I always come here when a new set comes out to see what people are brewing, but the deck-creation forums have been slow lately. I'm not sure where else to look for decklists. Reddit? Facebook? It seems weird that people have just stopped posting decklists.
It seems like there are a ton of new users, but nearly all old users have started posting only sometimes.
I have to agree that the Curse migration is what killed the forum for me. It took me 3 months to be able to log in without having a weird pop-up block the forum and it's nearly impossible to view on mobile.
Forum activity is in decline as a whole, with the rise of reddit and social media.
Also when I started getting interested in Magic, MTGS was the first thing I knew. It was the first result in google. Now you need to know about it to find it.
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MTGS is not dying, I want to put that out there first. We had our most active day in the site's history this past December.
We are somewhat slower than we used to be, but there are a lot of reasons for that, but the two big ones are that Curse is blocked by a lot of professional firewalls (so when the site moved to Curse we lost those work day posters) and there has been a rather huge shift to social media (Facebook/Twitter) in the last few years, to the point where Wizards closed their own forums.
We're most active during spoiler season (and just after leaks are posted), so in the lull between spoiler season and the next major event, we do tend to slow down.
True story. I had to get the server technician to unblock it so that I can check and post stuff. Either way the filter at my job is so anal that most images won't appear anyway depending on where it's hosted. I can't access tcgplayer or mtggatherer. But at least I have you, MTGSalvation...
As for decline in real life, people just get old. My buddies have started popping out kids or simply not having the time and money to invest anymore 'cause the economy is in the sewers. As for newer players not making that much of an appearance it's probably harder for them to get cards due to the economy as well. I remember when I was still in high school and even the beginning of college, I was a casual player first and competitive player second. But I was able to get dual lands for my more cutthroat decks for around $20 a pop. Gaea's Cradle and the like was still cheap as well. Newer players only have access to newer cards which, if they wanna play formats not Standard, have to pay a pretty penny because the price of admission for Modern is steep (thanks, netdeckers!) and Legacy or Vintage is even more ridiculous. Only playing Standard is maybe even more expensive because you probably invest a lot in cards that nosedive in value when they rotate. And the mana base in Standard is always expensive. The middleschoolers and highschoolers probably don't have jobs and live off of allowances for their hobbies. MTG can be a pretty expensive hobby.
Anyways, those are just my hypotheses on why the Magic situation is as it is. The economy in Puerto Rico is verily more messed up than the States but the States's economy is not doing that well, either. So that's probably my vantage point on the matter.
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Here's my personal take on it, and obviously I could be wrong if the numbers state otherwise. MTGS is a little of everything but master of none. It used to be that this place was a go to for rumors but now it shares that distinction with 4chan and Reddit. Both of those aforementioned platforms are more conducive to discussion and debate.
The trade section of MTGsal pretty much died when this site switched to Curse and the fact that none of the problems of the trading post platform got addressed combined with the rise of Pucatrade and Deckbox means it will pretty much lose a core set of members that are more likely to switch to puca/deckbox and i've even started seeing reddit trades and fb groups dedicated to trade crop up. And then there is always MOTL.
The mobile version of MTGsal is pretty atrocious, slow loading times combined with workplace site blocking means a lot of people will more than likely head over to reddit or facebook for their news/discussion/etc.
Misc subforums like entertainment and watercooler loses pretty hard to reddit. The LoL thread used to boast huge numbers of posting during season 3 but now its pretty much dead and any sort of news, results, teasers can be found on reddit with a huge community there. Same can be said for movies, tv shows, etc
Deck discussion might be one of the few places that MTGSal has a good hold on. I personally can go to the modern living end thread and discuss only living end with a tight knit group of players and get a lot out of the discussions that come up every so often. I'm aware that this plus for mtgs might be contested in the future as i've seen subreddits dedicated to specific decks appear more which basically function in a way similar to the subforums for specific decks. The platform for specific deck discussion is probably better on mtgs compared to reddit as reddit tends to show only recent news and news that people like whereas a forum like mtgs keeps everything saved in no particular order other than posting time.
Yes, absolutely. It feels like there's about 1/3 as many people on here as usual and discussions go days without updates or they just die.
