Can someone please explain to me how a forum that moved faster than any forum I have ever seen can just die over the past ~3 years?

I will take a stab in the dark here. The majority of the users were around the same class and everyone got too old/got real lives or died? Or did something in particular happen? Did NCSU start threatening new students about joining? haha

This should have became apparent this is where the site was headed, so why didn't anyone try to do anything about it? Think about the thousands of students who will never know TWW or see all the fucked up things we have seen/done on here.

Today is a sad day for me as I had no idea since leaving Chit Chat years back. I get readmitted back into State only to find out the main source of bullshitting has died? I don't want to be an Engineer anymore

5/19/2015 9:11:30 PM

Somebody doesn't know what "die" means.

[Edited on May 19, 2015 at 9:17 PM. Reason : but I'll highlight the important bit for you: "forum"]

5/19/2015 9:16:10 PM

5/19/2015 9:16:39 PM

This site couldn't possibly be more dead compared to 10 years ago unless the domain was sold.


"the thread is dead" doesn't mean the thread doesn't exist anymore, it is a relative term when used in regard to the internet.

5/19/2015 9:19:41 PM

Quote :

"since leaving Chit Chat years back"

When did this happen exactly?

5/19/2015 9:19:59 PM

5/19/2015 9:21:53 PM

Quote :

"die over the past ~3 years? "

Quote :

"compared to 10 years ago"

5/19/2015 9:22:21 PM

I guess the internet was way more novel in 2000 as compared to today, so I guess it wouldn't be quite as eye-catching to see the URL all over the place anymore, maybe?

since internet BS is so common IRL these days

5/19/2015 9:22:55 PM

i blame the face page and the tweeter

5/19/2015 9:23:37 PM

Quote :

"When did this happen exactly?"

Compare my Chit Chat: http://thewolfweb.com/message_search.aspx?type=posts§ion=9&searchstring=&username=blackdog&usertype=match&sortby=date&sortorder=descending&page=

With Yours: http://thewolfweb.com/message_search.aspx?type=posts§ion=9&searchstring=&username=synapse&usertype=match&sortby=date&sortorder=descending&page=


How long is the cut off for search history? I would guess it was about 2010-2012 when I completely stopped using Chit Chat except for a handful of threads.

I was actually limited to 1 thread per day in Chit Chat, haha.



[Edited on May 19, 2015 at 9:25 PM. Reason : _]

5/19/2015 9:24:42 PM

TWW started to decline in activity around the same time Obama got elected. coincidence?...

5/19/2015 9:25:02 PM

^^^ TELL HIM WHAT HE'S WON JOHNNY!

5/19/2015 9:25:41 PM

Quote :

"Compare my Chit Chat: http://thewolfweb.com/message_search.aspx?type=posts§ion=9&searchstring=&username=blackdog&usertype=match&sortby=date&sortorder=descending&page= With Yours: http://thewolfweb.com/message_search.aspx?type=posts§ion=9&searchstring=&username=synapse&usertype=match&sortby=date&sortorder=descending&page="

Quote :

"completely except"

[Edited on May 19, 2015 at 9:27 PM. Reason : u sure you're not still on the drugs?]

5/19/2015 9:26:48 PM

Quote :

"I guess the internet was way more novel in 2000 as compared to today, so I guess it wouldn't be quite as eye-catching to see the URL all over the place anymore, maybe? since internet BS is so common IRL these days"

Very true and I joined only 3-4 years after it started, but fuck man, this sucks. Now I am stuck with you guys and only you guys

Maybe I will start an official club on campus or get us in The Technician.

5/19/2015 9:27:41 PM

make another forum

a revolutionary forum :33333

you can call it...

WOLF WALL

yes yes, I can see it now...

5/19/2015 9:32:45 PM

Just do what the rest of us did and move to Reddit

5/19/2015 9:34:09 PM

TWW probably died after they gave out my identity to NCSU over a damn burning cat picture in my gallery. Then everyone realized TWW was the new NSA.

