Death of internet forums

Lets talk internet forums:

A dying platform that once ruled the internet. It was always a place on the web we could always escape to and discuss the latest news, rumours and seek advice.

Instead of reminiscing about the past LPU forums, and of the old days. Let’s skip to the NOW and look ahead of whats to come. Facebook and Twitter quickly took over becoming the latest and most popular platform for discussion. To give credit where needed, the web forum has survived to this day, but only on a shoe string of hardcore members (referring to all forums out there including LPU).

With the new fresh LPU each year, what seems to continuously be included, but held together by sticky tape and paperclips is the LPU forum. Eventually the forum will be killed off because of lack of usage.

What is to replace the forum? “Something new.”

Keeping up with modern times, we will eventually have to accept change and begin on a new platform. What that new platform is? Has that platform already been created?

With this thread, I know some of you may disagree or agree. Post your opinion here and lets start a fresh discussion on what we are to do to save the LPU forum?

I agree. Back in the first years of LPU I used to accrue so many posts and I’d spend hours and hours every day simply chatting on the forums and making friends. But once my school and eventually work schedule got busy, I couldn’t keep up with the forums. Definitely miss this interaction because it’s always nice to be able to come back and read posts and have real discussions without a 140 character limit or a few ads popping up on the side of the screen.

just wanna say that
even though forums in general have been killed by facebook and all that crap indeed
…
there are still plenty forums out there that are doing just fine with hundreds, even thousands members visiting a day
it just depends on what your forum is about, how you do it and how many people you got there yourself to back your place up

i honestly wish this LPU forum wont be replaced with something else
like a FB page
please , dont do that to us
fb may be popular as hell but doesnt mean its the greatest deal ever
unlike fb… forums are about getting to know each other because you got the same interests

these days… fb is all about how you could date each other online because people dont have the balls to face the world… even though you know there is a 90% chance the person you talking to has got up fake pics…

sorry, i know that doesnt matter to this topic but i just had to… its just true and its just frustrating kinda, how people are obsessed with the whole thing lol
it already ruined a lot of lives

I think the forums just need a few interesting topics that’s all.

Facebook and Twitter do not replace forums, because they are social networks, not forums. SSocial networks are for people who know each other and typically block strangers from interacting. Forums unite people by topic and are more often inhabited by people who didn’t know each other before joining.

Forums are places to meet strangers, talk about things, and maybe make new friends.
Social networks are for people know know each other already.
They’re totally different use cases: so it must be that the LPU itself is missing something. I think the LPU needs more new threads, and less two-year-old threads. Hopefully threads that provoke thought because I like those. Maybe it needs more band interaction.

Or maybe Linkin Park is missing something. Is this a band that has soul anymore? Does this band still have the kind of connection it had with fans as it did a decade ago, when fans regularly were brought toghether and thanked the band for saving their lives and happiness and that sort of thing? What kind of connection do new fans have with the band? Why do they like this music. Serious question because I am an old fan and I don’t know what newer fans think. Is the same appeal there for this 2014 band with LP branded speakers and dell computers coming out, as there was for the silly old band who toured all together in the same bus and ate burger king and pulled vodka pranks? Or , instead, are people moving on to help out artists who don’t have it made yet and could really use the support?

In shorter words, what is the appeal in the new Linkin Park music? And is that appeal enough to bring fans here, or, are people just liking it because it sounds good and don’t need a connection to the band anymore.

I’m not saying they should take away some of our perks, and I realize everything nowadays has a price to it, but maybe if they dropped the membership prices a little bit, that might bring people in more.

My schedule nowadays seems busier than it once was, otherwise I’d make more time to be here, though, I seem to have killed quite a few threads.

First of all: I love the LPU forum and I hope it stay alive.

How many LPU er we have? I’ll guess a number, but I have no clue, if I’m right: 3.000. And how many uses the forum regularly? Maybe just 100. That’s a huge difference! At the same time a way bigger amount of LPUer are active on Twitter, Facebook & co.

So, the question is, why do people spend their time rather on other media instead on the LPU? The first answers, that pop up into my mind are these:

1. Getting access to the LPU website is a bit time-rubbing. I have to do all this steps over & over again: When I leave the LPU site without logout and when I come back later, maybe just an hour later, I have to do the login again. That’s not very comfortable. Maybe this procedure keep some people to visit our site often.

2. The forum itself isn’t very comfortable. Only one example: When we want to insert a picture, we have to upload it somewhere else at first. And it’s our problem, how we manage this. On twitter, this works so much easier.

