Topic: Is Bitcointalk.org losing user base? - page 8. (Read 3210 times)

I may not agree with your opinion. Based on the bpip.org site, currently the number of profiles registered on the forum has reached 3,357,216 profile (the accuracy is not known for certain) and it is proof that the bitcointalk.org forum has received quite a lot of enthusiasm from people who come. with different purposes. Only 122,859 profile are currently tracked as active profiles and the rest are inactive and archived.

There is a correlation between the price of bitcoin (bearish and bullish) and the user base of the forum. During the bullish period, most of the new users logged in and some of the old members became active so the increase in the user base became noticeable. The opposite also happens when the price is bearish, the interest of new users begin to shrink and old users fall asleep. I think they are trader or investor who only use this forum for the purpose of getting information about trading and other thing that can be used as fundamental.

So I don't think that one should create hype to increase the user base of the bitcointalk forum. But it will happen naturally when the pump period starts again. Apart from some of the factors I mentioned, the price of bitcoin also has an impact on the active user base on the forum.

Right, I know that. At least it won't happen on forums but it's still possible to make it more restrictive, right?

As you pointed out, it can be done. Targeting top spot might be too much, but having the forum appear on the first page of search results for certain keywords is doable with a quality SEO team.

Good point. I am sure many of our currently active members started out collecting a few alts and shitcoins along the way. As the time passed, they either made some profit or learned from their mistakes and moved to bitcoin. But 2017/2018 was a long time ago.

That happens unfortunately and I have seen it as well. We, the elders can be tough sometimes when freshlings start breaking the rules. Some are justifiably put in their place, while some, like your friend, receive too harsh of a treatment.

That won't happen. Even with all the problems the altcoin boards bring, theymos and the admins are well aware of how much appeal it has to many people and I don't see them cutting off their hand.

It's not really a matter of opinion. You have stats in the OP of this thread and several other threads that show a decrease in activity and active users. Those can't be overlooked and ignored by having a different opinion.

Thank you all who wrote in this thread all your ideas. I am going to update the op with a summary of contribution later during the weekend.

I am answering this particular message almost by chance, but it is particularly on the point: I am not complaining old user moved on with their lives. This is perfectly understandable and relatable.
 
I am complaining I can’t see new users coming in. And while I do agree newer (younger) user might be prone to short attention span, I refuse to think we cannot engage a few thousands people all over the world interested in bitcoin to write a merit worth post monthly in this forum.
This is what worries me the most: a community not able to engage new members is eventually going to die.
And I think that day it would be a sad one.

Are there any other Bitcoin and crypto forums, with more ''modern'' themes, that are better or more active than Bitcointalk?
- No.
I am not sure that adding a mobile theme and improving search engine would make a drastic change, but we could use some refresh like big tech are doing all the time with their websites.
We should also not forget the fact that people die and move on to other things all the time like Satoshi did, and we shouldn't be surprised by this.
New people are generally young generation with short attention span, more suitable for tiktok and stuff like that 
 

The concern here is about the genuine individual not joining the forum due to one reason or another been discussed above. If you read through you can see some concerning reasons been highlighted like the evil fees, better interface of alternative forum etc. That the signups are low doesn't automatically mean that those singing up aren't alternative account. If I was to propose a hypothesis basing my assumption on majority of the reasons for low turn up of members mentioned above been correct then I'll say the signups coming in are majorly alts and not the other way round as you're proposing but that's a topic for another day.


We don't need such publicity as we didn't need one in the first place to get to this level, the success of Bitcoin is enough publicity for the forum. The forum just needs to put other things in place (shape) and everything will be back on track. If such publicity are made then the forum will just be a ground for spammers and quick money seekers giving the forum more trouble to handle.

I do not think so, I was ones a member on cryptotalk, the forum should have good users by now but there forum rules make many good posters to be banned as some have alt accounts which is against the forum rules while the many newbies that joined are spammers. You can't understand what I mean by spam I am implying, this forum is still better, you will read spam posts on cryptotalk and you will be tired. What Jr members and some members are posting on this is far better than posts on cryptotalk. It is a Russian forum, all English posters on the forum were banned because of obvious reason which the admin caused after banning quality posters, making stringent rules that will not make them to pay like before (like a user will have to rate (press like icon) your post before being paid, which was just pay by posts before). The forum is still active, but with Russian posters, all English posters are no more allowed to post indefinitely, maybe the admin might change their mind. One of the aims of the forum was to create a coin (I guess) which was called Talk token, after the creation of the coin, the coin failed and became shitcoin which I did was not even see on Coinmarketcap or Coingecko but traded only on yobit.

The second forum that I know is Altcoinstalks, since I joined this forum, I do not post on cryptotalk again, and also was the time I knew Altcoinstalks, but I did not register on the forum because this forum has been the best. So, I do not know much about Altcoinstalks, but I know it is just only bounties that are advertised on the forum, I mean only bounty campaigns, and you know how bounties are not encouraging good posters on this forum if compared to signature campaign posters. Even the quality post members that do not put on signature on this forum prefer to post on Bitcoin boards.

