All of these points apply to all forums that I have seen, not just this one:
Chit-chat posts, various versions of "noob", "you suck", etc.: Unless moderators or other people on the forums put some pressure against these types of posts, they will crop up more and thanks to the ease of making them. (It takes a long time to write up a long strategy, a description of some theory, or any sort of well though out post, and sometimes the person does not have the information or room in the thread to make such a post. On the other hand, Making the sort of post said above takes little time and can almost always be done.) it is also faster to read shorter posts, so they will as likely as not get a large string of shorter posts going if that is considered allowable/o.k. on the forum. (All of the above applies to blog comments also)
Forums that are about something will tend to dry out and get less threads over time, as people make threads first on the obvious stuff, than the less obvious, than comes sorting out the details, finding all the nooks and crannies of the subject, until it is mostly explored. New people will have a harder time getting threads started, as older stuff they could talk about is likely in the thread already, which may be read without responding, or if responded to, will get little activity as necromancered threads in general tend ot attract a lot less attention.
Forums will tend to get competition going with other forums, this just seems to be an extension of how a lot of groups tend ot get competetive with something else. Also like other groups, they will have a tendency to drift to certain political views, views on life, social groups of people (in the outside world), etc., probably because of how writing styles and subjects brought up will ionfluence certain types of people towards or away from the forums. (One reason for why MBTIcentral may have trouble attracting a larger type diversity, or diversity in socioeconomic or political terms, it is not purposefully through saying that sensors suck, but just because people write a certain way, and talk about things a certain way, which will tend to make it seem more or less inviting to other types of people.)
|