There is almost no traffic on this site anymore.
One post on this entire site in 3 days?
This was such an active board a few years ago. Many fly swaps each year, new articles posted frequently and even member get togethers.
Now, one post ( thank you Scott, wonderful tie as always) in three days, with 130 views ( a handful of those were me).
I did my best to try to revive the fly swaps, along with others, now that is a dead board.
What happened here?
Is there a fix?
SCG
Good question; there’s lots of participation on other sites I frequent but this one definitely has seen a decline over the past few years.
Regards,
Scott
This question might get a better response if you put it on the Fly Anglers forum, rather than the fly tying forum.
Also, recently you asked for information on a product you were considering purchasing. Two BB members gave you good input on the product manufacturer. You didn’t acknowledge, let alone express appreciation for their contribution to your inquiry. That may be a part of the answer to your question.
John
John, thanks for the post placement advice.
I posted this question on fly tying because this forum gets most of the posts and views.
As for not acknowledging the product advice info I asked for, ( A specific fly rod model ), that is bad on me. Please accept my apologies.
But the question remains, what happened on this site that the traffic dropped so dramatically?
SCG
… this forum does get the most new threads but not necessarily the most views. Take a look at the number of views on the thread on Poly Leaders on the Fly Anglers forum and the thread on Braided Line on the Furling forum. Both of them got many more views in the past couple weeks than anything posted on the fly tying forum in the same time frame.
The fly tying forum gets a lot of stuff posted on it - some of which is quite amusing, to say the least. For example, not everything that is orange is an October Caddis. I fished a northern Idaho freestone last week while a quite prolific October Caddis hatch was going on, and not one of the dozens of O.C.s that I saw looked anything at all for size, shape, and color like the recent posts purporting to be O.C. flies.
Getting back to your question - as Robert Behnke observed in his book “Trout”, when trout stop growing, they die. That is basically what happened to the BB. No new members for ages, and no new young members for even longer than that, no improvements in the tech on this BB to compete with other social media sites, too many prayer requests and other non-fly angling stuff posted, and some interpersonal things ( some involving me ) that caused folks to quit the site.
For example, the Furling forum went full blast for a couple years, then a couple guys started baiting and insulting a really valuable member, to the point that he blew up and got ( temporarily ) banned, inappropriately so, in my judgement. Shortly after Frank got banned, several really knowledgeable and actively participating BB members stopped posting, period.
Another example - one of the most experienced, creative, and interesting fly tyers and anglers on the BB started a thread on the subject of global warming which got removed and got him banned in less than twelve hours. Terrible loss to the BB and to all of us who really are into new ideas, new flies, and new methods. And I seriously doubt that that fellow was the cause of whatever happened on that thread that resulted in his being banned, but more so a personality conflict he had with the administrator at the time, which conflict was on the administrator’s end in my opinion.
So there is at least something to chew on for those who come along, view this thread, and say nothing - don’t engage and participate. That is another major factor in the whithering of the BB - lots of folks who have only been or have become viewers rather than contributors and participants. My guess is that the trend line spells the end of the BB in the not too near future. That doesn’t mean the FAOL website and the existing content on the BB will disappear, just the BB as an active part of the site.
John
Interesting dialogue about this page. I post pics of flies from time to time, but not often as my posts often don?t spur questions as I hoped they would.
My intent, in posting, is to try to get others to exchange ideas and critiques of patterns and materials. Just often not discussed in that regard for some reason.
I hope others will respond as to what type of posts they would like to see and respond to!!!
Let’s use this thread to hear from those who don’t respond to posts. What do you wish to discuss???
one problem may be the fact that some virus/malware programs block it saying it is not safe. I use Malwarebytes and for two or three weeks I was getting that message and then it suddenly quit saying it.
I use an iPad almost exclusively, and have never seen this.
Mods? Can you explain this?
SCG
i went on hiatus since theres only 3-4 people posting flies and not many responses to the ones posted 
its now scottp and byrons forum 
since my dad passed away on monday my hiatus will be even longer
Never mind the board, I’ll be Praying for you at this time of great loss.
God Bless,
Mike
So sorry for your loss!
I’m going on hiatus too……
Sorry or your loss Norm.
Cliff
Sorry for your loss.
Between other interests and forums I went missing here for a long time. When I returned to see the decline in activities I was a shocked. Because of that I just visit maybe a few times a month.
I saw an uptick in a few old members returning, but that seems to be short lived. REE and AlbaSurf come to mind. With the lack of activities I think members have moved on to more active forums or perhaps FB.
Forums in general have been on the decline. Not all, but many. FB and other robust social media websites garner the lionshare of people online time these days.