are gun forums losing their alure?

Another point occurred to me. The significant drop off of web forum popularity also corresponds with the death of the PC as a primary means of consuming the Internet.

I know that we're it not for the tapatalk app which makes this site much more mobile friendly I wouldn't visit nearly as much as I still do.

People today don't have time to sit at a desk in front of a screen to consume their gun chatting kicks.

This post for example was made from the top of a snap on tool box while I build a 250hp DC motor.

Yeah, it's not just gun forums. Wizards of the Coast (a global, billion-dollar game oriented company) has shut down their forums with the explicit reasoning that third party social media has supplanted it.

The internet simply evolves.

In WA, with the passage of I-594 which requires all transfers involve a gun dealer, I've noticed a sharp drop in activity as far as for sale/for trade forums go. But, it's picking back up once folks realize it is what it is.

As far as THR goes, it's as durn exciting now as it's always been

A lot of the classic questions have been answered. We used to see:

1. When can I shoot someone? I want to shoot a BG!
2. 9mm vs 45 ACP
3. Glock vs 1911
4. What gun for the GF, wife or both?
5. The UN is coming, get ready
6. Shotgun, best SD gun - 'nuff said!!

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You forgot "what gun for bear defense"

I think fewer people are coming here for random chitchat. People have specific questions they want answered and then go away.

I rarely answer questions or debate on here, but this website and others like it are great for researching loads, firearms, hunting questions, etc.

this is the best forum I have seen so far.
the only thing that annoys me in general is when people put in their signature lines quotes from Founders or other "great statesmen", or even worse use those quotes as a reply to someone.
sorry guys, but getting reminded 50 times a day what Winston Churchill said once is boring

Still reading here, even if behind -- due to a nice Oct Sat afternoon with pizza, beer, more beer, walking ...
remembering that I'll be back on the east coast in less than 2 weeks )kant wate( <-- social med holdover ..

So haven't read past this from Frank Ettin <hope i got the spellin' write>

In addition, over the last 5 to 10 years economic circumstances have forced many people to spend more time on things like keeping their jobs or finding new ones, trying to hold on to their house or finding new places to live, and looking for new ways to plan for retirement.

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Ditto that.

don't forget, there's a large group here, that i'm not naming, that make it unpleasant for people like me to come here.
as far as i know, i'm the only feminist here, even tho feminists are arming n need info..
you wanna exclude people, you're not gonna grow.

fiddleharp:
If that's the average age, it's a surprise to me, with so many young military veterans etc.

My interest in guns only really began at age 52, back in '07. Bought my first handgun-a WW2 Sauer 38H- less than three years ago. Last spring bought a group (all of them) near-mint CZ-82, EG, Bulgy, comm. Russian Maks and two Polish P-83s from April-July.

It takes lots of reading trying to catch up to what many 22 year-old people are familiar with, regarding just a few handguns and a limited variety milsurps rifles.
No social media for me; my 'smartphone' has no internet, and I have no idea or care how to make it work. Much prefer talking to people on the phone (That is human contact).

IO said:

My interest in guns only really began at age 52, back in '07.

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Which means you're 60 now IICC (If I calculate correctly). .. . ..

I wonder if the drop off in interest here could be related to that big bunch of folks that had some duty time in the sandbox.

Maybe they were a might focused on what was going on over there for the past 10+ years, have returned, and are taking some time to work their way thru all the changes that are occuring. After they get things somewhat situated on the home front, and have some sense of the social and tech changes that occurred, maybe soon they will have the time and energy such they can start taking part in forums like this for relexation etc. instead of running a mile minute trying to get their life back to where they want it to be.

Just saying that's a big pool of folks that would likely have interest in exactly the high level of discussion found here if they can find the time....

Zapj

I think a lot of folks have gotten tired of

1) the same old arguments (auto vs revolver, 9mm vs .45, Glock vs 1911, and on and on). Same arguments, same posts by the same people, same BS.

2) people who ask for help and advice, then either argue with the replies (if you know it all, why did you ask?) or won't even thank folks who put time and sometimes some effort into a response.

