Epic AMA thread at TheFastlaneForum

Final note: I have quite a few posts that I've wanted to write (reverse engineering media release campaigns, detailing traffic benefits from blogging and proper content generation and promotion, etc.) but I don't bother simply because I'm not interested in being banned.

That's a shame. I am sure there are a lot of people on here that would love to read about these topics, including myself.
 


there has definitely been a demographic change here since I started lurking in '07 sometime. I posted about it in some old thread (graphs here) and of course was met with troll replies.

Regional traffic ranks do not tell the whole story. All of the countries above Canada, U.S. and U.K. have very less number of Internet users. If you have a list of countries sorted based on the total number of users visiting WickedFire, that will be more relevant to support your theory. This one neither supports nor discredits it.

The first graph does show a traffic decline, as you said.
 
150k registrations, im sure 99% of the them are from spambots

http://www.wickedfire.com/members/list/?order=asc&sort=lastvisit&pp=100

This only reflects members with a post count greater than 100, of which there are 4012. Of those, only:

~3300 have logged in to WF in the past year
~2700 have logged in the past 90 days

Again, I'm not complaining. I use WF, have a number of clients here and find the BST of some limited value for generating new business (lettuce be cereal, I'm no CCarter hype machine). But there has certainly been a shift of the user base.
 
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Final note: I have quite a few posts that I've wanted to write (reverse engineering media release campaigns, detailing traffic benefits from blogging and proper content generation and promotion, etc.) but I don't bother simply because I'm not interested in being banned.

A pretty bad belief to be floating around a forum.

On the other side, there's things I purposely avoid posting. Not for fear of outing some great technique, but, quite the opposite. I'm worried I'll just get trolled into the ground. Aside from the first reply, I was kind of surprised I didn't just get flamed when I posted http://www.wickedfire.com/shooting-shit/173521-need-some-forum-marketing-feedback.html

Now, I like to dick around on here and have fun as much as the next guy, but, when you have knowledgeable people, newbies, and everyone in-between that don't want to contribute for fear of reprisal, that puts a community in the shitter pretty fast.
 
Either get used to the crowd changing, or leave.

Crowds will change, but also STS isn't necesssarily an accurate barometer of the overall makeup of the crowd here. There's been interesting threads about meditation, gardening, and other things that might not have seemed possible here. So if someone is really into surfboarding or scrapbooking, maybe try starting a thread on it before leaving.


As for Alexa numbers, less active members probably have something to do with it, but there can be other factors. A lot of traffic to many forums is because of search visitors coming in and out, and therefore things like Alexa rankings can sometimes be more dependent on one or more search phrases, than they are on members. According to one tool, searches for "perfect ass" currently bring in the most visitors to wickedfire.
 
Shooting The Shit Anything goes, seriously. Come meet and network with your peers, it's a fun way to take a break out of your busy day of posting at other boring forums.
Funny how the place is going to shit to some. If you haven't learned that this is a good place to get the odd nugget and also build those relationships off the forum (Come meet and network with your peers), then you are just fucking retarded.

The Shooting the shit is exactly that... anything goes. The rest of the forum has lots to offer in the way of services, information, and good ideas. Do a search; some of the old threads (stickied or not) are pure fucking gold.
 
I wouldn't come to Wickedfire circa 2013 if I wanted to learn how to do affiliate campaigns using media buys and PPC ads.

Which is what the OP in that other forum thread made his money. However, circa 2009 I came to WF and learned EXACTLY those things and made a little less than a million dollars in my first year of online affiliate marketing.

Then when I wanted to learn SEO circa 2011 I came right back here. And here is where I would be today if I wanted to learn SEO day 1.

So while the tides have changed, there is still a lot of great info on this forum.

What WF is not is extremely cutting edge. There are some paid forums that are much more cutting edge and aggressive in their marketing techniques and discussions. But its easier to do this when everyone is paying $99 a month to be a member. People share and people listen.

WF is what it is. A tremendous resource and a place to look at Suddenly Ass' most recent post. No more, no less.
 
The ones who don't post much anymore are either locked up, or they are trying to keep a healthy separation between their role as a business owner and their presence on WF.

There are a number of people who have gotten burned when they post on here as a business owner, either out of conflict-of-interest, being unprofessional, or just having a relationship with a client go sour.

Every once in a while, people get banned for outing methods, but I've never seen it as a hard rule not to do so. Where people get banned with prejudice is when they post about things like PPI and cookie stuffing, things that fuck business up for both the advertiser and the affiliate.
 
The value in WF is the relationships you build and the people you meet/work with that come from those relationships. It's not in surfing STS all day while pretending to work. That has never changed in the 5 years I've been hanging out on the best damn gay webmaster forum ever.