Keep using this board?

[Deleted]

This board doesn't get nearly the traffic it once did.

I guess almost everybody is using Facebook for everything these days.

It seems a shame when our moderator doesn't post her latest research here, or even on her own web site.

Not participating in the Tanka challenge this time because it's like 90% of the traffic this board receives, and that's getting me down.

I just... I just don't like how Facebook has absorbed the SCA so entirely.

[Saionji Shonagon]

Right now the rapier community in my kingdom needs my help a lot more than the A&S community in the Known World. That has been my focus lately because I am a Peer of the West and a Peer does the job that's laid before her.

I am sorry if that's a problem.

I am sorry art is not flowing from every pore 24 hours a day. Believe me, my imposter syndrome lets me have it over that as it is. 30 days of poetry will be hard enough.

I am sorry people prefer Facebook to this forum but if nobody's reading over here, I have to post over there. (A Peer does the job, even if Facebook is icky and hard to search.)

I am sorry my website is out of date, but I am not a web designer and every time I look at how much work it needs and what tools I have, I want to pull the plug on the whole thing instead of pay the yearly fee to keep it going.

I am sorry I am such a disappointment.

[Miura Suzume]

Facebook is easy. Whether that is a fact one approves or disapproves of, it remains a fact. Facebook is easy to navigate, to post on, to locate people on, and any number of other things. Forums sites in general have simply fallen away as the social media format of choice. While a concerted effort to repopulate this board could meet with success, it will not change the overall shift in how people use the Internet.

Regardless of the traffic this forum does or does not get, public denouncement of someone you could have just as easily asked after in private seems to me an unnecessary and somewhat rude action. While I understand the pique over a flagging population, especially if you do not like or choose to participate on Facebook, this is a discussion that can be had without the addition of commentary that can easily come off as needlessly snide and/or can be assumed to have been included for the sole purpose of injuring the individual in question.

[Deleted]

My apologies.

I didn't mean my post to be a personal attack, though that is how it came out and I am sorry.

I meant to express my sadness over the general lack of traffic here, in what used to be a vibrant community.

[Miura Suzume]

I absolutely understand and agree with that sentiment. I will readily admit that I am part of the problem, as I have also not been very good about posting my projects or learnings on this board. I've sent out some calls to arms in the relevant groups on Facebook, but I'm also going to make an effort to improve my own level of interaction with this community.

At least for me, one of the main reasons this forum has sort of become a last-ditch resource is that the majority of pictures and links are broken. There are wonderful discussions dating back from the beginning of the board's history that I can't garner much from because the images they're referencing are just...gone. I don't know that it would be even remotely worthwhile to go back and try to fix that, but it is something I've observed--a lot of the wealth of information we have has disappeared along with those broken images and links.

[momoyama]

Well that is a tough question. I will go either way. Honestly I usually drop by for the Tanka challenge and occaisional research topics. I think one idea would be to make the Tanka challenge seasonal, 4 times per year for starters. As most people I have the love/hate relationship with FB. Just started a closed shakuhachi group for beginners because I dont want every one of my “friends” seeing every time I post about my hobby. So theres another option, a closed FB group. Or just stay here.

[kazuyama]

I've given up Facebook for a while. I personally prefer it here over Facebook. Just my two cents, and in the future I'll try to post something to make things more interesting. Maybe in time we can get some activity going here