Jim

I think that forums will retain a small core membership for the long term. As others have said, it's really the best way to go if you want to dive into something and get technical. There's no real-life name to worry about, no likes or upvotes that slant discussions into a contest of who can get the most approval, no character limit, no looped videos of cats. The simplicity of a board is its real advantage. So I think a lot of the casual people will keep moving on to quicker and more entertaining formats, while forums will become the place for the gun geeks who hold the really in-depth discussions, and the keyboard warriors who can't fight out a good "Glocks suck" thread with only 200 characters a post.

Another point occurred to me. The significant drop off of web forum popularity also corresponds with the death of the PC as a primary means of consuming the Internet.

I know that we're it not for the tapatalk app which makes this site much more mobile friendly I wouldn't visit nearly as much as I still do.

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Yep. It's tough just to read most forums on a mobile device, and you can pretty much forget about writing a long post on one.

IMO, when the gun discussion forums were newer to the masses, I felt there were decades of myths and hearsay being repeated and asked about that fed the discussion. Most of that is not so new anymore.

Other than that, the posters that are still on thread forums have spread out or settled in smaller forums. I agree with a previous comment. Most of us only have time to visit so many forums so we pick and choose which to spend our time on. There are probably dozens of gun forums often with a narrow subject focus.

I certainly hope good forums don’t die off, especially THR with the abundance of knowledgeable members. Although I’m a member of a number of forums, the only three I regularly read, in addition to THR, is the Smith & Wesson Forum because S&W revolvers are my primary interest and CalGuns when I need a pick-me-up to realize how lucky I am to have moved to a free state. The members of every other forum I belong to seem to relish the god of black plastic and questionable language.

My only frustration with THR is that so often a thread will get locked as “Asked and answered” when it seems that additional posts would or could clarify or expand on the topic or if the comments start to wander, but may still be germane to the general subject.

I am 33 and I really enjoy visiting this forum. I found THR when I was beginning to get serious about buying reloading equipment. I found the membership very helpful, even if it was something that was asked frequently. Almost every shooter or reloader I meet does not know about this forum; which is very surprising to me. The members here basically taught me to reload with the help of a few books.

People my age typically have young children and other obligations related to a family and simply don't have the time to engage in forum discussions. They barely have the time or money to do the activities to generate a question or opinion. Add in the fact that professional sports and the apparent ability to gamble on the games seems to be a major distraction. I am lucky to make it to the range with a good friend of mine twice a year at this point.

I'm just griping now, but the appreciation for marksmanship seems to be dying, especially in the sense of iron sight shooting. I understand that optics are great and have come a LONG way in just the last ten years, but my opinion is that iron sight marksmanship is the sign of skill and a link to tradition. I'm not even a truly great shot, but it is funny to me that random people at the range are simply amazed that I can keep a 20 rd magazine from an M1A in a 11" black at 200yds prone. There seems to be a reluctance to even try it. I'll save the optics for when I'm older and my eyes can't keep it up.

All that said, I hope and believe that THR is here to stay. Too much good information without all the noise that distorts the conversation like on other forums. There are many, many 2A believers and gun enthusiasts in my generation but it will take some years for the time and money to come available for focusing on this and other hobbies.

Gun forums are still an excellent source of practical information. Between this site, ShotgunWorld, and RimfireCentral, I have been able to do repairs, adjustments, installation of aftermarket parts, etc. on many different firearms. Without these sources of information, it would not have been possible.

Good news for me, bad news for gunsmiths, I guess.

george burns said:

Compared to 5 or 10 years ago, it seems like gun forums in general have kind of petered out. The hundreds of posts an guns for sale, have trickled down to a fraction of what they were. Is it a sign of the times?

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People got wise and quit selling their guns. I have guns I don't shoot. I'm not going to sell them because even the single shot youth sized Cricket .22 may eventually have its use.