5/19/2015 9:37:24 PM

I think it happened for several reasons. This of course is just my opinion though, as someone that has been around for a while. In no particular order:

-Competition - Facebook, twitter, reddit, etc... have to play a large role. When I first joined TWW, there were only smaller niche forums on the internet really. A few big ones, but nothing like facebook or reddit that I can think of. I'm sure the kids coming in to school now grew up with facebook, for example, in middle and high school. By the time they get to college, they're like why should I switch to TWW? What does it have to offer that reddit doesn't have?

-Lack of community - Of the people that do still post on TWW, I think that fewer and fewer are located around one geographic location. We used to get lunch, dinner, pizza, drinks, go bowling, do trivia, bar hopping, go to partied, etc... together. It really was a nice community back in the day. It is just not like that anymore that I know of (I guess everyone could still get together, just not invite me )

-Maturity - Obviously, people grew up and moved on to more important things in their life. It gets hard to log onto TWW, read, and post as much when you are changing diapers, working on projects at work, shucking your corn cause your wife doesn't love you, etc... People grew up and just got...busy. Arguably, this has always been the case with TWW, but as those who 'aged out' started to fade away, new people would come in. Which brings us to....

-The New Class - They just aren't cutting the mustard. I don't think that the newbies stick around long, post with the same frequency, or post the same quality content as we used to. I blame the schools.

-Lack of participation - I know that it is easy to come here, poke around, read, lurk, and never post. Let the others entertain you, right? Yeah, well, when everyone relies on others for the entertainment, and they stop producing it themselves, this whole concept of user-provided content doesn't work. Make threads! Post! Comment!

-Individual message board purpose - I think that some of us here forgot that we should put thought and effort behind our posts. Ideally, each thread and post should be made with the purpose of not only entertaining yourself, but entertaining others. We should be making thought provoking posts, funny threads, threads which encourage participation. It is impossible to do that ALL the time... but there have been a couple of people on this board over the years that "junk post". "Junk posting" being the mindless, effortless posting just to increase your postcount or to see your texts on the screen -- posting that adds nothing to the conversation.







This isn't meant to be an exhaustive list... just some things that I've thought about.

5/19/2015 9:59:22 PM

Glenn Beck raped and murdered it in 1990 right after he burned down the atrium.

5/19/2015 10:13:25 PM

TWW-2001
Myspace-2003
Facebook-2005
twitter-2006
Google+-2011

As was stated in another thread I started, the spring class of 2003 was the last class to graduate from college before social networking took over the world. Students are now interested in tweeting and liking everything that is posted.

5/19/2015 11:02:41 PM

I feel like the decline started precisely when we started getting the OH SHIT! errors on a consistent basis

when it became difficult to log in, people starting leaving, and (more importantly) people stopped joining

5/19/2015 11:11:17 PM

But something touched me deep inside
The day the music died ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAsV5-Hv-7U

5/19/2015 11:46:39 PM

^^That doesn't help either, but I think my point has a lot to do with it too.

5/20/2015 12:55:05 AM

It's a complex amalgam of a lot of these problems. The "Golden Years" crew of TWW got older and quit posting, taking with them the community that made this site stand out for people at NCSU or in the Raleigh area generally. Meanwhile, during their heyday, they didn't make it easy for new people to get involved.

Sure, there was the tunnel painting and the brutal suppression of any competition. But a newcomer to TWW was faced with a number of things that made this site less than appealing. Community is great when you're in it. When you're outside, it can be frustratingly difficult to enter. Chit Chat has always been a tangled web of inside jokes that nobody wants to explain to newcomers. (To this day, I have no idea what "cocaine laced with deworming agent" refers to, and I probably just said it wrong) Everybody is already in these close relationships, be they friendships or rivalries. Joining TWW and trying to actively post is like being the new kid at school.

