# Seeing a Significant Downturn In Thread/Post Traffic



## Confounded Also (Aug 19, 2015)

Many days there aren't but a small handful of posts. Yesterday only about a dozen threads or so were posted to. Even the member currently viewing list at the bottom of the page only seems to show small numbers.

I have an idea or two as to why. And it's not that people are abandoning forums in favor of that other type of site.


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## bassfisher6522 (Jul 22, 2012)

So do tell.....


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## bassfisher6522 (Jul 22, 2012)

For me....I was out of work for a little over a year and had all the time in the world to play on my PC. Now I've re-entered the work force and with my odd shifts it's hard to get on the PC with the household duties to be taken care of as well. 

Last night I didn't get home till a little after 11 pm, chit chatted with the wife, grabbed a bite to eat and showered and off to bed. Then turn around and open in the morning. Crazy! 

With winter just around the corner, shifts will be cut and hours will be hard to come by....for some. A few of us will be OK (me). So I'll have some decent time to spend on the forum.


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## Corday (Mar 3, 2010)

It's because Windows 10 has solved all the problems. :rofl:
Seriously, all forums are in decline as users have found other pursuits.


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## Confounded Also (Aug 19, 2015)

bassfisher6522 said:


> So do tell.....


Immunity?


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## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

Confounded Also said:


> Immunity?


You're more than welcome to share you opinion as to why. However, please keep it PG and not pointing fingers.


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## Stancestans (Apr 26, 2009)

Brace yourselves for threads about broken device drivers with Windows 10 October Update out! I won't forget the ordeal I had with Fall Creators Update and the HP Mobile Data Protection Sensor in my ProBook! It wasn't until December last year that an updated driver was published by HP, but by then I had given up looking for one and had resorted to disabling the sensor which was almost always crashing Windows on resume from sleep! Enter v1803 and I couldn't wait to upgrade, so I did via insider program and eagerly went searching for an updated driver for the sensor, and found the Dec one which has worked flawlessly since! My Toshiba was next to suffer when brightness controls were maxed out and never changed, but fortunately this was fixed by the June update! Don't get me started on bluetooth woes! Other than the My Phone app, I'm not so eager to upgrade my main installation, but I am going to do a fresh install on a virtual disk and dual-boot, to make sure drivers woes are non-existent!


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## Confounded Also (Aug 19, 2015)

Masterchiefxx17 said:


> You're more than welcome to share you opinion as to why. However, please keep it PG and not pointing fingers.


Well, it's Staff related, so ...


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## Corday (Mar 3, 2010)

If it involves an expert on MS Office, then you're mistaken. PM me if otherwise.


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## VividProfessional (Apr 29, 2009)

I have just done the 1809 upgrade on my laptop and PC and nothing has gone wro..... (BLUE SCREEN)


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## SpywareDr (Jun 15, 2013)

Dave Cummings said:


> I have just done the 1809 upgrade on my laptop and PC and nothing has gone wro..... (BLUE SCREEN)


"[BLUE_ *SCRE**A*__*M*_]"? :wink:


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## Confounded Also (Aug 19, 2015)

We disagree.

But take a look yourselves at the number of new posters who come with a problem, get an effective resolution, then decide to stay and try to help others. They're few and far between. They watch, they see how others are treated, maybe they're made to feel unwelcome themselves. They don't stay long. Maybe they just lurk for a while before wandering off shaking their heads.

I've seen things here that I sometimes see on boards not long before their demise. I've seen a couple of boards follow a pattern, then suddenly go private, not accepting new members at all.


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## Stancestans (Apr 26, 2009)

Confounded Also said:


> We disagree.
> 
> But take a look yourselves at the number of new posters who come with a problem, get an effective resolution, then decide to stay and try to help others. They're few and far between. They watch, they see how others are treated, maybe they're made to feel unwelcome themselves. They don't stay long. Maybe they just lurk for a while before wandering off shaking their heads.
> 
> I've seen things here that I sometimes see on boards not long before their demise. I've seen a couple of boards follow a pattern, then suddenly go private, not accepting new members at all.


