A2Kers, where are you? Where is everyone?

Well, there are now 255 people online, but I don't know where they are, either.

Am I alone in the universe?

Apparently.

I feel so much better knowing that, Mame! Thanks!

Now that Robert has dealt with the "software issues" (very patiently) ... um ... I'm wondering if anyone has anything more to say about A2K content & participation? Or have you said all that you've wanted to want to say already?

To me, whether I like the "new A2K" or not isn't really the issue. Sure, it could be improved, but the software is certainly not why I spend so much time on this site. Nor why I'd stay away. That isn't what it's all about - well not to me, anyway .....

So, to go back to the start of this thread (only if you want to add to what's already been said):

Actually, I got used to the "new A2K" - as I got used the "new Abuzz" years ago or when A2K changed earlier.

I'm seldom at youtube and just for a couple of minutes/day on facebook, but since I really don't find a lot interesting topics here anymore (history, for instance), I concentrate more on what I should do with the computer. (That's internet only for research, more windows open in 'Word' and paintshop )

Yeah, I know, Walter.
I look around keenly for topics to respond to, when I'm not completely stuffed by work & also other pressing demands (of which there are a few, right now). But really can't find too many. So often I just keep on posting to the same old threads I posted to before.
I really miss those discussion topics that have a sort of universal appeal - which get all sorts of folk involved & talking away enthusiastically. To me, content is all. I can easily cope with the current site clunkiness issues. These things are not the point at all for me.

Hi Olga
thanks for mentioning the universe!

Hey, Endy!

Hey Olga!

There aren't -- for the # you see at the top of the screen, usually it's inflated by bots. It isn't some 200+ people who aren't talking (probably); it's more likely to be Google bots.

Foxfyre -- I have thought of a solution for you. My take on it is that you want to vote topics down to clear them, but are concerned that you might have what is essentially buyer's remorse, e. g. that suddenly, somehow they will become interesting and you will have blown it.

Not to worry.

Here's all you do.

Before voting a topic down, if you think it will ever interest you, open up the topic and select to get emailed notifications. Then collapse the topic. You will get notifications but the topic will be cleared from your view. If it turns out the topic is interesting, you can vote it back up. If it is as unappealing as you first thought, just stop getting notifications.

I would not recommend doing this with every single topic you vote down as you would quickly become inundated with email notifications. If a topic about the carburetor for a 1973 Trans Am will not appeal to you, it's probably not going to suddenly become wonderful. Vote it down without a second thought and feel free to move on. But for other topics which might turn out well, try this method.

Oh and if you want to check the Politics "forum", just go to the Politics tag in any topic tagged as Politics (or find it on the Home Page) and click from there.

Finally, if topics are mistagged, feel free to make better tags for them. You need not scour the site and constantly look to improve tags, but if you see a bad tag, and you know of a better one, add a good tag! The site works a lot better if reasonable people do the tagging, and correct one another. If the Trans Am topic is tagged as cars,autos,trans am then great! If it's tagged as dumb question, well, you know what to do.

Hope this helps! Please try it!

As for me, I admit to less interest in voicing my opinions since there is no contentious political race going on. Also I seem to see less of the people I tended to 'bounce' things off of, like Soz, and kuvasz, and pdiddie. The political sites are all being trolled constantly by fartbubble and others, and I don't particularly enjoy exchanges with them.

What we need are some good digression threads, or discussions of general topics which don't get trashed by those who seem to see sinister political content in everything. I was thinking of a digression thread myself, but then, these days, they don't seem to get much mileage.

Perhaps its because as a site ages, the original participants tend to wander off to other things. At another site which i used to frequent, but which i now seldom visit because i know almost no one there now, one of the site founders once remarked that most people tend to lose interest after about two years. I don't know the basis of his comment, nor whether it was to be trusted.

I must be something of an anomaly. Between Abuzz and A2K, I have been around probably about 10 years!

Yeah, but he was largely correct in my experience of that site. There are only three or four members "from the old days" whom i recognize, and it's a crap shoot whether or not i'll run into them. It is, in many respects, more of a social site that this is, although it was not necessarily so intended. It was intended as a site for techies in another country, and though that was mostly the crowd it attracted, they were largely there to socialize--discussions of tech issues they disposed of quickly, and apparently found boring. The most popular forum has always been "Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll."

I think that what has kept A2Kayers together, are the "gatherings", When you have met someone after writing to them, it makes a big difference. Although I am not on this site as much as in earlier times, I like to check in and see what is happening in the lives of people that I know.

The site of which i spoke organizes monthly get-togethers, but that hasn't made the community any more stable in the online sense.

Yeah, that doesn't strike me as accurate. I haven't met many of the people I care about a lot here, and several of our stalwarts haven't met anyone or very few. (I don't think boomerang's met any A2K'ers in person yet, and Robert's met only one or two I think.)

I think two of the things that have staved off forum boredom are:

- Ch-ch-ch-changes, as maligned as they invariably are (heck, maybe because of the maligning, the whole united against a common enemy thing). In the stretch we are talking about (roughly 1999 to 2009), Abuzz underwent several major changes (official overhauls and then pulling funding and staff, and the aftermath of that); people migrated elsewhere (Raven's Realm, LAA, etc.); then A2K started, then A2K went through several changes (policy changes are the main ones I remember before the big switchover).

- SEO. Robert is the god of search engine optimization and so there are going to be an influx of newbies in perpetuity, which helps keep things fresh and interesting for the veterans.

Perhaps people sometimes complain about the "old timers," but one of the things i like about this place (and i've mentioned this before) is that it is not hag-ridden by cliques, something which made participation in the other site i mentioned difficult. I think new people who stick around get accepted and integrated rather quickly here. A few years ago, there was no Chai and no Bella, but it would be hard to think of community here without them.

I think of myself as a hag-ridden clique but almost never "difficult".

They is got to be more than one of ya to be a clique, Boss . . . for your sake, i hope Miss Diane don't see that post . . . hag-ridden, indeed!