Probably the only reason I hung around was because I stayed in Soap Box exclusively for years. Those problems didn't apply there. It was just like any other internet argument board except you could reasonably expect to meet some of these people, and I think in a way that kept it (relatively) civil. Chit Chat seemed impenetrable for a long time, and Chit Chat is where you convert your "I only joined to try to sell a couch" user into a regular poster.

So the community may have inadvertently suppressed new entrants, then the community got old and left us. Meanwhile the site itself didn't change with the times, because various owners lacked the will or ability or resources to improve it. The world moved onto smart phones, and this is the worst mobile site I know. As much as they annoy me, the linkages between facebook, twitter, and other social media sites help keep them popular, and we don't have that. TWW could have survived competition, because it does offer things that others don't, at least in theory, but not if it does absolutely nothing to keep up with the times (and, in fact, slides backwards into constant "Oh, Shit!" territory)

One last thing I can think of that might have contributed: TWW stopped getting press. Yeah, the vast majority of that press was for things like the News 14 closure postings, "hacking" campus safety, Anita Flick, etc., so you wouldn't call it good press, but it was exactly the sort of thing that this site needs because it attracts the attention of exactly the sort of people we want: a little depraved, an inclination to make trouble, an appreciation for the absurd.

The decline of TWW makes me really sad, because this site has come to mean a lot to me. It has helped me find jobs and provided very helpful life advice. I have laughed harder at some stupid TWW shit than at just about anything else. Arguing with people in Soap Box helped me clarify all of the things I believe, sometimes making me more obstinate, sometimes teaching me I was wrong (on the subjects of, say, marijuana and gay marriage). Watching it fade away is a bummer.

5/20/2015 4:31:30 AM

It's still real to me damnit!

5/20/2015 7:39:41 AM

Joie stopped posting nudes?

5/20/2015 7:47:20 AM

damn kids these days with their twitters and vines and tumblers.

5/20/2015 10:10:01 AM

EMCE and GrumpyGOP's post made me , but also made me that I was here during the golden years.

This comment almost made me spit tea on the display

Quote :

"To this day, I have no idea what "cocaine laced with deworming agent" refers to"

because I know exactly what you mean, haha. There are so many inside jokes that I never got or bothered to ask because I knew I would get flamed, badly. On the other hand, "DAT 190% Alcohol" was literally my doing by calling out a guy over 190 Proof vs. 190%, so it is always a mix of what you do and don't know.

A lot of what you all said is very true, especially the part about the owners of the site doing nothing to try and stay up with the times. I have no idea about the mobile site because I have purposely never owned a smartphone in my life. When I joined the site in 2005 Facebook was already well established in the college crowd, but what made this site special is pretty much everything that GrumpyGOP explained. Having an IRC-ish forum section (rough analogy) where you literally knew some people and you could meet others if you wanted to was something that nothing could or can even offer now. Facebook has become something over the past ~5 years that I never thought it would, a place for old people (50-80+). When my mother asked for Prayer Requests today I would bet $100 she gets more replies than I will get for my birthday in 2 days .

It definitely is a daunting task being an outsider and trying to breakthrough into the community. When I joined this site in 2005 my brother told me this, "don't be a dumbass on here or people are going to rip you a new asshole, seriously.", he joined in August of 2001 and was pretty active. Because of how my brother talked about TWW is why it meant so much to me and I probably caused at least 6 very active members to join because of what I told them about the site, sawahash for example. When TWW died through word of mouth is when the site probably took a turn towards crash and burn. I think what really ran new members off is how fucking mean everyone is though, haha. For example if I didn't have a thick ass skin prior to joining TWW yall would have ran me off looooong ago for me being a dumb ass while I was on meds. I can't live that down to this day on here, but I expect that from TWW.

We should have another Brent Road party, just not on Brent Road. If students could see that again, this shit would blow up.

