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[Megaman3321]

Hey all, I'm taking a look at the forums here again after being gone for... oh, a few years, and I can't help but wonder if it's slower than when I left? I remember when I was here a few years ago, posts on the first page of the forums would be minutes apart, but now it's hours apart. Anyone know if this is true or not?

[nenjin]

If you're asking if activity around here has slowed down in the last 5 years, the answer would be yes. Moderation got stricter, shit posting tends to stay in its own threads, lots of big name forum regulars went quiet, etc....

[Caz]

Tbh it seems to be going the same way in most forums these days. All discussion seems to be moving to either reddit or steam.

[TamerVirus]

Forums like this one feel like they've gone out of style.
Prolific posters of the past have either gone inactive or were banned in the last big wave.
Posters leave but new posters don't replace them. Forum activity slows, discouraging further newcomers from participating.
Dwarf Fortress also isn't quite in the public pop cultural gestalt as it once was. Big updates haven't attracted as many people to the forums like they did in the past.
Forum downtime and instability has noticeably increased in the past couple of months. That doesn't bode well.

[ChairmanPoo]

No, they've actually sped up, you're noticing a relativistic effect

[MrRoboto75]

It was inevitable.

[RedKing]

On the upside, nobody's been banhammered in OVER A YEAR.

All hail the Pax Toadica.

[KittyTac]

Pre-slowdown Bay12 sounds like a bad forum from what I've heard. Stability > Activity (up to an extent). Most of the shitposting is gone. Moderation is strict, discouraging trolling. FG&RP is still one of the most active role-playing forums on the net, and certainly the cleanest too.

Most of the posters are pretty dedicated, too.

[Telgin]

I wouldn't say bad, but it was definitely more spammy in some ways.  Who was the MAGMAAAA guy again?  Necro something?

In any case, my suspicion is that the slowdown probably is partly due to things like Reddit and Discord poaching users, and this traditional style of forum probably is kind of going out of style.  Back when I joined in 2011, new players were frequently asking questions in the DF boards about how to play the game, but I'm guessing that's done elsewhere now.  Maybe the game doesn't get as many players as it used to, but I think Toady said that the number of downloads hadn't really fallen, and donations are still high.

I don't actually play DF much anymore and mostly hang around here because it's the only internet forum I'm active on.  I used to be big into community forts, and kind of miss those days, but I got burnt out and now I mostly watch the development progress to see where the game is going.

[martinuzz]

Bay12 was never a bad place compared to most fora.
It had a period where there was some shitposting, yea, but overall this has alwas been a friendly place.
In the early days, 2006 and onwards there really wasn't any shitposting or flaming.

[George_Chickens]

Most people tend to learn about DF from some games media site and immediately go to Reddit to see what it's about, sometimes unaware that there is an official forum. I miss when /r/dwarffortress was basically just a place banned shitposters went to cry about how Toady was "unjust".

[Caz]

Though I do still use it. Primarily to keep up with games and webcomics, though. Don't play DF any more, Rimworld fills that niche now and is far more user friendly.

Yeah to be fair DF is more like a history simulator these days than a game.

[Rolan7]

On the upside, nobody's been banhammered in OVER A YEAR.

All hail the Pax Toadica.

This, unironically.  I still believe that the everpresent threat of ban enforces relatively courteous discourse.  There is plenty of room for snark, but not for personal attack.  It... defuses disagreements.

I wouldn't argue for it everywhere, but I treasure its existence.

[misko27]

It's perfectly fine. We're not any sort of industry, we don't need growth to survive. Toady needs funds, but he gets funds from stability too, and just because people aren't here doesn't mean they aren't on reddit. And in the meantime, the forum just spins on. This forum is like the internet version of a small town: things are relatively personal without being claustrophobic, and we don't need growth, we're perfectly fine as we are.

And eventually, when the apocalypse comes and humanity is forced to flee the planet, Bay12 will launch itself and its users to Mars as was once foretold, and we shall begin a new glorious era for our people. Though we may need to update from SMF at that time, or at least go for a different forum color. I'd suggest red, to fit with the new surroundings.

[WealthyRadish]

And eventually, when the apocalypse comes and humanity is forced to flee the planet, Bay12 will launch itself and its users to Mars as was once foretold, and we shall begin a new glorious era for our people. Though we may need to update from SMF at that time, or at least go for a different forum color. I'd suggest red, to fit with the new surroundings.

I was totally on board, but you lost me at updating away from SMF. Can we keep these scenarios more realistic?