Does Atlas have less active users than it did 10 years ago?

[TheReckoning]

     Looking through old boards, it seems so. This is weird since pretty much all other online forums have more users than they did 10 years ago.

      Additionally , it seems like the forum has gotten less diverse, with a higher proportion of left-wing posters than before.

[wimp]

This is weird since pretty much all other online forums have more users than they did 10 years ago.

what sites are you talking about? message boards in general have declined so much since then due to the rise of mega-websites like Twitter and Reddit.

[TheReckoning]

This is weird since pretty much all other online forums have more users than they did 10 years ago.

what sites are you talking about? message boards in general have declined so much since then due to the rise of mega-websites like Twitter and Reddit.

Reddit is literally an online forum.

[brucejoel99]

This is weird since pretty much all other online forums have more users than they did 10 years ago.

what sites are you talking about? message boards in general have declined so much since then due to the rise of mega-websites like Twitter and Reddit.

Reddit is literally an online forum.

What they're getting at is that Reddit isn't a "message board" in the same sense that Atlas or other popular message boards of the aughts are, which is itself - being different from a relatively outdated "message board" such as this one - a factor that led to its mega-rise in the first place.

[Mr. Morden]

Look at the stats page:

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?action=stats

The forum is clearly more active than it was 10 years ago.  Just look at the number of new posts per month, and the "most online" per month, etc.  Though maybe there wasn't anyone 10 years ago who was making +1000 posts per month like olawakandi does now, and so it's now more dominated by a few super-active posters?

[TheReckoning]

Look at the stats page:

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?action=stats

The forum is clearly more active than it was 10 years ago.  Just look at the number of new posts per month, and the "most online" per month, etc.  Though maybe there wasn't anyone 10 years ago who was making +1000 posts per month like olawakandi does now, and so it's now more dominated by a few super-active posters?

Wow, super cool link. Thanks.

[GeneralMacArthur]

fewer

[Del Tachi]

The most online posters at a time occurred on June 27, 2018 - the day Justice Kennedy announced his retirement and AOC upset Joe Crowley

[wimp]

Look at the stats page:

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?action=stats

The forum is clearly more active than it was 10 years ago.  Just look at the number of new posts per month, and the "most online" per month, etc.  Though maybe there wasn't anyone 10 years ago who was making +1000 posts per month like olawakandi does now, and so it's now more dominated by a few super-active posters?

Reddit and Twitter themselves seem to be declining.

I wonder if this could lead to a more balkanized internet and a rise of sites like Atlas (or more realistically, just replacements that are more echo-chambery than their predecessors)

[Jay 🏳️‍⚧️]

Look at the stats page:

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?action=stats

The forum is clearly more active than it was 10 years ago.  Just look at the number of new posts per month, and the "most online" per month, etc.  Though maybe there wasn't anyone 10 years ago who was making +1000 posts per month like olawakandi does now, and so it's now more dominated by a few super-active posters?

Reddit and Twitter themselves seem to be declining.

Twitter and Reddit aren't declining, they're growing. Twitter will always remain king of the crop for people who need rapid status updates on active events and for the personal interactions you get. Reddit is gunning hard for the 13-18 demographic, and trying to pivot from message board to generic social media site, and by all metrics its going well. They've massively expanded their userbase to the 'normies,' even if it upsets the old guard on the site.

[Never Made it to Graceland]

Look at the stats page:

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?action=stats

The forum is clearly more active than it was 10 years ago.  Just look at the number of new posts per month, and the "most online" per month, etc.  Though maybe there wasn't anyone 10 years ago who was making +1000 posts per month like olawakandi does now, and so it's now more dominated by a few super-active posters?

Reddit and Twitter themselves seem to be declining.

Twitter and Reddit aren't declining, they're growing. Twitter will always remain king of the crop for people who need rapid status updates on active events and for the personal interactions you get. Reddit is gunning hard for the 13-18 demographic, and trying to pivot from message board to generic social media site, and by all metrics its going well. They've massively expanded their userbase to the 'normies,' even if it upsets the old guard on the site.

Reddit is "growing" partially, or maybe primarily, because they now automatically create accounts for anyone browsing without one as long as they're logged into google. There are probably hundreds of thousands of accounts that have been created that way.

