like back in 2020, the year this topic was made, I see no significant difference. People are still coming on every day and there are always people talking about the new G5 episodes. 

[Snow 7,015]

I didn't hear no bell 

I think a lot of people are still going to pop their head in from time to time and there appears to be a steady stream of people joining,
Can I also note that the peak number of online users the forum has had was after g4 ended, go us!

[Rafa Stary 2,946]

No, for me "dying" and "losing popularity" aren't the same, everything has a life cycle, every fandom is going to have its days of glory, until a dry era arrives

But, even if a lot of fans lost interest in G5 or just decided to move on, let's remember that MLP is still art, and art is eternal, countless works of fanarts and stories are still going to be made by those who love the series, or even by those who just really like the ponies.

With MLPF is no different, there will still be people to share arts here, do roleplays, to discuss the show

G4 built a legacy, this forum built its own legacy as well, it lives, and even if it's closed some day, it's still going to be part of internet's story, the incredible memories that each soul had here will continue to exist.

[ZiggWheelsManning 10,172]

On 2024-08-01 at 10:05 PM, Rafa Stary said:

No, for me "dying" and "losing popularity" aren't the same, everything has a life cycle, every fandom is going to have its days of glory, until a dry era arrives

But, even if a lot of fans lost interest in G5 or just decided to move on, let's remember that MLP is still art, and art is eternal, countless works of fanarts and stories are still going to be made by those who love the series, or even by those who just really like the ponies.

With MLPF is no different, there will still be people to share arts here, do roleplays, to discuss the show

G4 built a legacy, this forum built its own legacy as well, it lives, and even if it's closed some day, it's still going to be part of internet's story, the incredible memories that each soul had here will continue to exist.

THIS ^^