3. Another point is, that certainly many of us uses social media, when they are on the go. It works very fine with Twitter & Co. The LPU offers an own LPU app to do so. At least for iOS. But the app is just a compromise, because it don’t work very well. The forum contents aren’t in the right order, some parts are completly missing from time to time. You can’t really use it, if you wan’t to communicate regularly.

4. Other forums are just more informative. The news section on the LPU website contents news on the LPU but not on LP in general. If we wan’t to stay up to date, we have to use other media.

These are some points that maybe could be renewed. But the best way to find out, why our forum is so unfrequented, is to ask all LPU members. LPUHQ could create a questionnaire and send it via email to all users. Than we would have an answer and could innovate.

If we could, I would love to bring back the vBulletin-style messageboards

[quote=Shoegaze4u]First of all: I love the LPU forum and I hope it stay alive.

How many LPU er we have? I’ll guess a number, but I have no clue, if I’m right: 3.000. And how many uses the forum regularly? Maybe just 100. That’s a huge difference! At the same time a way bigger amount of LPUer are active on Twitter, Facebook & co.

So, the question is, why do people spend their time rather on other media instead on the LPU? The first answers, that pop up into my mind are these:

1. Getting access to the LPU website is a bit time-rubbing. I have to do all this steps over & over again: When I leave the LPU site without logout and when I come back later, maybe just an hour later, I have to do the login again. That’s not very comfortable. Maybe this procedure keep some people to visit our site often.

2. The forum itself isn’t very comfortable. Only one example: When we want to insert a picture, we have to upload it somewhere else at first. And it’s our problem, how we manage this. On twitter, this works so much easier.

3. Another point is, that certainly many of us uses social media, when they are on the go. It works very fine with Twitter & Co. The LPU offers an own LPU app to do so. At least for iOS. But the app is just a compromise, because it don’t work very well. The forum contents aren’t in the right order, some parts are completly missing from time to time. You can’t really use it, if you wan’t to communicate regularly.

4. Other forums are just more informative. The news section on the LPU website contents news on the LPU but not on LP in general. If we wan’t to stay up to date, we have to use other media.

These are some points that maybe could be renewed. But the best way to find out, why our forum is so unfrequented, is to ask all LPU members. LPUHQ could create a questionnaire and send it via email to all users. Than we would have an answer and could innovate.
[/quote]

I think you have hit the nail on the head. This is the best post in this thread. We have an expensive to use website (in both money and time), and the quality of programming is not at a “paying for use” level.

I bet it isn’t even GroundControls fault either, because the same pattern was happening with Sparkart. I think the LPU is crappily managed. I think LPUHQ keeps trying to demand all these extra features to fit some grandiose vision and demand that its finished before their deadline, but doesnt want to pay to have it done well or fast. And THEN they want to go charge people to use their poorly implemented things. I have been pointing this out since LPU 6.0, which shoulnt have launched half finished (and broke the email without warning). And since then I keep seeing this pattern of releasing half finished things, never going back to fix them, and then they want to redesign or add even more things, which will never be finished because they’re still stuck in the same old pattern. Right now there’s a Blackberry swepstakes which links to a 404’d facebook page. Zzzzzzzz.

And I especially agree with your #1 because I hate signing in all of the time. The LPU is not a banking website, it doesn’t need to timeout so early.

I don’t know if this matters to anyone, but personally, I feel like the color scheme of the website plays a factor. The darker backgrounds of past LPU sites seem to have given those boards more of a feel to them. This is, what, the third consecutive year with a white background? It puts a bit of a strain on the eyes after a while.

Really interesting everyone - I agree and understand the difference between social networks and a forum now.

I absolutely love that idea of holding a questionnaire; us LPU members should have more of a say.

I’ve been a paying member of the LPU since 2006, and the LPU platform changed from Sparkart to GroundCTRL and mixed around a fair bit. I guess the LPUHQ were trying to modernise and find a new strong platform. (I think they were right to do this and have found a great site with GroundCTRL)

Many blame LPUHQ, and the others blame the band etc etc. This blame game isn’t heathy and isn’t productive. As a collective, we should come together and point out things that work, and things that we need within this website. (hence this thread)

I think if the band were more involved online within the LPU forums and the chat and reading our blog blurbs that could help. But they live busy lives, and don’t have time these days which I don’t blame them for.

Agreed 100%! Sad but true.

[quote=Shoegaze4u]First of all: I love the LPU forum and I hope it stay alive.

How many LPU er we have? I’ll guess a number, but I have no clue, if I’m right: 3.000. And how many uses the forum regularly? Maybe just 100. That’s a huge difference! At the same time a way bigger amount of LPUer are active on Twitter, Facebook & co.