Care to link any threads that showcase the short-lived stay of new comers who wish to help others? TSF is tough on those who wanna play by their own rules. If you come here with your own agenda that doesn't fit, I can assure you that you won't last long, and I'm not saying that with any administrative authority. We've seen a number of new comers who somewhat seemed to know what they were talking about in the beginning, and some did actually make helpful and knowledgeable contributions, but they had to go for various valid reasons. 

All help is welcome on TSF, but we are all expected to maintain some etiquette and abide by the rules and heed warnings and advice when we step outta line. I particularly remember one member who has since vanished in the shadows, who wasn't happy with the fact that we referred them to Chrome's user license agreement and to a Google page that outright answered the question they were posting about, and the fact that the answer was a quick Google search away. I personally like to help the best way I can, and that includes teaching people to help themselves, but some members are not happy about it. They don't wanna do a quick Web search for the query they have, they wanna start a thread here and get back answers from us and not some external source, even if that external source is best equipped to explain it to them than we are. Some won't give an external link a second look and instead want us to reproduce the same things here. If you searched this forum for "reinventing" you'll see what I'm talking about.

Everyone is different and expectations vary from person to person, so it's impossible to please everyone. Some take issue with how you present instructions, and some do their own things when instructed to do otherwise, some peddle their own ideas and beliefs and won't budge while ironically seeking help with their bad ideas! Some have no regard for rules and they want an open season where everything goes. Present them a link to the rules and you've opened a can of worms. Some want TSF to work like some other shady forum they joined, some want to rant about things we have no involvement in or control over, and they take offense when we state that. There are all sorts of characters here, and those that have found this place to be unfriendly certainly had expectations that they wanted to be met. I could go on and on, but one thing is for sure; there are some characters whose presence I don't miss if they've moved on.


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## Confounded Also (Aug 19, 2015)

So, you're bopping around the web looking for a place to ask about a problem you're having. You stumble on a site that looks promising on the surface. So you lurk a bit and start reading a few threads to see what the tone of the board is. At first it looks good, but the more you read, the more you see:

- Staff almost arguing with each other.
- People asking questions and getting replies to 'Go Fish!' (do this search or that search) on other sites.
- Threads that start out good with a number of replies from different points of view. You come back later to find half of the replies gone, leaving only a very guided point of view.
- Threads locked for no apparent reason. Maybe there's a stern closing post, maybe not.
- You begin to notice that there are more Mods, Experts and other titled members posting than people asking questions.

Wouldn't you begin to wonder if that board is the place you thought it was at first?

To be honest, this isn't the first VerticalScope board I've seen that happen to. I'm active on several other boards and the VS boards have almost all seen declining traffic due to similar types of problems. Admin almost seems to become overwhelmed and begins to ramp up various tactics. Not long after, members begin falling away. This time frame varies by board and topic with some memberships being more or less tolerant.

As you begin to fall away and look for other sites, you begin to see some of those same members on those new boards getting along better.


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## joeten (Dec 4, 2008)

If you are unhappy then perhaps this is not the place for you, Stan has given you some very apt and clear explanations for a variety of the issues your bringing up but it appears they do not fit with what you believe should happen, unfortunately we cannot run the forum on your expectation but on what works for the majority and most people would be happy to see a active team of mods etc answering threads and also see the value in teaching people how to use search engines or providing links to gain more insight into their issues rather than repeating the information verbatim.


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## Corday (Mar 3, 2010)

Confounded Also said:


> - Threads that start out good with a number of replies from different points of view. You come back later to find half of the replies gone, leaving only a very guided point of view.


This why I thought you were referring to a particular person. You made three consecutive off topic and in one case argumentative posts and the mod was correct in deleting. You might not have known, a staff member's post was deleted also. Three other posts in the same thread were deleted because questionable software suppliers were touted. We try to protect our users.


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## Stancestans (Apr 26, 2009)

Confounded Also said:


> - Threads that start out good with a number of replies from different points of view. You come back later to find half of the replies gone, leaving only a very guided point of view.