After these three sites, I do not know which one is paying other than Telegram, Twitter and some Reddit crypto related and the likes. No crypto forum that has its own site that I know other than this three. I even will say non.

I did not see the other two boards (Cryptotalk and Altcoinstalks as competitors, they are far to be compared. You can try to check the traffic on the two sites and compare it to Bitcointalk. Bitcointalk at one time this year had almost 5 million users visiting the forum frequently while the decline began during the bear marke. Less than 500000 for the other two forums (Altcoinstalks and Cryptotalk). Also their quality of posting is not like this forum. No forum competitor. But this forum need to have grown better than this, but Bitcointalk is not newbie friendly and not blending with the recent softwares and apps needed.

I believe bitcointalk forum is the first crypto community to ever exist, over the years crypto communities have formed and newer is always better more attractive. Everyone has different reasons for joining the forum, some are interested in the campaigns and bounties and frankly there isn't much of those these days. Reddit is becoming more popular, the user interface is more friendly. Remember how clubhouse users hit the roof when Elon Musk tweeted about it. That's the kind of publicity the forum needs.

Isn't it good that bitcointalk new signup are low as now people are less attractive to make alt accounts and most of the new accounts are from different individuals and not from a single person farming accounts ?

Cryptotalk is already a fossil, it did gain traction in my school but it ended with nothing but air because the way they make money is unsustainable in so many levels. Also, I don't think that Bitcointalk is losing it's user base, there are new users in the forum that are slowly making merits and making a name for themselves, it's a slow burn so there's nothing to worry about.

Yes it was/is that yobit forum - I don't know if it runs and how is it going - , then there's some crypto/altcoins forum the bounties not-in-correct form for bitcointalk were held there, then there's a few forums that were advertised also here .. I don't know how good are they doing, but I guess that some of them do exist.

This is what I have noticed also. Other forums I have been a member of have
(a.) completely died with a handful of users rattling around or
(b.) have significantly less activity.

I would say that Twitter and Telegram are attracting more users than forums
especially for the generation who have grown up with instant updates.

While I love BCT I think the one drawback in the eyes of a newcomer is "The Vastness"
of it, there is just a massive amount of information here both useful and worthless,
it can be hard to,
(a.) find exactly what you are looking for and
(b.) time consuming to verify the information.

I suppose in comparison to other sources (twitter, telegram) Forums are slow,
require more reading and input.

I'm not going anywhere though.

The user base will also drop further if the altcoin (bounty) field no longer profitable anything for its participant. I can't imagine how this forum will have any user appeal if altcoins (bounty) are removed.

OP, I feel if the benchmark of forum user base is seen from the cycle of senders and recipients of merit then I'm not sure it will be accurate enough because many forum users ignore the merit system and even they are not interested in getting involved as senders nor do they want to receive if we pay attention to the quality of their post. There are thousand of post on cryptocurrency alternative discussion board that do not meet quality standard and most of the people involved are bounty hunter. They're still active, but don't appear to be users interested in engaging either as senders or recipients of merit. In addition, the merit system also has an influence on the current user base of the forum.

Let's be honest, the forum is static (or evolving at a very slow rate) and that has to be addressed. What stopped the forum from having a mobile app, having a more mobile friendly interface by now or introducing new features that'll make the forum a little bit interesting. For example, apparently I became more active on Facebook around the same time I created my account on the forum and the numerous changes been observed on the platform has a lot to says about how they value the community feedback. I'm not trying to compared both platform since Facebook has so many flaws but you should get an idea of where I'm coming from.

I have seen countless number of thread created giving suggestions on how to improve the forum yet none is been looked into (atleast that's what it looks like). When people starts observing that the forum doesn't care about their suggestions then they'll stop trying to help which is why I think we haven't been seeing much of those suggestions recently. It's no doubt the forum is outdated and something urgent has to be done about this before it gets too late.

We're losing user base and this isn't just because Bitcoin is on the decline of recent and other crackdown by search engine on bitcoin related search etc. We are losing because this generation aren't familiar with this format the forum is using. Things has evolved and the forum should evolved too. I still have my doubts if any of the suggestion made on this thread will be put into consideration although nice initiative my the OP.

Which competitor forum is paying per post automatically ? As far as my knowledge there is no such forum. Previously we had cryptotalk (forum by yobit) which automatically paid per post but it turned out to be a failed project.
I also believe that currently there is no competitor for bitcointalk  

I would like to share my personal experience here.
In the last few years, I have suggested this forum to three of my friends.
Two of them did not even manage to register to the end due to evil fee rules.
When they saw the message that because of the evil fee they had to pay some amount to be able to post on this forum they just started laughing and said there was no way they would pay any money for the right to post on some forum.
A third friend managed to register and luckily didn’t get the message that an evil fee should be paid but as soon as he started posting on this forum he was severely attacked by other members for a couple of unintentional, beginner mistakes he made like restarting an old thread that he simply gave up and said he would never return to this forum again.
I am also a member of other forums and the same problem exists there, the declining interest of young people in forums.
This is obviously a trend that can no longer be reversed and forums are slowly becoming an outdated way of internet communication.
However, I believe that a large number of new members have dropped out of this forum due to the evil fee and the hostile welcome of older members.  