THR is the only forum I visit. Occasionally, I'll pop over to Weapons Guild to check out the scrap yard, but I don't post much. I'll read individual threads on the Toyota and Cadillac forums when my vehicles are having issues.

Gun selling posts have largely moved to Armslist and Facebook and auction sites like Gun broker.

Information and reviews have moved to Youtube (the only other place I go for gun info on a regular basis).

Forums like THR are unique in that it appeals to a more intellectual crowd. Not nearly as much bickering, bantering and insulting each other over who knows what perceived slight as there is in other forums.

R.W.Dale said:

This post for example was made from the top of a snap on tool box.

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Hahaha, that's where the majority of mine come from too! A KRSC43PC to be exact.

taliv said:

Fwiw Netscape preceded IE and the Internet was around a long time before that. The browser world you know isn't technic "the Internet" it is "the World Wide Web". I.e www.whatever...

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I recall reading an article by John Dvorak in PC Magazine in ~1992(? probably about the time that 1440bps modems [we loved that Trellis Encoding] could be found for only $100) about a new, exciting thing that was coming; the World Wide Web. At the time I was actually "on" the Internet with a sponsored FidoNet email addy that was, like, 30CHAR long ... and seeing that it was DOS, not a Windows environment, it was arcane, slow and "interesting".

I could only imagine that it would be something a little better than the BBSes that I had been frequenting for several years. Anyone here remember SLMR?

I think back to ~15 years ago when I wandered into my first "gun" forum and there were a lot of folks with a lot of questions and relatively few with The Knowledge which, in most cases, they were delighted to freely share.

Now there are a lot of better-educated folks and many more easily-accessible sources information ... as well as a lot of mis-information.

Now we just have to be more discerning in sorting the good from the bad.

I think that there are now a lot of folks that know they can access a forums site such as this and run a search for the information they need, so the percentage of Visitors to Member goes up. In the earlier days, you had to ask ... and sometimes you first had to ask to find out what questions to ask.

Now we just have to be more discerning in sorting the good from the bad.

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And that is what I love about a discussion forum, such as this.
The bad/incorrect information gets rooted out pretty quickly, by the many voices present who know better.
Before i joined here, I spent quite a bit of time rummaging through the archives; in those old threads the cream rose to the top and was easy to spot.
It helped me out a bunch and saved me from asking a bunch of dumb questions (particularly in reloading and gunsmithing).
Now that i think about it, that could contribute to the decrease in participation....there is a vast store of info already available to those who are willing to spend some time reading.

Since there are plenty of other places you can go to voice your unvarnished opinion, the market will sort it out.

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meaning exactly what ? elucidate please.

AR-15Nutt said:

just my OPINION.., BUT, i visit several "gun forums" and what i observe is the admins/mods are too restrictive of what is posted if it does not adhere to the COC's.., which i believe need modified, i am told we posters should not makes posts/remarks that make us "gun nuts" look bad to the general public, i.e., "gun haters", they already hate us, i do not believe we can offend them as our very existence offends them, most posters i have had private conversations with say they are turned off by too much censorship, therefore the petering out..., as previously stated.., just my OPINION :banghead:

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One of the reasons that THR is the firearms forum I visit daily is that the moderators keep this place civil and restrict off-topic or offensive posts. I appreciate that. Remember this a private forum so the administrators can make the rules. So as another poster noted, if you want places to express your OPINION, you can find them. I won't be there.

I don't do Facebook or other social medium. I hope THR and other gun sites remain active and relevant.

I have defaulted / deferred to THR for my daily dose of 'gun' for some years now. I started out here when between careers and home with the kids. This was the only social media I was involved with back then. I now work with some serious gun nuts of different stripes and encourage them to post/lurk here to keep the averages up for the THR community. I don't have the time to waste on many other forums as Facebook has hoodwinked me along with many into spending computer time on non-gun issues. I also scan the media a bit for RKBA news, especially from the 'Antis' to share with the like minded here on THR. Although THR has had its travails, nine years later it is still (to abuse Hemingway) "A Clean Well-Lighted Place" from my perspective.