What Killed SR (1 Viewer)

[James Spader]

This is probably the most powerful reason. Old school forums.message boards are a dying (honestly, mostly dead at this point) thing because of Web 2.0/Social Media/Reddit in particular changing how people use the internet and how web traffic itself is routed. I used to be a member of maybe a dozen forums that covered all my specific interests. Cool, individual communities with their own vibes. They're all gone now, either no longer existing outright or total ghost towns, with the exception of SR.

I've made this analogy before, but think of the pre-social media internet as pre-interstate America. Lots of unique communities that got obliterated when social media (the interstate) changed how traffic was routed, leaving them in the dust. A lot of it is also the "Eternal September" concept of the internet becoming flooded by regular people, which diluted the more tech savvy and generally better educated online communities that existed pre-2000's.

And I don't think it's a good thing. Individual subreddits can be OK, but the more mainstream a subreddit is, the more it's mostly populated by late teens/early 20's white dudes being lame and cringe as hell. Like the NFL subreddit is unreadable if you want to actually discuss football. The karma system on reddit means the most upvoted posts are always bad jokes/copy pasta. It's more like a comment system than an actual forum. On any given article you're more likely to see drive by comments about the size of Nick Foles' penis or jokes about Kelvin Benjamin (a player that has not been in the NFL since 2018, yet it still referenced there constantly) being fat than anything approaching actual discussion.

Not sure why race is even brought up given the makeup of the country. Oh well.

 

[Andrus]

Reddit hasn't had much, if any effect on traffic here, IMO. Different crowd.

I've seen posts like this quite a few times over the years during lulls. I think that when things get back to normal, so will SR.

We have ALWAYS had lulls like this between June and August anyway, and usually around the second week of August once the pre-season games start it begins to pick up here.

A little history on traffic. Other than 2005/2006 (the traffic benchmarks for SR), in 2012/2013 we had our highest traffic numbers prior to 2019/20. We did systematically lose about 15% of members to Facebook/Twitter/etc. after 2012, but the community was still strong. Then we had about a 30% traffic drop immediately after Saints kneeling event in 2017. Subsequently the numbers started climbing back up to the pre-kneeling episode levels by early 2018.

Then we had to switch platforms in June of 2018. We immediately lost 1/3rd of our traffic, as either the members that left did not like change, or did not like the new platform. Whatever their reasons, that platform move had to be made as the old system had become antiquated, cumbersome, buggy and was no longer secure. It took nearly a year for the traffic numbers to get back to pre-platform migration levels, then we began growing again.

From late August of 2019 until the end of April of this year we had traffic numbers equal to 2012/2013. So even though we were averaging 1550 simultaneous users during normal surfing hours during the season, 1200 during the offseason, we still only averaged 700 between June 1st and August 7th last year.

All was well, that is, until the politics of the Brees and Floyd incidents of a couple of months back entered into it. Those incidents incited a lot of member vs member issues over politics and ideology, which in turn forced us to take action to curtail the resulting behavior, which also resulted in many exits as well as member bans. Add to that , the priorities of many are focused elsewhere, like survival, and there is just little to no training camp reporting going on, so there just isn't that much to discuss right now. We still are not even 100% sure that there will be a season at this point.

Still, like I said, I believe that that once things get back to normal, so will SR, or at least traffic numbers closer to what we are accustomed to. I am willing to bet that if there is a season, and I think that there will be, the traffic on this community will blow up the week leading up to the Bucs game.

 

[Sun Wukong]

Not sure why race is even brought up given the makeup of the country. Oh well.

The makeup of the country is exactly why. This is even frequently acknowledged on Reddit itself, especially places like Ask Reddit and the like where opinions/experiences are crowdsourced, that the site isn't representative of an accurate cross section of the country's demographics and you're getting a viewpoint that is almost exclusively from a white, male, American in their 20's. There's not a lot of diversity of thought/conversation because of it and the level of conversation tends to skew pretty infantile given the demographics.

 

[Bayouboy]

There's no place like SR. It's like family......and you know every family has a few crazies!

 

[saintmdterps]

Politics seem to have driven many away either because they don't like politics at all on a nominally sports website, or they disagree with the political ideologies of many here. The mods have done maybe TOO good a job of weeding out politics from the site, and so many members who used to post here have migrated to the MAP board.

Current societal issues like COVID have also kept folks away due not so much to the nature of COVID itself, but more to the effect COVID is having on sports. Let's face it, even if we do have an NFL season, it's going to be one with an asterisk.

Traffic will return once society returns to something approaching normal, whenever that may be. Many come here because as others have stated, this is more of an old-school message board and thus devoid of much of the clutter of Facebook and Twitter. SR is my only social media engagement. I grew sick of hiding idiotic posts on Facebook. I don't believe I have any members here on "ignore"

 

[BlackandGoldXLIV]

I think people hate reading with a mask on.

