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Post by SharksFan99 on Mar 6, 2023 19:23:25 GMT 10
Hey everyone, hope you're all well,  I think we can pretty much all agree that Popedia is a shell of what it used to be. It's basically 'dead' at this point. The decline started back in 2020 when several members started to leave (e.g loosebolt, #Infinity, Slowpoke) and it has only gradually gone downhill since. Most of us have been here for several years now and can probably remember when the forum used to have 40+ members go online/post every single day. For a small forum, it really punched above it's weight and had a decent amount of activity. Now it struggles to average 100 posts a month. Things can change and we can all make Popedia a better, more active forum again. However, I will need your help. Please let me know below if you would like Popedia to become more active and if there's any changes you would like to see made. I'm open to all ideas! Thank you,
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Post by John Titor on Mar 8, 2023 4:41:16 GMT 10
I co sign this message
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Post by Captain Nemo on Mar 8, 2023 11:59:34 GMT 10
I think the pop culture - centric aspect of this forum has been boom and bust. Especially now that these discussions are now largely taking place on Reddit.
I'd say this forum should shift focus to more Roleplay - centric threads, like that one we used to do about pirates and being shipwrecked in Mexico back in the day. Also, encouraging photos posted throughout each thread, so that this forum can capitalize on doing something that Reddit can't do.
Like, include sub-boards for various countries, and certain time periods / eras. Or different themes. Like pirate themed ones, space themed ones, medieval themed ones, folklore based ones, roleplay fanfiction, etc.
The pop culture - centric aspect had its boom throughout the late '10s and it's bust in the early 2020s, and now it can no longer compete with Reddit in that departmnent. So it's best this site start focusing on promoting threads that Reddit couldn't process.
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Post by 10slover on Mar 8, 2023 13:00:11 GMT 10
I came to this forum way after it started to decline but i can attest that even then it was waaaay more active, I really don't know what happened.
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Post by mc98 on Mar 8, 2023 13:13:41 GMT 10
The last time this site was active was around early summer 2022. I don't know why it became inactive after that.
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Post by rainbow on Mar 10, 2023 7:01:05 GMT 10
Have you tried promoting your forum a little more? IMO I think one thing Popedia does right is the fact that it's kinda got a bit of everything. It's not like reddit where you need a specific subreddit for every little topic. Popedia is a lot easier, and it has a sense of community that Reddit doesn't have.
This will be controversial, but I think being more lenient on decadeology would make this website a little more active. I know I was previously strict before, but I think we might need to loosen some of our decadeology rules. I think if we want to make this site more active, then there needs to be changes. I also think we should get rid of the moderator approval to register.
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Post by rainbow on Mar 10, 2023 7:02:24 GMT 10
The last time this site was active was around early summer 2022. I don't know why it became inactive after that. I'd say the last time this site was active was during 2020. I feel like Popedia's ultimate peak was late 2017-early 2020, and then after that it just died.