(http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/102714/)

5/20/2015 10:58:17 AM

control-f

euphalo

5/20/2015 11:15:18 AM

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=euphalo

^ I do agree there was some rambling in there

I will try harder next time I post! (not counting this post) I need to get up to reddit quality posting before I can leave here




[Edited on May 20, 2015 at 11:25 AM. Reason : _]

5/20/2015 11:19:45 AM

My fear is that we're already past the point of having enough resources (chiefly, people who still give a shit and live near NCSU) to do something like that, or indeed much of anything. If you could get some actual students to, say, put up a TWW shack in the brickyard during the habitat event, or do something noticeable during one of the large Hillsborough events (assuming they still have those), a proper tunnel painting...something so that new people could find out TWW exists.

But even that would have to be coupled with some kind of change on the site, because right now I don't know what it has to offer that isn't better provided by some other service. I first came here to use the School Tool, which is now a very bad, sad joke. More comprehensive information for that can be found on other sites. Book exchange? Does that feature even still work? And as for the message boards, at this point we have Chit Chat -- with all of the social barriers to entry already discussed -- and Sports Talk, which I will not claim to know anything about, except to say there have to be a plethora of NCSU/ACC/NCAA/etc. news and discussion sites with more action, quality, and bonuses. The Soap Box, the forum that first drew me in, is all but dead. My point is, even if you got new people to come check out the site, I don't think they'd stay.

Meanwhile our anonymous owner in Boston or wherever has zero motivation to make any changes, let alone coordinate them with activities to get out the message.

5/20/2015 11:26:13 AM

No one wants to pay to use a broken site.

Students (who can join for free) don't want to interact with a bunch of 30+ year old men.

5/20/2015 11:31:31 AM

Quote :

" No one wants to pay to use a broken site."

Not to mention antiquated.

5/20/2015 11:37:15 AM

Do you think there is a possibility that many members are posting exclusively outside of Chit Chat due to all the BS they associate with Chit Chat? It used to be literally impossible to browse Chit Chat at work due to picture bombing. I just wonder if as everyone got older they "grew out" of Chit Chat or just got fed up with it.

I honestly had no idea this had happened and I was posting in Entertainment and Sports Talk pretty regularly. Just a thought.


I definitely agree that even if I could do some things on campus, I doubt I could do anything to get active members to join simply by seeing our name. If we were going to try and bring the site back we would need to figure out a way to show students what TWW was and what it means to internet generation NCSU students and alumni. Basically they need to feel what we have described in this thread and have a desire to be a part of the next generation of TDubbers. We have some smart motherfuckers on here, surely there is a way to brain rape these kids.

5/20/2015 11:40:42 AM

I joined TWW for the photo gallery.

Not to look at the noods, but to post my pictures, and classifieds.

5/20/2015 11:46:01 AM

Quote :

"I have no idea what "cocaine laced with deworming agent" refers to"

lol, that's not even a TWW thing, is it?

It's all over the fucking internet.

5/20/2015 12:45:39 PM

Maybe the new forum should be a "kiddie pool" for new NCSU users. Old folks can read but not post there, so it'll cut down on the trolling some. New users have access to the other forums but encouraged to learn the ropes there. Maybe give a friendly mod posting rights/control over it.

5/20/2015 12:45:59 PM

There are no friendly mods

5/20/2015 12:55:51 PM

^^ I was actually thinking about something similar.

The hard part is how we get people here that are new/current students.

5/20/2015 1:09:24 PM

^^ Basically.

It's the same reason we didn't get any further in the NCAA tournament this year. God damn mods throwing a hissy fit over the Lauren Bowden pic that we desperately needed to have posted.

