Is it real, or is it my imagination?

[nsherry61]

It seems to me like WhiteBlaze forums have become significantly less active recently when I would have expected Covid followed by spring to bring on more people spending more time thinking and typing about their backpacking passions. AT logistics and information threads seem to be maintaining activity, while general community questions, thoughts, and banter seems to have become dramatically reduced.

1) Is my perception of a decrease in general activity real?
2) If it is real, why?

- I don't perceive a significant change in backpacking as a sport or pastime.
- Any thoughts on why backpackers, as a group, would start spending less time on forums than in the past.
- Has our on-line community started moving its focus to other forums or community activities? If so, which ones and why?
- Have a few critical posters moved onto other things, so the community as a whole is less active?
- Are many of the past active members getting old and tired of talking about the same old stuff, and somehow we aren't attracting new participants? Can we come up with new and still interesting alternative topics?

Anyway, I thought I'd offer up a topic that might be of interest beyond AT logistics.
Feedback is certainly welcome and requested.

Hike on!

[rickb]

Seams real.

YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, Instagram and all the rest, have siphoned off much of the energy of sites like these.

TLDR is real for stuff that matters, and even more so for hiking stuff.

[cliffordbarnabus]

Seams real.

YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, Instagram and all the rest, have siphoned off much of the energy of sites like these.

TLDR is real for stuff that matters, and even more so for hiking stuff.

what's "TLDR"?

[Coffee]

TLDR = "Too Long, didn't read"

A symbol of the culture of Facebook, Youtube, and other toxic social media that encourages surface level superficial thinking, groupthink, etc.

[HankIV]

I’d also like to speak in defense of the moderators, especially on COVID. While I agree that the moderation was biased a bit in the direction I favor, the reason I liked it was it kept this place focused on hiking, and kept things from slipping into the all caps world of the elephantine vs the asinine.

[Coffee]

Facebook, which I dislike for many reasons, has network effects that stand alone forums lack. The Facebook hiking groups are very active. I’ve noticed a drop in activity on hiking related Groups.io forums as well, not just WhiteBlaze.

[HankIV]

I think NSherry meant a trend more recently, like in the past couple of months, correct me if I’m wrong.

I have noticed that. A couple months ago I would open the “What’s New?” tab and there would be 15-20 threads, vs 4-6 now. I’ve been attributing that to the start of thru hiking seasons. (I will fall into that category myself soon, when I start an AT SOBO)

I would think Facebook’s drain would mostly be over by now, and would’ve occurred mostly 3-5 years back.

I’m not on FB, but there is a public SOBO page one can observe. I’ll just say it has not inclined me to join.

[HankIV]

I do notice the images section seems stuck on about 10 years back.

[tiptoe]

I share Coffee's concerns about FB, and social media in general. As to why WB is less active, I'd venture a guess that a lot of us are introverts, have already completed our AT thru or section hikes, and (gasp!) are too busy for chat just for the sake of chatting. I'd be interested in knowing the average age of WBers and how it has changed over time. I bet it has gone up. Last, anyone searching for AT backpacking info on this and other sites can easily find it using a search engine.

[Traveler]

FWIW - I don't see much out of the ordinary in terms of the annual participation ebb and flow patterns between March and October. I think lack of participation, or numbers of posts, indicates people are getting out more than last year when many postponed their travel and/or backpacking. My guess is if this were graphed out over a period of a few years it would be fairly visible with some years having a lower "dip" in summer than others.

To expand on HankIV's comment, I doubt Facebook peels off many WB posters. Given what I have seen, those who are serious about this activity are here, we just get busy when shoulder season passes and summer beckons, which is an indication of practitioners being involved as opposed to people who just want to fight and break things.

[Jonnycat]

I am a member of a few FB groups, but it is such a contrived format that I don't see how anyone can use them for anything even halfway serious. They work moderately okay for things like classified ads, but there is otherwise no organization (just a flat, continual listing) nor any way to do a meaningful search.

[Heliotrope]

Personally I am on Facebook but I’ve started setting a daily time limit. It sucks you in but the content on hiking group pages is really not that interesting to me. I still have it so I don’t lose touch with colleagues and friends in distant places.

I think Whiteblaze has much more interesting discussion threads. Perhaps the art of conversation is slowly being lost and folks would rather post a quick selfie photo than have more engaged interactions.