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Post by SharksFan99 on Mar 10, 2023 18:28:56 GMT 10
I think the pop culture - centric aspect of this forum has been boom and bust. Especially now that these discussions are now largely taking place on Reddit. I'd say this forum should shift focus to more Roleplay - centric threads, like that one we used to do about pirates and being shipwrecked in Mexico back in the day. Also, encouraging photos posted throughout each thread, so that this forum can capitalize on doing something that Reddit can't do. Like, include sub-boards for various countries, and certain time periods / eras. Or different themes. Like pirate themed ones, space themed ones, medieval themed ones, folklore based ones, roleplay fanfiction, etc. The pop culture - centric aspect had its boom throughout the late '10s and it's bust in the early 2020s, and now it can no longer compete with Reddit in that departmnent. So it's best this site start focusing on promoting threads that Reddit couldn't process. I agree that we could tweak the overall focus of the forum and become less reliant on the pop culture topics, but i'm not sure if becoming a roleplay forum is the answer tbh. The one thing that concerns me is that if we were to become a roleplay-centric forum, the people who still visit Popedia might feel alienated by it (since they specifically joined a pop-culture forum, not a roleplay one) and the forum will become less active as a result. I feel like it would be too big of a risk to take. The challenge is trying to find the right balance. We should try and focus on the things which Reddit can't compete with, but not change the forum too dramatically so that our existing members aren't alienated from it. I came to this forum way after it started to decline but i can attest that even then it was waaaay more active, I really don't know what happened. I feel like it was a combination of two things; the pandemic and several long-time members leaving. IMO, Popedia started to decline around the middle of 2020 when the pandemic was in it's early stages. There was a lot going on and the last thing people were obviously thinking about was what music, movies etc. were like, so I think that in itself resulted in less people logging on. Also, around the same time, several long-time members left for various reasons, like Slowpoke, loosebolt, mamafrankie etc. They were some of the most active members on Popedia, so their departures made a big impact. Have you tried promoting your forum a little more? IMO I think one thing Popedia does right is the fact that it's kinda got a bit of everything. It's not like reddit where you need a specific subreddit for every little topic. Popedia is a lot easier, and it has a sense of community that Reddit doesn't have. This will be controversial, but I think being more lenient on decadeology would make this website a little more active. I know I was previously strict before, but I think we might need to loosen some of our decadeology rules. I think if we want to make this site more active, then there needs to be changes. I also think we should get rid of the moderator approval to register. Not yet. I was going to wait and see what people's responses were to this topic first, and if people were interested in seeing Popedia revived, then I was going to start promoting it again. I still think it will be very hard to try and encourage people to sign up to a forum though. Not too say it can't be done, but Reddit has only become more entrenched and popular since Popedia was created back in 2017. I agree actually. In fact, I think we should get rid of the decadeology ban altogether. Most people seem to like comparing certain years, describing what eras 'felt' like etc. and if we want more people to sign up, it would be counter-intuitive to continue to ban it. I would love to get rid of the moderator approval rule, but unfortunately, i'm still not sure if it's a great idea. Do we really want people like nightmarefarm to come back at any time and cause drama again? You saw what he did when he created that topic on your subreddit about a month ago. Also, he's attempted to register at least 5 accounts within the past six months. We could maybe trial it for a while though and see what happens.
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Post by Cassie on Mar 10, 2023 18:31:57 GMT 10
I feel like this could just be a big consequence of the decline of traditional forums - Popedia leans more in the style of a traditional forum, and people for some reason don't tend to care about that.
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Post by SharksFan99 on Mar 10, 2023 19:09:56 GMT 10
I feel like this could just be a big consequence of the decline of traditional forums - Popedia leans more in the style of a traditional forum, and people for some reason don't tend to care about that. Yep, that's true unfortunately. Tbh, that was actually the main reason as for why I pretty much gave up on promoting the forum when it started to decline. Reddit has essentially made forums like Popedia obsolete and it's going to be a challenge to try and turn things around. It can be done, but it won't be easy.
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Post by 10slover on Mar 11, 2023 5:19:25 GMT 10
There have been more than 500 guests in the last 24 hours though
is there a way for them to interact with this forum without having to create an account
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Post by rainbow on Mar 11, 2023 5:57:41 GMT 10
There have been more than 500 guests in the last 24 hours though is there a way for them to interact with this forum without having to create an account I think way more people would create accounts if there wasn't a need for them to be moderator approved. I think this website has enough moderators that if there were ever trolls who attempt to make an account, we can instantly ban them.
