Puzzled

[Brian Ellis]

This weekend, there seems to be a distinct lack of Internet activity. Every forum, including this one, has been abnormally quiet and my various websites have been considerably less frequented (yesterday, there were 43 page views on one of them that usually tot up to 150-200 on Saturdays). There doesn't seem to be any slowness in the net that would try users' patience, that I can see. Has anyone else observed similar or have any explanation?

[Fat Tone]

Things seem only a liitle slow on ITR: http://www.internettrafficreport.com/

And this forum is always quiet

Perhaps yo need to write something new?

[ND66]

Things seem only a liitle slow on ITR: http://www.internettrafficreport.com/

And this forum is always quiet

This place is set on a self destruct course.

The fine line of a self respect has been long crossed over here. That’s what happened in the Video Editing Forum I migrated from when that place felled apart.
Look around. The only posts that are not being mugged are “Guess where this is?” & “Longest running Murc game”.

You can’t have your own opinion around here anymore. Before, you could freely speak what you think, as long as you followed the rules to never get personal & direct with other members. Try to do it today. It doesn’t have to be political too.

My 2 cents…

.

[Fat Tone]

How dare you say that!

[KRSESQ]

Part of the problem might be that without the hurly-burly of the political forum for so long, Some members have developed different surfing habits. It may take time for things to return to normal. Especially since everyone is exhausted from this election!

Kevin

[Mehen]

Winter has come in full force. I really don't feel like doing anything.

I've also noticed people aren't that big on computer hardware anymore. Core i7 barely got any attention.

[Sasq]

Murc is a very old forum, and its original use as the matrox users resource center passed along with anything reasonable from matrox.

The lounge and social asspects of murc were always secondary to the hardware.

The politics forum etc are only semi recent new additions to keep politics out of the general lounge area. It's use been dying for as long as other sites get paid for advertising, have paid for staff and various other forums of income from the site.

As for fredom of speach ND66, if you follow the rules you are still welcome to, the politics forum was shut down like I have done every US election for the last few years, and for the same reason, the rest of us are/were sick of hearing about it. And tempers flair at election time.

[Brian Ellis]

The Video Forum fell apart when Windows 2000/XP etc. couldn't support Marvel/Rainbow Runner which effectively killed those excellent products. Matrox tried to replace them but fell flat on their face with pricing issues. Then they almost abandoned their low range graphics cards because they were behind the competition with 3-D for gamers. Today, they concentrate almost entirely on multi-displays: even the Parhelia never migrated to PCIe. AFAIK, they have now abandoned video altogether, so its not surprising that the forum has disintegrated. If you look over the past couple of years of posts, almost the only ones relating to Matrox products are about the reactionaries trying vainly to get old material to work on modern machines. Also, the Matrox support for consumer/prosumer products left a lot to be desired, which was why the forums were popular when they addressed these markets.

However, this is irrelevant to my post, because it was all the forums that had a very distinct downturn on Saturday (and, to a lesser extent, on Sunday), not just here. I saw this also on my website page loads, which were down to ~25% for a Saturday and ~50% for a Sunday. It is too early to judge for today, but it seems normal, so far. Others have expressed similar observations on other forums, as well, so it's not just me.

I don't think I agree with ND66, although I know where he's coming from. Many new threads raise little or no interest because they do not relate to Murcers' general interests. Just go back over the last month and you will see many threads with 0 or <3 replies and many with >6 replies, some well into the double digits. The same applies, to some extent, to S&M and P&R sub-forums (the latter not for October, for obvious reasons).

[VJ]

I've also noticed people aren't that big on computer hardware anymore. Core i7 barely got any attention.

There is indeed truth in that...
But I think it is a general tendency: the changes are hardly as spectacular as 10 years ago... The last spectacular change was hyperthreading (dual core was just logical step). Another argument could be that computers last longer (performance wise) than they used to. When you bought a top of the range 486, after 2 years you could simply not run the later OSes; now my 10 year old PII runs (walks? ) XP... So people change their hardware less frequently and just check out the current technology at the time of purchase.

Still, when I have a difficult hardware/software issue, the General Hardware forums is still one of the only places that can provide me with answers.

The same applies, to some extent, to S&M and P&R sub-forums (the latter not for October, for obvious reasons).

We have an S&M forum?

But as Brian states, it may well be a general tendency... The idea of always being able to find your information was addictive at first, but one gets accustomed to it.


Jörg

[Dilitante1]

Maybe it was just a nice weekend outside for a change?