[bagelman]

No:

March 2011    

1264 new topics, 28479 posts, 198 new members, 200 peak online (27th)

March 2021 (incomplete month)

2029 new topics so far, 39101 posts so far, 168 members so far (need another 30 to catch up, but this is less important imo), 498 peak online so far (8th and 17th)

[LAKISYLVANIA]

     Looking through old boards, it seems so. This is weird since pretty much all other online forums have more users than they did 10 years ago.

      Additionally , it seems like the forum has gotten less diverse, with a higher proportion of left-wing posters than before.

LOL

I would say this is the only forum where activity seems to have increased over the last 10 years, and i've been on 20 to 30 fora. This is the only one!

[Virginiá]

# of posts in 2011: 367,461
# of posts in 2010: 474,189 (election year)
-
# of posts in 2020: 747,754 (election year)
# of posts in 2019: 503,627

-

MySQL results for # distinct users who posted in January of [year]:
jan2011_activeUsers :   321
jan2021_activeUsers :   827

Look at the stats page:

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?action=stats

The forum is clearly more active than it was 10 years ago.  Just look at the number of new posts per month, and the "most online" per month, etc.  Though maybe there wasn't anyone 10 years ago who was making +1000 posts per month like olawakandi does now, and so it's now more dominated by a few super-active posters?

I wasn't here back then but I didn't need to be to know that people like opebo, Keystone Phil and minionofmidas posted so much that they are STILL on the top 10 (or just recently slipped off - opebo) list despite mostly not posting in 5+ years. I'm sure there were other people like that, if not sticking around for as long.

[KoopaDaQuick 🇵🇸]

# of posts in 2011: 367,461
# of posts in 2010: 474,189 (election year)
-
# of posts in 2020: 747,754 (election year)
# of posts in 2019: 503,627

To be fair, comparing a midterm (2010) with a general (2020) is apples and oranges, a more accurate comparison might be comparing 2020 to 2012, or, more realistically, 2008. Doesn't really seem to be that important of a factor, but it's still worth considering.

[Virginiá]

# of posts in 2011: 367,461
# of posts in 2010: 474,189 (election year)
-
# of posts in 2020: 747,754 (election year)
# of posts in 2019: 503,627

To be fair, comparing a midterm (2010) with a general (2020) is apples and oranges, a more accurate comparison might be comparing 2020 to 2012, or, more realistically, 2008. Doesn't really seem to be that important of a factor, but it's still worth considering.

True, I did 2010 because it actually had more posts than 2012 (2012 had 434,218 posts).

[Continential]

Wasn't there more "personalities" ten years ago then there is today?

[Associate Justice PiT]

Look at the stats page:

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?action=stats

The forum is clearly more active than it was 10 years ago.  Just look at the number of new posts per month, and the "most online" per month, etc.  Though maybe there wasn't anyone 10 years ago who was making +1000 posts per month like olawakandi does now, and so it's now more dominated by a few super-active posters?

     There were actually a bunch of super-active users then. I averaged 33 PPD (or about 1,000 per month) back in 2008/9, and I know Xahar and Kalwejt were both racking up over 40 PPD. One of the things that sticks out to me about modern Atlas is the relative dearth of users who post indiscriminately in every thread they can.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Wasn't there more "personalities" ten years ago then there is today?

This strikes me as the sort of observation that's always true of the past relative to the present, but only in retrospect. Giants in the earth in those days, and all that.

[At-Large Senator LouisvilleThunder]

Look at the stats page:

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?action=stats

The forum is clearly more active than it was 10 years ago.  Just look at the number of new posts per month, and the "most online" per month, etc.  Though maybe there wasn't anyone 10 years ago who was making +1000 posts per month like olawakandi does now, and so it's now more dominated by a few super-active posters?

     There were actually a bunch of super-active users then. I averaged 33 PPD (or about 1,000 per month) back in 2008/9, and I know Xahar and Kalwejt were both racking up over 40 PPD. One of the things that sticks out to me about modern Atlas is the relative dearth of users who post indiscriminately in every thread they can.

I think that's due to there being no discord to pull people's attention away from posting on the forum back in those days.

[Don Vito Corleone]

Wasn't there more "personalities" ten years ago then there is today?

This strikes me as the sort of observation that's always true of the past relative to the present, but only in retrospect. Giants in the earth in those days, and all that.

I don't quite understand what you mean, but I'm curious; could you explain?

[Хahar 🤔]

     Looking through old boards, it seems so. This is weird since pretty much all other online forums have more users than they did 10 years ago.

