Is MLP Forums Dying?

[Luna the Great of all the Russias 2,705]

16 minutes ago, StarlightSerenade said:

Mmmm the forums is still somewhat active as I recall from when I came back a little while ago. However, some of the people I used to know are not here anymore while the other regulars are still out and about.

There are periods where it seems dead as a lot of people that I met here are fellow adults who most likely have jobs, families, school, other hobbies, etc. So on one hand, it's totally understandable that some people can't sit down for too long on the forums with other things going on IRL. 

However since I look at the business side of things due to school- my only concern is that if G5 had  several hundred million to a billion social interactions across all social media platforms just a year ago, why wasn't there that much of an uptick in people joining here?

Here are just some other thoughts:

- The forums seems more G4 centric than the current generation. This could make some new fans coming in feel not included/out of the loop as a majority of things on the forums are more G4 than anything. It's understandably so with how popular it was in comparison to the other generations. The forums have recently done more events that are G5 centric, but I recall there weren't that many before when I joined last year. I love G4 as it's what got me into the series a few years back, but it would be nice if G5 was embraced more and that it got some more attention at the forefront. With the news that licensing and TYT possibly being finished up in early 2025, G5 could almost be over in a year and not much has been done here. Maybe there could be more events, banners, backgrounds, rps, etc. (I love the current banner though).

-No accompanying app. It would be great to have an app for the forums similar to what Reddit has, but I understand that is a complex situation with a lot of overhead and can understand why the owner(s) of the site would not maybe want that. Maybe even copyright issues as well, idk? With an app on the apple store/google play store, I would imagine thousands of people joining here.

-A lot of inactive accounts. One thing I noticed is that accounts shown here for birthdays and such show inactive accounts from a few years ago to over a decade ago. Honestly there were some days recently where it showed a wall of people who haven't logged in for years and people telling them happy birthday. That could come across several different ways to new people. There should be a new way to program or set it up so that it captures more recent/active accounts. One idea that I think should be included is that older threads should be retired and maybe use AI to generate new topics that are used for 6 months to a year then retired completely.

I had a few more thoughts, but I need to get studying for school XD

I am assuming also that forums as means of communication is not nearly as prevalent as it used to be. Discord and Reddit seem far more the norm today (I think one could describe Reddit also as being a forums, but, from what I know of the site, the visibility of posts is more strongly dependent on voting, and the site is part of Reddit instead of being an independent site as is the case with MLPF).

[Starlight Serenade 559]

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

I am assuming also that forums as means of communication is not nearly as prevalent as it used to be. Discord and Reddit seem far more the norm today (I think one could describe Reddit also as being a forums, but, from what I know of the site, the visibility of posts is more strongly dependent on voting, and the site is part of Reddit instead of being an independent site as is the case with MLPF).

Yes I am assuming that since social media is more popular than ever, using the forums as a means of communication isn't as prevalent as it used to be. It doesn't help that the fandom hasn't been as popular as it's early years in G4. I think G4 was lighting in a bottle as it was around the early years of when social media was beginning to rise which helped boost it's popularity.

Just to clarify, I used Reddit as it's the most similar to a forum in comparison to the other big social media sites. Discord is good for gaming/groups(some ideas from it could be used on apps), but is limited in some aspects. Adapting some ideas from different sites would be good for the app.

[Iforgotmybrain 3,516]

1 hour ago, StarlightSerenade said:

Mmmm the forums is still somewhat active as I recall from when I came back a little while ago. However, some of the people I used to know are not here anymore while the other regulars are still out and about.

There are periods where it seems dead as a lot of people that I met here are fellow adults who most likely have jobs, families, school, other hobbies, etc. So on one hand, it's totally understandable that some people can't sit down for too long on the forums with other things going on IRL. 

However since I look at the business side of things due to school- my only concern is that if G5 had  several hundred million to a billion social interactions across all social media platforms just a year ago, why wasn't there that much of an uptick in people joining here?

Here are just some other thoughts:

- The forums seems more G4 centric than the current generation. This could make some new fans coming in feel not included/out of the loop as a majority of things on the forums are more G4 than anything. It's understandably so with how popular it was in comparison to the other generations. The forums have recently done more events that are G5 centric, but I recall there weren't that many before when I joined last year. I love G4 as it's what got me into the series a few years back, but it would be nice if G5 was embraced more and that it got some more attention at the forefront. With the news that licensing and TYT possibly being finished up in early 2025, G5 could almost be over in a year and not much has been done here. Maybe there could be more events, banners, backgrounds, rps, etc. (I love the current banner though).

 

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!

Quote

-A lot of inactive accounts. One thing I noticed is that accounts shown here for birthdays and such show inactive accounts from a few years ago to over a decade ago. Honestly there were some days recently where it showed a wall of people who haven't logged in for years and people telling them happy birthday. That could come across several different ways to new people. There should be a new way to program or set it up so that it captures more recent/active accounts.

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.

1 hour ago, Luna the Great of all the Russias said:

I am assuming also that forums as means of communication is not nearly as prevalent as it used to be. Discord and Reddit seem far more the norm today (I think one could describe Reddit also as being a forums, but, from what I know of the site, the visibility of posts is more strongly dependent on voting, and the site is part of Reddit instead of being an independent site as is the case with MLPF).

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.

38 minutes ago, StarlightSerenade said:

Yes I am assuming that since social media is more popular than ever, using the forums as a means of communication isn't as prevalent as it used to be. It doesn't help that the fandom hasn't been as popular as it's early years in G4. I think G4 was lighting in a bottle as it was around the early years of when social media was beginning to rise which helped boost it's popularity.

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.

Edited March 25 by Iforgotmybrain

[Starlight Serenade 559]

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~ 52,438]

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 2,705]

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 2,120]

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.

[Props Valroa 26,048]

MLP Forums is not what it used to be. It is still around and still has a decent amount of activity. I wouldn't say it is "Dead", though it is notable that G5 has failed to renew much activity on the forums. I prefer Forums to Discord, at least when it comes to RP and having connections that aren't so personal. Discord is more for personal connections and instant communication.

[Mirage 24,142]

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 16,621]

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.

[Princess Celestia 615]

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 12,994]

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

[Princess Celestia 615]

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?

 

[Reiki Knight 13 1,461]

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

[Princess Celestia 615]

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 8,024]

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 7,085]

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.