We're the only one left, aren't we?

[LoneWolf]

The demise of a lot of those sites can be attributed to a variety of things, but I'm gonna speculate that it's mostly existing outside of social media in general are going the way of the dodo. It's hard to pull people away from a system like Facebook or Twitter for social stuff anymore (well, and the brevity of interactions is ever increasing). The rise of the group and the content aggregating account have pushed people away from involvement, with content consumption being a lot easier than content creation. Additionally, stuff like Facebook is tied to your actual name, which presents it's own set of problems with interacting with strangers.

Also a lot of the people in the fandom are getting older and have responsibilities and shit that get in the way of interacting with the fandom. We need fresh meat.

Either way, I'm glad SFO is still around and if we're ever about to go under I'll be fighting to keep stuff above water. This is one of the few old haunts I still visit online (unfortunately so, but you know, life) and it's been a great ride so far. I do expect a surge in the community when SFZero comes out, but it'll be interesting to see how many of those people stick around for more than a few months.

 

[InfinitySquared]

My main problem with forums is that, when you're new, you basically feel like you're barging into someone else's conversation. You don't know who people hate or love, and you don't have the same wealth of knowledge that everyone else seems to have. To make it all worse, you're stuck with the scarlet letter of a big ol' fat 0 next to your post/rep counts, so whatever you say will be taken with a grain of salt by anyone who reads it. Most of your questions will be answered with some disdainful link to a wiki, if they're even answered at all. It'll take another 20 or so posts before you're really seen as an actual member of the community, and you'll be in the triple digits before you become part of a clique. That's assuming you stick around that long!

Stuff like Reddit or Tumblr, on the other hand, are much more inviting to the newbie. If you want to join a fandom or even just ask a quick question, all you have to do is join a subreddit or follow a blog. To the average person, that's much easier than joining an entirely new community. Plus, if you get tired of it, you can just move on from that fandom without having to leave the site.

Also, whoever said that we need more content on the site made a solid point. Even if these forums do die off eventually, we should at least still have oodles of content for people in the future to come back for. Trivia, music, interviews, podcasts, reviews, comics, hell let's get some (SFW) fanart or fan-projects in there too. 

[Guest]

I think its just because the lack of new games! Yes we got a HD remake of SF64, but that really doesn't count in my opinion. I think with StarFox Zero the fandom will get much more busy! 

[Robert Monroe]

So what we're saying is

 

SFO needs an official Tumblr/Twitter to give it some larger social media presence and thus cow people into our pastures for greater community.

 

Right? >:V