Have forums had their day ??

[Jostein]

What puts me off Facebook is its inability to let you interact if you aren't a member.

Facebook is the place where almost all my existing customers, resources, venues, info, and collaborators are (not to mention the private network) and also the potential new ones. So in my world, even Facebook is only one forum of many, I can't afford to not be a member. Facebook has its downsides, but so does everything. :-)

[Theotherguy]

Mixbus, Mixbus32C: v6.1 now available!
Now we have something to discus. Watch forum traffic trend upward.
Ebb and flow, just like music!

[tavasti]

What puts me off Facebook is its inability to let you interact if you aren't a member. With traditional forums, non-members can usually participate at a limited level - they can navigate around the forum, view threads etc and generally get a feel for whether they're gonna like it or not.

In usability point, Facebook is horrible. Finding any old discussion is next to impossible. It is just for temporary discussion, not for 'I write this down so that others can see it later'.

[Till]

Over the years I must've joined a few dozen forums... some were for MS Windows, some for Linux & Mac, some were for computer programming - or DAW's - or other products.

Hopefully it's not my fault (maybe I've become a jinx!!) but these days, forums seem to get very few visitors. Anyone else noticed this? And what's the reason??

The reason: Most frequented forums get hijacked by trolls. You may realize always the same small bunch of people who always have to say "something", even it is unnecessary, off-topic or rude.

If you read comments like "EQ and Compressor don't amplify a signal" a new user may consider: This is not my place.

[bayswater]

Maybe you need to looks for different forums. The few I participate in have a reasonable level of traffic. The overall level might have decided, but if you get reasonable responses in a reasonable time to your questions, and some sort of useful replies to your own observations, that's enough. I used to participate in two Logic forums, and dropped the busier one because there was so much there was just too noise and questions from people who had clearly never cracked the manual.