 

[Turfie]

For perspective/ I bought ground hamburg. Even got a taco kit with shells, sauce and seasoning. I came home expecting to see shared enthusiasm from the wife. Didn’t get it.

It does bring you down

 

[James Spader]

The makeup of the country is exactly why. This is even frequently acknowledged on Reddit itself, especially places like Ask Reddit and the like where opinions/experiences are crowdsourced, that the site isn't representative of an accurate cross section of the country's demographics and you're getting a viewpoint that is almost exclusively from a white, male, American in their 20's. There's not a lot of diversity of thought/conversation because of it and the level of conversation tends to skew pretty infantile given the demographics.

I have no clue who is white, Asian, Black, or otherwise on Reddit, how do you? I could speculate though. Just asking my man, honestly curious. Notwithstanding, there are few sub ones where you have to prove your race. Talk about an echo chamber.

 

[gummbo70114]

well they think they do anyway. Almost makes you feel sorry for them. Almost.

remember last year we had that Falcon girl come in here and say Falcons Saints were the two best teams in the NFC. Then their season was over by mid season. I did kind of feel sorry for her.

She needs an intervention of the saintly kind

 

[Zack Lee]

when I started the thread it was more tongue in cheek comment on how slow it is compared to the kind of traffic driven by hope we would typically have at this point. And I didn't mean to suggest that SR was dead to me at all. If you have been to other primary fan forums of even large city teams, you realize what a beast SR is especially in this market. But I am pleasantly surprised that some actual decent discussion points have come out of it.

Thanks for the history of the traffic @Andrus. That is interesting. (BTW, I love the new platform now that I have gotten used to it. The only beef I could find is how media plays or doesn't - specifically youtube) And as far as any that are lost to social media, I can honestly say that is probably a good riddance. Most social media is stuck in what I compare to the early days of email. When everyone got an account and didn't know what to do with it but just forward the same lame old jokes to everyone in their contacts. Now you see hardly anyone doing that and I think its a change in how people view its usefulness as well as now they have those new avenues to scratch that sophomoric itch.

@Sun Wukong the interstate analogy is an awesome one. The internet is a very powerful tool but you have to point it at something. Most people just get on and start waving the tool around and letting it work them instead of working it. Like the Buddhist call a wandering and distracted mind a "monkey mind" and if you just get on with no pointed objective, it will allow a monkey mind to run rampant. It is much like other media sources in that it is 95 percent or better hot garbage. But the 5 percent or so left over if you seek it out is solid gold. I am very content with having a smaller audience if the majority of what is leaving are the likes that I could see wasting their lives on Facebook if I chose to view them there.

 

[AARPSaint]

Too many crazy poles is dragging this place down. That and too many old farts. We need something to draw in younger whippersnappers.

And too many crazy Czechs and Hungarians as well. Just messing with you, Charlie. I don't know what would draw in more younger fans. To ancient people like me, technology changes too ********* fast. At some point, I just want to chill out.

If I have to create one more freaking userid and password, I might become one of those crazy Czechs. I'm about to go back to paying bills via stamps and a telephone.

 

[Eeyore]

I'm no old.

sheet, I'm 40... I guess that is the beginning of old, eh?

 

[Eeyore]

whats Reddit?

 

[Bayouboy]

While it is the smallest sample size out there, my personal consumption of sports related news is at an all-time low. I'm a big Saints and LSU fan. I frequent SR daily, but its usually the EE now (I'm an old man)….but this time of year I lurk the superforum for info. I haven't been doing that, at all. On my drive home from work, I usually listen to Matt Moscona for Tiger news. I haven't listened to him in months. Months! A "can't miss" feature on his show is our own Mike Detillier on Thursdays. He talks NFL, Saints and some LSU. I haven't listened to him in forever...….that's VERY unusual for me. And lastly, I'm normally very in tune with NFL happenings because I love fantasy football. I'm blind as a bat. Moreso than any other time in recent memory. Just a small snapshot of a "big" fan. Imagine the casual fans....

This is all on COVID.

 

[Moon]

Oh, just wait for the first regular season loss---then all the people you're wondering about will come running on here like cockroaches spilling out of a Decatur St restaurant ceiling after meeting the Orkin man. Then we'll be subjected to such gem headings as:

Fire Payton----NOW
I never wanted Kamara to begin with
Where's da fire / swagga in the defense
This wut happenz when u dont draft LSU playaz (we'll be 6-1 at the time)
Been watching the Saints since the Eisenhower administration, I've never seen a more disgraceful performance
Breez is dun, why we didn't draft burro
Coach Pete says not to worry