5/20/2015 2:43:21 PM

I'd say EMCE nailed it, seemed like it started to die around the same time as AIM...what do people even use for messaging now these days, facebook? for that matter to chat rooms even exist anymore?

shame there was some funny/crazy/controversial stuff that happened here that I can't picture happening on a site like facebook

5/20/2015 2:56:39 PM

There are some very thoughtful responses to the question posed ITT. I don't feel like writing a novel but the short of it is that you people aren't nice to newcomers. I'm not saying my hands are clean, either. It's fun to haze newbs and gloat in our years on TWW but it runs people off and kills any chance of this place surviving. My cousins are freshmen at State and I try to explain this site to them and they basically say "why would I go on TWW where everyone is a dick to me when I can post on Reddit and people are actually nice?"

Social media is definitely a contributing factor and Reddit is king in a lot of ways, but I'll read an article or whatever on Reddit and them come here to get a local perspective on it (or at least people who once lived in Raleigh at some point) because it's easier to mirror my own take/point of view against that than it is an national/international response from Reddit. TWW definitely has a place among the social media sites if it was just more user friendly for new people.

maybe we should have a buddy system for new people

[Edited on May 20, 2015 at 3:04 PM. Reason : .]

5/20/2015 3:01:17 PM

^^yeah, I love how you can say anything on here because no one knows who you are. I really have to watch what I say on facebook since people that read what I posted actually know me.

[Edited on May 20, 2015 at 3:08 PM. Reason : .]

5/20/2015 3:07:17 PM

^^

people are a lot friendlier to new users than they've ever been.

this place is basically like the route 66 ghost town from the movie Cars.

it was nice back in it's day, and then they built an interstate that pretty much deprecates this place, but a few old dogs stuck around.

5/20/2015 3:16:06 PM

BECAUSE YOU TOUCH YOURSELF

5/20/2015 3:38:25 PM

One of the funniest things about TWW was how much I learned about subject material just so I could argue with people. Although a lot of times I would research only to learn that the other person was correct, haha.

What is the Facebook alternative going to become? Facebook is now turning into the MySpace of 2005 with all the old people. When I joined FB back in 2004 there were many colleges that couldn't even join yet because they didn't recognize their emails, haha. I remember an ex-GF getting pissed because she went to Meredith (yea... I know) and FB didn't have Meredith in the system yet. I can't post anything on there anymore without acting like my Grandmother and preacher are going to read it. I don't even really use FB anymore except to use the messenger.

Oh btw, I use AIM to this day still. Since I don't have a smartphone it is waaay faster to text people using that vs. typing it in on a keypad

5/20/2015 6:33:23 PM

^I'm kind of old school too. My car has a CD player and I listen to CDs instead of using a playlist on my phone like most people these days.

5/20/2015 7:08:19 PM

It's easy to point to high quantities of extremely low quality posts or inadequate moderation as the culprit, but I'm pretty sure there's a primary cause of TWW's slow, painful death. It's a fate that was guaranteed upon TWW's creation.

TWW is a college messageboard. In the early years, it was a place for students to bullshit and talk about issues/events relating to NCSU. As the years went on, former students continued posting. These alumni (or, in some cases, dejected losers who may or may not have ever gone to the school, but nonetheless latched on to the community here) became the core users of the forum.

I don't have any data to back this up, but I would speculate that the percentage of users consisting of individuals that are not currently attending NCSU has only gone up with every passing year. This is the only thing that could have happened without a mechanism to prune non-students.

Of course, 19 year olds don't want to have anything to do with a bunch of late 30s men desperately grasping for their youth - you know, the "I could have made state, if only..." types. The environment becomes more and more hostile (or at the very least, unappealing) to NCSU students. This guarantees not only that there will be no growth, but there will be negative growth. There will be a churn rate for existing users that grows exponentially; for every person that leaves, the community becomes that much less interesting, which makes other users more likely to drop off.

5/20/2015 7:43:52 PM

For me, it died when TreeTwista10 stopped responding to my inappropriate PMs.

Y'all should probably talk to him about not seducing the ladies in the first place. Cause, yeah, y'all need people. Have fun, guys!

5/20/2015 7:59:07 PM

Fuck this thread.

5/20/2015 9:12:16 PM