Changes in thread participation: 2024 compared to 2023

I definitely think overall site activity should be looked at rather than looking at just specific threads.

For example, the Oktoberfest tasting thread was 30 pages this year and last year.

The WBAYDN and NBW thread counts would be interesting to look at.

Finally, The Bar was set up at the beginning of March. So now we're looking at only ~9 months of data in 2024 compared to a full 12 months of data in 2023.

Regarding the bump in the Cellar reviews thread, what was interesting is that Celluary had 35 pages in 2024 compared to 20 in 2023 (this was before The Bar was set up in 2024 as an aside). Perhaps that huge bump in thread activity in that thread bumped cellar activity overall throughout this year.

 

I’ll throw my thoughts out there for what they’re worth.

Great to see that Todd and the mods are always listening and considering how to improve the site. Yes, an app would be fantastic (and probably very bad for my health). Also interesting to hear about the effect those emails had on site traffic. I honestly would never have guessed.

I like the more in-depth discussions on specific topics. The bar threads -though I post in them more often than elsewhere- actually don’t interest me as much.

An increased interest in trading would be nice to see, for those who are interested in what they can’t otherwise buy. I feel that I missed that train by at least a couple years.

 

I will throw in my 2 cents. First, though, a disclaimer. I still like this site, and visit it at least 5 times a week, although I do spend much less total time here than I used to. Some of the reasons: 1, Quite frankly the threads have gotten kinda boring. There's no real "characters " on here anymore, perhaps by design. No back and forth or anything anymore, just a bunch of "I agree" etc. type posts. 2. What's with all the "pooh bahs " these days ? It used to be rare to be a pooh bah, and those who were pooh bahs were mostly extremely knowledgeable, and contributed interesting things in the threads. Now damn near every post is from a pooh bah. Well here's a news flash, posting a bunch of posts in the WBYDN thread (and getting 30 likes per posts) and ticking a bunch of beers doesn't make you knowledgeable, or interesting. Nobody questions anything, disagrees with anyone, or in many cases even questions factual errors, with only a couple notable exceptions. So that's my 2 cents, like it or not.

 

Your points may be quite valid to you, but at least for the the one that I'm quoting, I see many contrary views with back and forth banter. Maybe it's not as much as you perceive from the past, but it still exists. Spend more time here if you can and you'll see it.

 

One question I have for @Todd are what seems to be requests once or twice a year to follow or join some other platform, like today's message for bluesky, which after searching seems to be some new liberal alternative to Twitter. I have no log ins or participation on any other social media beyond BA, a White Sox, and Vegas Message Board, so perhaps I'm the exception to those here who float across many different sites all day.

I recall previous requests / promotions to join Discord and IIRC at least one additional external platform. If these other sites are primarily used to steer non BA people here, that's great, and perhaps that is the primary reason. Not posting this as confrontational, just seeking understanding as to why it seems BA periodically promotes external sites versus steering conversations primarily/exclusively within our BA message boards and DMs.

In the end, I am hoping the app / desktop dual access and other efforts will increase participation here. Having an app at some point will bring in a much younger user group, assuming these people still drink beer. Posting pictures directly like people are able to do on Untapped would also be a big help to draw in people who don't want to deal with picture hosting sites. Hope there will continue to be room for all to keep this a healthy and sustained website.

 

I feel bad, as I feel like I am partly to blame. I still drink good craft beer, but I fell off the bandwagon as far as active participation goes on here. I've just felt extremely busy, stressed out and distracted this year. I have ongoing health issues, and my attention span seems to be worse than ever. Plus it's pretty normal for me to become periodically obsessed with things on and off, with large periods of disinterest--even for some of my favorite interests.
But I miss the community here. I'm trying to make an active effort to get back on here more often. It was always fun.

 

i hope your health issues mend soon, and look forward to seeing you here whenever you have a chance.

I appreciate the explanations, including the uses for the external sites, and all you and the Mods do here. I also look forward to the planned future enhancements, and appreciate your commitment to making this site as broadly accessible as possible to a wide range of users with varying technological backgrounds and devices.

The nearly ten years I’ve been here have greatly enhanced my enjoyment and knowledge of beer, and the people I’ve engaged with on BA and or met in person have been awesome.

Cheers!

 

All of the external and internal reasons already expressed as possible factors in the decline of participation in the "style appreciation threads" are likely true to various degrees, but I'm surprised nobody has mentioned that it's also likely that the novelty of such threads has simply worn off a bit.

The stout thread is likely more resilient due to having a more dedicated and enthusiastic collection of people in conversation. It's not a coincidence that the thread with the least drop off is also the thread with the most post counts (going by the stats in the OP). If someone wanted to post about drinking Schlenkerla Urbock, they could go to the lager thread, or the smoked beer thread, or the bock thread, or the WBAYDN thread... and if they pick one of the style appreciation threads, they might only end up posting a pic of a beer in a thread without much daily traffic and without much conversation. I'm not knocking the existence of such threads, but they were bound to trail off.

 

You are completely wrong and I couldn't disagree with you more. I can't believe you even thought it would be OK to make such a statement here. If you try to refute this, I probably won't even listen. (I hope this means that you will come back more frequently.)

 

Has anyone seen, recently, posts by the fella from Finland who is a na beer fan? I can't recall his name.

 

You've probably thinking of @beer_beer and I've seen recent posts from him. He's still around.

Edit: He last posted in the NA beer thread on 10/18.

 

Thanks!

 

If people are like me, they are desperately trying to dwindle their cellars down after years of hoarding. So I'm not surprised that the cellar thread is up this year.

 

As a relative newcomer, I post mostly in WBAYDN and across assorted threads, but personally, I think the relative ease of posting makes BA a really great site. It's simple to get here and make your opinion known.

 

Thanks for noticing. We come and go, at the moment I mostly read and use the "like" button. Will be back more!