Leaderboard

@richardmurray, product reviews are largely useless in my opinion. First, they are rife with bogus reviews (paid reviews, reviews to harm a competitor, etc); and second, the vast majority of people do not leave product reviews, so the sample size is not representative -- even without the paid/bogus reviews. They persist because people believe they are valuable. @Delano, I'm sure screens have a larger percentage of our time. Some engage actively, but most engage passively. Obviously, we are all in the former category. When the WWW first because commercially available it was an exciting time. Bloggers were popping up everywhere, but now, for a variety of reasons we have fewer indie bloggers and more social media "influencers." Social media is touted as the be-all and end-all, but I would not trade my email list for 10,000,000 likes on Facebook. Email is still powerful. A website can still be powerful. A discussion forum can still be powerful. But a discussion forum is only as powerful as the people who use it. @Pioneer1 to answer your question: the period between Xmas and New Years is when the site has the lowest amount of traffic compared to any other time of the year, so participation will be naturally lower. If it is any consolation theyear'ss lull in traffic did not occur and the next few months are usually the busiest of the year 🙂

I'm not a recording artist/musician. I mostly sit down and play for my personal enjoyment. Music is my opiate. 😎

Perhaps it's more that screens have a bigger share of our time . So we are accustomed to passivity.

What is Cyberfunk? It is a vision of the future with an Afrocentric flavor. It is the Singularity without the Eurocentric foundation. It's Bladerunner with sunlight, Neuromancer with melanin, cybernetics with rhythm. Nineteen amazing Black Speculative Fiction authors have come together to share their visions on the pages of this book. Prepare to be mesmerized by their stories. Featuring stories by Eugen Bacon, Zig Zag Clayborne, Gerald L. Coleman, Ashleigh Davenport, Milton J. Davis, Minister Faust, Donovan Hall, John Jennings, Ronald Jones, Nicole Givens Kurtz, Kyoko M, Carole McDonnell, Violette Meier, T.C. Morgan, Balogun Ojetade, Hannibal Tabu, Jarla Tangh, Napoleon Wells, and K. Ceres Wright. Cyberfunk! ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1734627985

@Delano I don't think it is voyeurism, I think it is the inevitable result of the structure of communication online coming to bear. I run groups elsewhere as well and it is clear to me, most spaces online breed non communication. Search engines - are solitary, they are not places of collective action, people don't search together, and search engine use is high online Online retail- another solitary, buying a product is usually a solitary event Now they have product reviews where people can comment, but this is the first example of the internet's problem. Product reviews are usually filled with negatives, and the replies to product reviews are worse. Some will say , you find functional reviews but they are rare. Most product reviews are rants one way or another Social media: video<youtube/tiktok>; text<twitter>;multimedia <facbook/tumblr> , all did communication a disservice online, because the usa populace, the most saturated online is naturally negative. And thus most communication online, stewarded by the usa populace, is negative. Email; should be the most functional as you don't have to give your email to everyone, but when email had a larger role, the biggest providers didn't structure it right, allowing email to become like paper mail, a den for commercial mail. So people don't use email as much as they should. even though many writers or groups still use email heavily. All together, this creates an online environment where most today are against communication, they rather just click like or dislike buttons than actually communicate because who wants to see the reply from personyoudontknow talk about how your an idiot or you don't know this or some negativity.

As I wrote in another thread, some forums will only have a few active participants with more folks who are lurkers/voyeurs. Considering the topics discussed here are not popular (sports, music, gossip, etc.), fewer people will engage in the conversation.😎