So, the question is, why do people spend their time rather on other media instead on the LPU? The first answers, that pop up into my mind are these:

1. Getting access to the LPU website is a bit time-rubbing. I have to do all this steps over & over again: When I leave the LPU site without logout and when I come back later, maybe just an hour later, I have to do the login again. That’s not very comfortable. Maybe this procedure keep some people to visit our site often.

2. The forum itself isn’t very comfortable. Only one example: When we want to insert a picture, we have to upload it somewhere else at first. And it’s our problem, how we manage this. On twitter, this works so much easier.

3. Another point is, that certainly many of us uses social media, when they are on the go. It works very fine with Twitter & Co. The LPU offers an own LPU app to do so. At least for iOS. But the app is just a compromise, because it don’t work very well. The forum contents aren’t in the right order, some parts are completly missing from time to time. You can’t really use it, if you wan’t to communicate regularly.

4. Other forums are just more informative. The news section on the LPU website contents news on the LPU but not on LP in general. If we wan’t to stay up to date, we have to use other media.

These are some points that maybe could be renewed. But the best way to find out, why our forum is so unfrequented, is to ask all LPU members. LPUHQ could create a questionnaire and send it via email to all users. Than we would have an answer and could innovate.

[/quote]

I honestly think part of the problem was the botched LPUX release. Before LPUX, we had a separate forum through vBulletin that (while not always user-friendly) was private and only for the LPU. When LPUX came out, the LPU and linkinpark.com were combined via Ning. It didn’t have the exclusivity that the LPU had previously, and from my perspective that hurt the community. Sure, there were more people coming to the boards, but there was no way to know who was an LPUer and who wasn’t.The kinds of threads that happened degenerated from really interesting and in-depth conversations to general stuff that didn’t have a lot of substance. A lot of the community that was built up before LPUX fell apart. LPU 11 sort of fixed that by creating this site, but it hasn’t felt the same.

I know everything has been already said, but the main thing is the forum itself and how it functions. While LPUX, social media, and whatever else might play a small part, it’s this website’s lack of ability and ground(ctrl)'s lack of support with it that brings it down the most.

I really love the design of the website and forum, but there’s just something that I dislike and I don’t even know what it is, design wise. Feature wise, LPAssociation has more functionality than this forum and it’s free. I’ve stated this in different places before, but whatever.

The whole website in general lost a lot of customization since LPUX, in user customization and general website stuff that LPU staff could edit. User pages use to be able to have pictures on them that your could upload and display, the chat use to have WAY more custom stuff on it (aside from video, Tinychat is a downgrade, but free, I guess). Chat had a background that matched the theme of the year, more user specific choices like tiny icons and neater faces and colors. There was a moderator mode used for chats. There was even ways to make custom sound effects and faces, but I don’t think this was ever used. I’ve heard in the past that the old chat cost a lot of money, which looking around, it did, but LPU is pretty expensive, more than it was back then, even.

Unfortunately I don’t know the old vBulletin forum. But it seems it was good. Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea, to export our LPU forum to such an external platform, that offers more technical features. But I’m not sure, if this turn could revitalize our forum activity.

Another option could be, to offer non LPU members, to take part in our forum. Certainly not in all forum categorys, but maybe in a guest area or something.

Idk if these things are technically practicable at all.

When it comes to the chat: Lorenzo said today, that a brand new chat platform is coming soon.

A good example of a vBulletin-format forum is LP Association’s

[quote=Shoegaze4u]Unfortunately I don’t know the old vBulletin forum. But it seems it was good. Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea, to export our LPU forum to such an external platform, that offers more technical features. But I’m not sure, if this turn could revitalize our forum activity.

Another option could be, to offer non LPU members, to take part in our forum. Certainly not in all forum categorys, but maybe in a guest area or something.

Idk if these things are technically practicable at all.

When it comes to the chat: Lorenzo said today, that a brand new chat platform is coming soon.
[/quote]

I disagree with having a guest section for non-LPUers. Not to make this an “us vs them” argument, but when this happened during LPUX, people weren’t thrilled about non-LPUers having access to our forums/space; the reasoning being if we paid for something “exclusive”, it should be just that.

[quote=LP13413]A good example of a vBulletin-format forum is LP Association’s
[/quote]

yup, LPA and LPLive use vBulletin.

No problem. It was just a thought.

I’m not as familar with LPA forum, but it really offers a lot of more options as our forum. At the same time it appears a bit… kind of overloaded. I think it’s due to that this website is a tiny little more frequented as ours

btw: while I’m sitting here and try to quote you, I just had to correct x times, because it’s not possible to quote things like " or ’

I hope LPU stays alive for a long time.