      Additionally , it seems like the forum has gotten less diverse, with a higher proportion of left-wing posters than before.

LOL

I would say this is the only forum where activity seems to have increased over the last 10 years, and i've been on 20 to 30 fora. This is the only one!

Right, the assertion behind this thread is doubly false. Not only has activity not decreased (as every post in this thread has pointed out), but the Atlas Forum is different from the overwhelming trend among message boards in this regard. The single-subject message board, unrelated to some larger corporation, is basically a relic of fifteen years ago. It should be abundantly clear why Reddit is not remotely comparable.

I think the point about ideological diversity is more interesting, although reading old posts in isolation may not clearly indicate that back then most prominent blue avatars were basically seen as clowns. Post count was not inherently worthy of respect a decade ago any more than it is now. That said, I was younger then and more tolerant of ideological diversity and more willing to believe that the other side had points worth considering; I think that this is an evolution that has taken place in the minds of a lot of people here over the last ten years.

The biggest change in that regard doesn't have to do with this forum directly: it's the complete disavowal by the Republican Party not just of intellectual respectability but of coherent thought. The intellectual case for the Bush administration was wrong, but its existence meant that one could position oneself as an intellectual. By contrast, "right-wing intellectuals" online can get somewhere by making obvious criticisms of the Democratic Party agenda, but eventually they face a crossroads where either they have to admit that they voted for Biden anyway or else they have to give away any intellectual pretense by parroting the literally absurd claims of the Republican Party. It's no surprise that people here don't take kindly to the latter option, since that kind of agitprop is not meant for a politically sophisticated audience.

[Former President tack50]

Right, the assertion behind this thread is doubly false. Not only has activity not decreased (as every post in this thread has pointed out), but the Atlas Forum is different from the overwhelming trend among message boards in this regard. The single-subject message board, unrelated to some larger corporation, is basically a relic of fifteen years ago. It should be abundantly clear why Reddit is not remotely comparable.

Yeah, I agree here. I do not think it is a positive development but most "old school" message boards have been on decline. There are exceptions but the medium is sadly dying out and I am not looking forward to the days when kids will have not experienced old school message boards

But the take applied to Atlas in particular is inarguably false (though some of the stats mentioned by others before are really bot spikes; but activity is certainly 150-200% of what it used to be)

I think the point about ideological diversity is more interesting, although reading old posts in isolation may not clearly indicate that back then most prominent blue avatars were basically seen as clowns. Post count was not inherently worthy of respect a decade ago any more than it is now. That said, I was younger then and more tolerant of ideological diversity and more willing to believe that the other side had points worth considering; I think that this is an evolution that has taken place in the minds of a lot of people here over the last ten years.

You talk of this development as if it was a good thing! (especially the bolded part).

I've gone over it in the past, but I think it is a failure that Atlas is so lopsidedly left wing nowadays. The US population is roughly 45-50% right wing. Even if you want to adjust for demographics, the Atlas forum should be somewhere around 1/3 Republican or Republican leaning.

We'd be lucky if that was more like 15% at this point.

The biggest change in that regard doesn't have to do with this forum directly: it's the complete disavowal by the Republican Party not just of intellectual respectability but of coherent thought. The intellectual case for the Bush administration was wrong, but its existence meant that one could position oneself as an intellectual. By contrast, "right-wing intellectuals" online can get somewhere by making obvious criticisms of the Democratic Party agenda, but eventually they face a crossroads where either they have to admit that they voted for Biden anyway or else they have to give away any intellectual pretense by parroting the literally absurd claims of the Republican Party. It's no surprise that people here don't take kindly to the latter option, since that kind of agitprop is not meant for a politically sophisticated audience.

I don't really agree with this take but let's say it is true.

Like I said before, per demographics, Atlas should be in a vacuum around 1/3 Republican; and indeed it was back in the day! You should know better than anyone, just open an old thread and you'll see many more blue avatars and conservatives. Even if they weren't respected (not sure, wasn't there to watch) they were at least here posting among us!

So why on Earth did they leave? It's a bit of a failure that Atlas is echochambery (could be worse but we aren't in a good position)

[OSR stands with Israel]

Most of Atlas Blue Avatars still do post on the different Atlas discords

[jamestroll]

Wasn't there more "personalities" ten years ago then there is today?

It certainly does seem that way. The Atlas Community was less balkanized back at that time and the personalities were able to stick out and dominate on a relatively smaller forum at that time.