I see nothing wrong with guidance. NOT everything goes, and that's not gonna change for sure because sanity has to be maintained somehow.


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## Confounded Also (Aug 19, 2015)

joeten said:


> If you are unhappy then perhaps this is not the place for you,



But don't you see? That's exactly the problem. How many lurkers are out there reading that post as unwelcoming and deciding to leave without ever posting to begin with?


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## Confounded Also (Aug 19, 2015)

Stancestans said:


> I see nothing wrong with guidance. NOT everything goes, and that's not gonna change for sure because sanity has to be maintained somehow.


There is a difference between guidance (helpful and informative) and guided (limiting conversation to only one point of view).


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## tristar (Aug 12, 2008)

> How many lurkers are out there reading that post as unwelcoming and deciding to leave without ever posting to begin with?


Wouldn't they feel that the Mods/Admins are doing a good job maintaining the forum by cleaning up unwanted opinions and off topic/misleading comments ?


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## Confounded Also (Aug 19, 2015)

And it's not just this board. I see it with several Vertical Scope boards and I really don't understand why. It's almost like it's part of how VS operates boards they own.

I saw one go bad (very bad) recently when they sold out to Tapatalk. Staff suddenly got very mean in a way they never were when the site was privately operated.


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## joeten (Dec 4, 2008)

Perhaps they might also see someone who when disagreed with begins looking for reason to be confrontational, the forum welcomes everyone but there are rules and if those are not followed then we part company, we also remove potentially harmful links and posts to protect individuals including lurkers as you call them. Once again I will say the forums are run for the benefit of all not to the ideals of one individual.


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## SpywareDr (Jun 15, 2013)

_"When in Rome, do as the Romans do."_


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## Corday (Mar 3, 2010)

VS has no influence on volunteer staff. At the time of VS takeover, the same people remained in place.


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## jcgriff2 (Sep 30, 2007)

Confounded Also said:


> - Staff almost arguing with each other.
> - People asking questions and getting replies to 'Go Fish!' (do this search or that search) on other sites.
> - Threads that start out good with a number of replies from different points of view. You come back later to find half of the replies gone, leaving only a very guided point of view.
> - Threads locked for no apparent reason. Maybe there's a stern closing post, maybe not.
> - You begin to notice that there are more Mods, Experts and other titled members posting than people asking questions.


1. If you observe this, _PLEASE_ send me a PM with a link to the post(s) or just the thread if the entire thread is an argument. Please don't send me a link to a thread with 100 posts in it and expect me to read through it all to find the alleged argument because that won't happen.
2. Same answer as #1
3. Are you saying that post have been deleted from an active thread? If you believe this to be true, please send me a link to the thread via PM and I will look to see if posts were deleted and why.
4. Again - please send me a link to the thread and I'll investigate as to the reason for the thread closure. In general, we do not close threads unless there is a very good reason for doing so.
5. Are you talking about within the same thread that this occurs or TSF in general? I have no problem with anyone posting to a thread where others (staff) have posted before as long as the new post is not just repeating already given instructions or information. 

When we used to have ~10 BSOD Analysts, it was not uncommon at all for 4 or 5 BSOD Analysts to post differing view points (cause and potential solution) in the SAME thread. Other times, all BSOD Analysts agreed on the cause and solution and quite a few would post "Agree with jcgriff2" (or similar). 

The latter is very comforting to the OP whereas the former is very helpful to the OP as they have several potential solutions to try.

Again - please send me a PM with a link so that I may evaluate the thread and replies for myself and see if the staff posts are appropriate.

*Anyone that sends me links or other pertinent information on any subject matter has my personal guarantee of anonymity, if requested.
*
I am just a Manager and Administrator that has been here at TSF for over 10 years now - not some superior being that is unapproachable. I mean that with all sincerity. Anyone of any staff level is more than welcome to send me a PM on any topic. It may take a little time for me to reply due to "real life" events, but you will ultimately receive a reply. Whether it will be satisfactory to you or not is another question for another day! 

Regards. . .

jcgriff2

`


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