I’m not sure what has happened, this used to be a very active forum with dozens of new post every week. Along with a good group of people participating. Now it seems the last real post was sometime in November. I know for whatever reason we lost some very knowledgeable people after the software change the forum went thru maybe a year ago. Irv has put in many hours and dollars to make this one of the best 3D printing forums on the internet. It would be a shame to just see it crumble away. I try to answer questions when they are ask, but if I don’t know the answer I’m sure not going to make something up just to post an answer. I sure hope this forum begins to prosper again.
I’ve never been real active especially with postings. Partially due to seeing the kind of responses I see on some other, and often unrelated sites. Many time folks seem to post just because they can even if they have nothing to offer. I rarely believe I have answers when there are/were others much better versed in things. I don’t want to add to the “noise” if you will.
In any case I wonder if the announcement that the models.makewithtech,com shutting down caused some folks to simply leave because they were here for that or they misunderstood and thought everything was going away?
In my opinion it’s moved on Facebook groups with BambuLab trend…
You have a good point @rick505 as I remember the post about closing the models section of makewithtech.com was a bit confusing. I sure hope that isn’t the case.
@bulgaro80 FB was going strong at the sametime so was makewithtech, many people prefer the forums to FB, myself being one of them.
I do hope you are right insomuch as hoping the forum does not close. So many forums are full of people who are “up themselves” and deter people like myself from participating or contributing. I have a lot of respect for Irv in the work he puts into all aspects of work for the 3D community and also people like yourself whose knowledge has helped me a lot without being condesending. Fingers crossed for the future!!
That surely is a factor, good point.
I agree with that too. It’s a shame, as those groups just feel like unpersonal and all people who join are sorta nameless. It seems that there is no person behind it at all. Plus, the amount of ludicrous or incorrect info seems unfiltered on many of those groups either. It’s becoming a jungle of “help” lately.
I regret that all the help that Irv has put into all of this seems to be a bit lost. From what I read, young people gravitate towards “little effort” help, meaning not searching on existing data and quickly asking the same question over and over again on easy access social media. I regret that, as it seems very unpersonal to me, as there are so many members and no name sticks to memory.
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Hi,
I am a newbie to 3D printing who has received significant direction from Irv via this forum. But I am not in a position to add much to the forum unless a question comes up on electronics or woodworking. But I do monitor from the sidelines, and hope Irv will be around to help me bring up the new 3D printer I have yet to open. Anyway, just letting you know I am still here and I value this forum. BTW, I avoid Facebook for a number of reasons, so if this content moves there I won’t likely follow.
Don’t even think that @JBass I’m with your there noway will I follow anything to FB, I would not trust anything I heard there. Good luck with your new printer and if you have any problems you know where to come for help.
Thanks for the post about traffic. I am also mystified. I had thought moving to a move robust platform would increase traffic. It did not.
I will investigate and see if maybe SEO is broken.
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I think Irv’s new videos on YouTube drive a good part of the traffic here.
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I have noticed that traffic is way down on most it not all of the various forums (not just 3d printing related). Don’t know if it is the time of year, or what. As others have said, I don’t post much as I have little to contribute but do appreciate those that do and I have learned a lot from all the information.
Anyhow, hope everyone has a Happy and prosperous New Year.
Country Bubba
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I saw a vid about a retro computer channel yesterday, who listed a couple of issues with the loss of revenue on YouTube. As I already guessed, during the pandemic, when most people had not much to do, they watched a ton of vids and were on social media a lot more. He also pointed out that TikTok vids and the shorts on YouTube are watched a lot. These are so short that it seems they also create no real connection to the content maker, but it takes away time of longer vids being watched.
I fully agree on that. I personally believe that these short vids are a pest and just feed the general decline of viewers’ attention spans and the willingness for people to do proper research.
But, I also believe that offering these massive amounts of shorts will become extremely boring at some point. How many times can one see a cat doing the same funny thing before it becomes a total bore? Me being on social media a lot due to my disability already is way past that point. So, I am convinced that at some point, this decline will plateau, luckily!
Interesting observation, I don’t watch Tic-Toc videos, nor do I watch the shorts on Youtube. From what I understand you get more revenue form shorts on YT that you do with decent content. Most YT videos have become a cash cow for people and the content just isn’t there any more. Now it’s about how many vids you can put out in a weeks time. 99% of the reviews now are from what I call influencers and are not really reviews but info commercials. I personally don’t do what is called social media like FB but I do probably spend more time on YT that I really need to. I try to watch videos that at least have some content in them.
Agree completely with you on that. Many of the ones that I have watched over the years are getting away from informative and entertaining videos to the poorly produced commercials like you say. I rarely watch shorts or ‘live’ feeds and won’t even consider FB.
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