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Post by crystalmetheny0428 on Mar 11, 2023 6:08:20 GMT 10
The last time this site was active was around early summer 2022. I don't know why it became inactive after that. I'd say the last time this site was active was during 2020. I feel like Popedia's ultimate peak was late 2017-early 2020, and then after that it just died. i wasn’t on popedia when it was most active but it was still way more active in the first half of 2022 than it is now
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Post by rainbow on Mar 11, 2023 6:26:39 GMT 10
SharksFan99 I mentioned this to you on the discord server, but in case you don't see it: I think a good way to promote your forum would be on a Discord server, whether it'd be the Zillennials one, or any server where people like talking about pop culture. Also, let them know what Popedia offers that a Reddit subreddit would not. As I mentioned before, Popedia has a small, yet welcoming community. It is a mixture of everything within one forum. There are no downvotes, so nobody's posts gets downvoted and unseen. And do let them know that decadeology discussions are now welcome. Inform them about all kinds of topics that this forum has to offer. Honestly, you might actually have a good shot at getting people to join this website. I know a lot of people who hate r/generationology and r/GenZ because they keep getting downvotes from trolls. Popedia would probably be a better website to discuss these things. Edit: If I were you, I'd private message the mods on r/GenZ or r/generationology and asked them if you can promote your website. I genuinely think if they say yes, and you do promote it, you might actually get a good amount of new members.
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Post by SharksFan99 on Mar 11, 2023 20:46:48 GMT 10
There have been more than 500 guests in the last 24 hours though is there a way for them to interact with this forum without having to create an account Most of them would have been bots, tbh. I started to promote Popedia on a couple of "forum promotion" websites last night and because I copied/pasted the url in the posts I made, it would have driven more bot traffic to the forum as a result. Not at the moment, but it's possible. There's an option where you can enable "guest posts", which means that you can post in a thread without registering an account on the forum. I disabled the feature on all of the sub-boards a few months after I created the forum back in 2017. The reason for that was because there were a couple of people who posted as guests for several weeks, but they never made the decision to become a registered member and I was also worried that it would have discouraged people from registering an account (since they may not have felt the need to). We could potentially reenable the feature on a sub-board though. The "Community Hub" might be a good sub-board to reintroduce it, because it's the first sub-board new people see when they go onto the homepage and first-time visitors could ask any questions before registering for an account. I think way more people would create accounts if there wasn't a need for them to be moderator approved. I think this website has enough moderators that if there were ever trolls who attempt to make an account, we can instantly ban them. I've disabled the moderator approval for the time being. When I did it last night, nightmarefarm attempted to log-in to his account literally two minutes after I did it!  i wasn’t on popedia when it was most active but it was still way more active in the first half of 2022 than it is now Yeah, it's definitely declined even more since early 2022. It's partly my fault as well tbh, because I started to lose interest towards the end of 2021 and I haven't been active much for the past 18 months or so. The good news though is that we might be starting to turn a corner. Today we had 23 members log-in over the past 24 hours, which is the most we've had in who knows how long. SharksFan99 I mentioned this to you on the discord server, but in case you don't see it: I think a good way to promote your forum would be on a Discord server, whether it'd be the Zillennials one, or any server where people like talking about pop culture. Also, let them know what Popedia offers that a Reddit subreddit would not. As I mentioned before, Popedia has a small, yet welcoming community. It is a mixture of everything within one forum. There are no downvotes, so nobody's posts gets downvoted and unseen. And do let them know that decadeology discussions are now welcome. Inform them about all kinds of topics that this forum has to offer. Honestly, you might actually have a good shot at getting people to join this website. I know a lot of people who hate r/generationology and r/GenZ because they keep getting downvotes from trolls. Popedia would probably be a better website to discuss these things. Edit: If I were you, I'd private message the mods on r/GenZ or r/generationology and asked them if you can promote your website. I genuinely think if they say yes, and you do promote it, you might actually get a good amount of new members. Sorry for not getting back to you sooner.  I was in bed when you made the OP and then I was busy during the day, so I haven't had the chance to respond until now. It's something that I've definitely considered. I really would like to promote the forum on Discord or Reddit, but I don't want to do it in a way which makes it seem spammy. I'm trying to think of how I could maybe word-it so that it doesn't just get downvoted to oblivion, lol. The Zillennial Discord might be a good place to possibly bring up the forum. It's a great server and Captain is a mod on it too, so it's something I could look into. I'll definitely private message the mods on r/GenZ and/or r/generationology if I decide to promote Popedia on reddit. I think the mods of r/generationology would be more open to the idea, but who knows.
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I was in bed when you made the OP and then I was busy during the day, so I haven't had the chance to respond until now.