I have personally been less active on Whiteblaze because I am so busy with school and solo parenting for the last few years.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[No Match]

It's real my friend. I have been amazed at how Whiteblaze as declined in postings and replies. I have pondered it since the 'Covid' demon launch. I really thought it would be hard to keep up with the info flow, like it was just prior to thruhiker season kickoff in late winter. I have found myself just looking for something new, or just anything trail. Also, replies to questions are longer and yes, fewer. Anotherwords-AMEN.

[VT-Mike]

I too have noticed decreased activity here. I wonder if people have altered their recreational interest. Are folks sticking to more local hikes and not traveling as far? Will there be fewer thru hikers this year? Or traveling via RV and hiking? I see lots of them at popular trail heads.

During COVID I decreased my radius of travel and noticed tons more people on area trails. It felt overcrowded even without COVID. This pushed me into new areas of recreation. I've been hiking much less and rock climbing much more. I also visit a forum around that activity and there's lots of traffic there.

[Tipi Walter]

Seams real.

YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, Instagram and all the rest, have siphoned off much of the energy of sites like these.

TLDR is real for stuff that matters, and even more so for hiking stuff.

In my opinion Reddit and Facebook are not Forums organized like Whiteblaze. It's hard to find subject matter on either FB or Reddit as listed here on Forum subjects. When I punch in r/Wilderness Backpacking and go to classic view (like Whiteblaze) I'm confronted with no organization of subjects and instead experience the Bane of the Internet---Deep Scrolling. Infinite Scrolling. Facebook is also plagued with Deep Scrolling. What is deep scrolling? When you keep moving down the page endlessly and in the process (as with r/wilderness backpacking) never reaching the end and never getting an organized picture of subjects.

Whiteblaze and BPL.com is much better organized.

[Tipi Walter]

Oh and one more negatory to Reddit---if you want to print out a long and interesting thread there is no Print Option like here on WB---so you have to go the slow and crappy copy and paste technique.

[Slo-go'en]

Well, there are currently 534 people viewing WB. Not too bad for early in the morning on a holiday. A bit down from the record of 9,500+ one day in 2015.

But yea, not a lot of new interesting threads. Maybe we have answered all the questions.

I do think a lot of activity has moved to FB. I follow several groups, GMC, the 4,000 footers, 52WAV and 55+ backpackers. Lots of activity on these groups. The attractive thing about FB groups is you can post your pictures for everyone to see and like. One of recent photo's got 80+ likes.

I haven't joined or follow any of the many AT FB groups, but I bet there's lots and lots of activity there.

[Tipi Walter]

The problem with FB is, once again, deep scrolling with no "forum subject" as mentioned. If someone posts a FB trip report on Cohutta wilderness and I'm not online for two weeks---when I get back it'll be buried deep on the "timeline" or whatever it's called and I'll miss it.

If I post a trip report on my FB page it'll be buried in a few days if I put up several other posts. But like with Whiteblaze, my trip reports on FB get very few comments. WB and FB share this in common.

[Crossup]

I would imagine a lot of people are like me, fascinated by your trips but dont feel like there is much I can say that is germane. You are literally at another level both in terms of trip length and skills/knowledge compared to most (or at least a lot) of the people here. Beyond that, you are just hardcore and there is no substitute for that...its not something one can ask questions about or learn by talking about it...that is learned by trying and doing.
All I can say is it will be a sad day when you dont post, WB wont be the same without Tipi so please dont take a lack of comments to be more than slack jawed amazement and enjoyment of your exploits.

If I post a trip report on my FB page it'll be buried in a few days if I put up several other posts. But like with Whiteblaze, my trip reports on FB get very few comments. WB and FB share this in common.

[HankIV]

I would imagine a lot of people are like me, fascinated by your trips but dont feel like there is much I can say that is germane. You are literally at another level both in terms of trip length and skills/knowledge compared to most (or at least a lot) of the people here. Beyond that, you are just hardcore and there is no substitute for that...its not something one can ask questions about or learn by talking about it...that is learned by trying and doing.
All I can say is it will be a sad day when you dont post, WB wont be the same without Tipi so please dont take a lack of comments to be more than slack jawed amazement and enjoyment of your exploits.

I feel the same, not much I can add to those. But very much appreciate your voice in the wilderness, in more ways than one.