Is EC becoming less active?

I couldn't speak to why, but yes it seems to me that there's considerably less traffic than there was even just a couple years ago.

 

The current political situation in the United States is such a mess that a lot of people in vulnerable situations feel less safe to speak. I don't know if that has a direct correlation to lower traffic on this site, but I wouldn't be surprised. Millions of poor people who had access to internet through government programs no longer have access because of deregulation too, or they lose access very shortly. Naturally what this administration is doing has a chilling effect on free speech.

 

I've noticed a drop in activity in the less than one year I've been here as well. I just assumed it was because it's summer and people do things in real life more during warmer months. The same thing happens every year on a video game related forum I moderate, then it picks back up around October.

 

Yes, it probably is less active than even when I first joined here but if I remember right, a really similar conversation was brought up last summer too so it seems like a trend of there being less active users during summer than in winter.

 

It's definitely less active.

When I joined the site in 2012 through 2016, there were dozens of people posting daily along with multiple pages of new threads.

I wasn't on this site for most of last year and a lot of this year and noticed a significant drop in traffic when I started browsing on EC again. As others have mentioned, I just think message boards in general are much less popular.

 

I thought Facebook Groups for gay people were dying out to. Do people actually meet through Facebook groups?

 

I thought so too! It’s weird. I’ll admit that I was less active in the past year and a half because I had a lot of stuff going on offline but I’m going to try and post more now. I joined just over 3 years ago and I think it was definitely more active back then. A lot of people I used to know aren’t active anymore.

 

It is more than a year since I joined but the traffic is significantly down these days. Same time last year was so much busier. Also I think there was a bunch of women who were very active on EC and now suddenly they are all gone. Guys have always been sporadic apart from a few.

 

I think sometimes members are a bit shy about creating threads and posting responses, especially in the support area. They feel as though they have too little experience or understanding to say anything meaningful, even though that's not true in reality. Sometimes it just takes a few kind words to make a difference and touch another member quite deeply. Of course, it's entirely up to each member how they participate, but if more of us prefer to lurk than post it will have an effect. It also depends on your motivation for being a member. If you only join to get help and support while you personally are coming out you may not stick around in the long term. You might be active over a period of weeks and months while you are working through it all, but then you'll move on. It happens and we understand that. On the other hand, you might be motivated to help and support others who are going through a hard time (like you once did), so you could more active over a longer period. All of these factors + time of day/week/year have a bearing. The numbers of people visiting and signing into EC seems pretty stable though.

 

I assume people come and go. I know I do. I can be very active for a few days, then I may lose interest for weeks, then I come back. Not sure if it’s boredom, or because sometimes I feel more gay than others abd I need to talk about it. Who knows. I imagine a lot of people are like that

 

YES. I was so hesitant giving answers in the beginning because I thought I didn't know anything, especially when it came to gender identities. Almost everything I knew about queer culture came from the Internet and the media, which frankly aren't always reliable. Half of the time, they're busy fetishizing us.

 

It's not like it was I'm thinking of leaving EC barkey any activity

 

Barley

 

Possibly, but I've only been here a year or so, and I come and go (same pattern in everything else I do, no surprise here), so I can't really tell. Summer is traditionally 'quieter' for a lot of online places, too.

I'm not keen on FB groups and the likes either. But yeah, it looks like forums, like blogs, are more like a 2000s' thing, rather than a 2010s', so to speak. I used to be on plenty of forums back then, and none has survived.