I think that all the posts above have detected very well the possible reasons why the number of new and active users is decreasing. There are many reasons, from the fact that some old users are no longer with us for their personal reasons or have unfortunately passed away, to the fact that the merit system has fundamentally changed the way forum members can progress (in terms of ranks), and thus reduced the interest of all those who saw the forum as a place to make money in a very easy and simple way.

Another important thing that no one mentioned is perhaps very important in the context of less interest in the forum - and that is the price of Bitcoin. When the average Joe looked at the price during 2015 or 2017 and read a forum full of posts speculating on a price that would one day go over $10k, it seemed very appealing to him from the perspective of his purchasing power, while today the uncertainty caused by the pandemic and high BTC price many simply refuse the new users to be active participants in the forum.

I have previously expressed doubts that the new forum would bring results in terms of better post quality, and I sincerely doubt that it would attract new users, at least not in a significant number. In addition, it is necessary to look at how many users actually remained active from the initial years of the forum, and that the database has already decreased considerably at least once, which may indicate a natural process that may now be at its peak.

For me, the user base in this forum is like the oceans, it ebbs and flows meaning that there's times that we can see a low user base but at times we will see a spike. To me, I think that we will be able to see a spike in user base if the prices started rallying again, I noticed that there's an influx of newbie when the prices were still around the ATH.

Largely this.
Younger generations probably think this looks old. But this forum is a rich historical artefact, with a clean interface. It brings together experts that you will not see in other places.

This gives a hint. As bitcoin matures, long term experts and the most enthusiastic initial community tires or leaves, leaving behind newbies to keep up the energy.
The newbies need to transition into more mature roles within the community or the community dies. This is not specific to bitcointalk, but to any community that exists.
The difficulty is figuring out who will continue in energetic roles, versus who may have to leave such sooner.

New impactful news on bitcoin is rare. It occurs (e.g. all time highs as pointed out in the next user posts), which keeps people engaged. Yet, people find out more about these things on other sites.

There is also personal effects where a older user has seen the same topics repeated numerous times (a la "who is satoshi") with very little new, and so it would feel tiresome to rehash the same topics.
The mix of old, mature, and new can clash as people who have never discussed such things seriously discuss with people who have very formed ideas.
Both bring something to the table, but it is a clash that is easy to be blind to.

Agreed...

Perhaps bitcointalk needs more branding? There isn't a logo, which is nice, but also means that it isn't pushed.
What sort of branding? It's a clean looking and relatively professional forum, so nothing too glittery.

What sort of new tools could be incorporated? Being honest, new bitcoiners are likely to be investors with a lot of technical knowledge, or political (dare I say libertarian leaning?) people who might stick to larger bitcoin sites. The forum as is doesn't differentiate between these two groups, but if you had tools that interacted with other forecasting tools? That may change the nature of bitcoin talk from a forum..

I guess the question is: who is it that you are intending to attract to the forum? and why? Are there groups that would be left out?

I had an account a few years back. I think I got it to member, then stopped posting. It was a feeling of personal accomplishment to become a member, after which I felt satisfied and stopped. I also stopped partially because I felt the interactions a bit abrasive. I don't think there's anything to do about that off the top of my head.

It makes sense, as you have the 1) conspiracy (Satoshi Nakamoto was a pseudonym who started a trillion dollar economy), mixed with 2) tech (devs, new algorithms), 3) wealth (old and new alike), 4) antagonists (spam and scam), 5) alt-coiners, and 6) actual newbies to it all. Each of these has their own perception, priorities, and self-preservation to maintain with or against the other groups. The newbies to it all are the most sensitive group and don't have enough ties to fight against tides of other groups. All of it are perfectly natural reactions, if not somewhat predictable. Still, the question is - which do you want to cater to, and then how do you best cater to that group? Maybe not do anything too dramatic if the goal is a buffet, which is fine? The forum accomplishes its goal of bringing new and old people together to interact in relaxed and serious manners.[/list]

Golden age of forums was more than a decade ago, so no  wonder that bitcointalk userbase keep decreasing as I've seen the same thing on the other forums I'm using; old users quitting and new ones are attracted by other platforms.

Another thing that probably attracted more people to bitcointalk are altcoins; from my experience, new people tend to get into altcoins first (looking for quick profit) and then later on focus more on bitcoin. From what I could notice, bitcointalk stopped being a place where people come to discover new alts, therefore losing potential users who would later be more bitcoin oriented.

I'm not sure that anything could be done to completely reverse the trend, but some of the things mentioned in previous posts could slow it down.

Honestly, i don't like writing article solely for SEO. The article usually have mediocre quality and not really helpful. We better learn few thing from Stack Overflow/Stack Exchange (https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/14056). They have good SEO, while maintain content quality and doesn't create article solely for 1st result on search engine.