Where Is Everybody?

[Pioneer1]

Most of the United States is snowed in and it's freezing outside.
If you HAVE a home, you best be in it, whether alone or with loved (or atleast liked...lol) ones.

It seems to me, that during times like these....the AALBC is the place to be!

[Troy]

People are here reading, and I approve new accounts every day, folks don't post.

[Troy]

@Pioneer1 If I had the time I would welcome all new members:

 

Hi @Don, @Michaelallen, @emilyhkeough, @Timothy Watson, @FedUp, @bbracks2, @bays, and @mat welcome to the forums! Please share your thoughts  There are 8,500 accounts of those 6,000 were banned as spammers -- most before they even posted.

 

Still that leaves 2,500 valid and active accounts.  Many added profile images but never posted or posted very little like; @A.L. Gibson , @B.L. Brown, @C.L.Swayzer, @D. Haynes The Author, @Eclectuals, @Fatima Shaik, @Gail Diamond, @Hassahn, @Icomeinpeace1, @J. Wells, @Kahlil Crawford, @ladiechat, @M. Ann Machen Pritchard, @nadivyah hargrove, @ocartman1, @P. Allen Jones, @Queen melanin, @Rae, @S. Denice Newton, @TableFables, @Uniquelymade7, @Valorena, @Walkman93, @Xavier Rudduck, @Yao, @Zig Zag

 

 

[ProfD]

I'm still here.  

 

It's cold around these parts but thankfully we didn't get any snow and not too much ice from the rain.

[Pioneer1]

It's cold and snowy here, but it's not the Armageddon people predicted.

 

[richardmurray]

@Troy hope 2022 had more new members than 2021

[Troy]

@richardmurray I'd have to create a report to get the answer to your question.  If I had to guess I'd say the number of new members was about the same or slightly down. 

 

I do know that the number of visits to the forums is higher in 2022 than it was in 2021.

 

But the issue is not really new members -- we have plenty of those.  It is the lack of posting those new members.

 

Welcome @Rick, who signed up Xmas eve.

[richardmurray]

@Troy  I wonder the posting habits of new members elsewhere online? can you ask new members where online do they post the most? or the subject matter of what they post the most throughout the year? 

[Troy]

I could ask, but historically no one replies to my direct out reach. 
 

Maybe people who register but don’t post really don’t create accounts with the intention of posting… i dunno

 

Maybe we can ask @Don  who signed up this week.

[Delano]

I have a FB group of about 622 members there are about 5 people that post. One person sent me a message stating that she appreciated the group. I don't think she had posted or responded to a post other than likes.

 

Ironically I have two new members who are very serious Astrologers. Both have been more interacted than my most interactive member.

 

It appears to be the way of it. TV and other screens have turned us into a nation of voyeurs.

[Troy]

1 hour ago, Delano said:

It appears to be the way of it. TV and other screens have turned us into a nation of voyeurs.

 

Well, this is apparently true of this forum.  I dunno if TV and other screens have anything to do with it -- maybe it is just human nature.

 

Here is the result of some research on the subject.

[ProfD]

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.

[richardmurray]

@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.

[Delano]

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

[Troy]

@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

[Chevdove]

I completely ignored the news about this cold snap.

But yeah, it was pretty bad.

Pipes exploded in my neck of the woods in the Chesapeake Bay area. 

It's so cold that it couldn't even snow. 

But now, it very warm. 

[Pioneer1]

Chev

I used to believe it could get so cold it couldn't snow.....until we experienced the Polar Vortex of 2013-14.

In Michigan it was 30 degrees below zero (actual temperature not wind chill) on a regular basis for weeks and STILL snowed!
I mean HEAVY snow!

Up until that time, even since childhood....it was my understanding that once it got below a certain temperature, it was simply too cold to snow and others would say the same thing.  That Winter turned that theory up on it's head....lol

 

[Troy]

21 hours ago, Pioneer1 said:

In Michigan it was 30 degrees below zero (actual temperature not wind chill) on a regular basis for weeks and STILL snowed!

 

Melanated people were not built to live in these conditions Bruh LOL!

 

When I was in Tulsa it got down to -16 and heavy snow, but it got back up to the 50's a couple of days later and all that snow melted.

 

They didn't even really plow the snow.  Many roads were just impassible for a day or two, then things were back to normal...   

[Pioneer1]

On 1/3/2023 at 12:34 PM, Troy said:

 

Melanated people were not built to live in these conditions Bruh LOL!

 

When I was in Tulsa it got down to -16 and heavy snow, but it got back up to the 50's a couple of days later and all that snow melted.

 

They didn't even really plow the snow.  Many roads were just impassible for a day or two, then things were back to normal...   

We lived in them just fine from the 1920s all the way up to the mid-80s when the good paying factory jobs were plentiful.

When Black folks in Detroit and Flint were making $25 an hour plus benefits back in the 70s......no one was complaining about the cold and snow, lol.
They were coming in from the hot deep South by the MILLIONS, and adapting to the weather just fine.

That's a recent thing now where Black folks are moving back down South because they CLAIM they can't stand the cold and all the snow.

Plenty of Mexicans who come from places much hotter than anywhere in the United States are moving up to Michigan by the THOUSANDS and they don't seem to have a problem with it.