I would be very curious to hear some unvarnished stats from a moderator person as to the actual statistics here. Like # of users, User retention rates, #'s of updates--which areas are vibrant and which are dying off. And a comparison to the pre-Curse #'s if that's possible.
I don't want to be Chicken Little for no reason, obviously, but it really does feel like this site is withering away to nothing lately.
I think it largely has to do with the decline in interest in the game overall. Prices got high and people became less interested in Modern, which pushed some to play Standard, which drove those prices up even more. Since the prices are so high, less people kept playing and less player turn out lead to less player turnout. And then finally that leads to less discussion. That's what happened with my group of friends at least, and I'm sure the new digital card game medium has something to do with it too (mainly Hearthstone, in fact I'm playing right now while I write this. Even Kibler is playing tons of it nowadays).
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Red/Blue Mage since 2007.
"I block with Lightning Bolt."
RUB Delver/ Midrange/ Control UR Storm/ Unstorm/ Pyromancer Ascension
Random Tron/ Eldrazi brews and whatever I can brew with my leftover cards
G/X Ramp RUB Tempo/ Midrange/ Control
(whatever cards I have from Modern that haven't rotated yet)
Always changing, currently: UR True Izzet UWR Narset UWRGB Planeswalkers (Progenitus) U Azami-KAZAM! RWB Feelsbadman Aggro (Khalia)
Yes, absolutely. It feels like there's about 1/3 as many people on here as usual and discussions go days without updates or they just die.
I would be very curious to hear some unvarnished stats from a moderator person as to the actual statistics here. Like # of users, User retention rates, #'s of updates--which areas are vibrant and which are dying off. And a comparison to the pre-Curse #'s if that's possible.
I don't want to be Chicken Little for no reason, obviously, but it really does feel like this site is withering away to nothing lately.
We aren't at liberty to give out hard numbers, but what our data shows is that post counts have sightly dropped but active users have increased. So, the site is growing, but people are talking less. This could perhaps account to why it feels like the site has less activity.
Here's my personal take on it, and obviously I could be wrong if the numbers state otherwise. MTGS is a little of everything but master of none.
This is pretty much exactly right. MTGS used to be the main hub for news and rumors, but this might very well be Reddit these days.
MTGS also used to have a sprawling "outside Magic"-community many years ago; this has all but disappeared. On the other hand, some areas of the forum (like Commander and Modern) are possibly healthier than ever, from what I've heard - I don't visit those areas myself.
We aren't at liberty to give out hard numbers, but what our data shows is that post counts have sightly dropped but active users have increased. So, the site is growing, but people are talking less. This could perhaps account to why it feels like the site has less activity.
The less talk could also come down to the outside of magic areas having less activity (especially WCT, Debate, and Clans) as well as the fact that we lost most of the gutter group over the last few years since we closed that down.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I also notice a decline in activity in the subfora that I visit.
The overall shift to mobile might play here? I am not really inclined to post anything on a mobile device. A properly formatted mtg-related post is a poor match for a smartphone...
I also have the feeling that prices are rather high these days, this might limit the influx of newer players. $1.50 lightning bolts and so...
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These are the decks that I have constructed, and are ready to play:
01. Ankh Sligh to be exact.
This thread sorely needs some actual data. Personal anecdotes are of little value in determining the actual trends, because each of us is a biased observer of a small sample size. I looked around a bit on google and the most recent I could find is that Magic as a whole was doing very well in 2013, was up 2% in 2014, and I can't find much since then. Their 2015 numbers probably aren't out yet.
As far as this site is concerned, a peak in traffic in December may explain your relative experience of short term decline. I don't think it's indicative of any long term trend, per say.
Here's the blunt facts:
Total number of visitors is up.
Total number of active users is up.
The rate of new users registering is up (with adbots accounted for).
The rate of posting has stayed about the same from last year (less then 2% growth).
Again, the amount of site traffic is higher then it has been in any year previous. The rate of new members has grown. Now, if we look at just the 2012-2013 area, that was spamville central, evidently. We saw more user/post growth in that year than any other. However, that seems more like a fluke, as the upward trend is actually very streamlined outside of this one upward bump.
The only thing of any concern at all, is that the total new posts we received in 2015 was only ~ 2% higher than 2014. Our userbase and traffic grew by more then 2%, so even though we're getting more posts per day/year overall, the average person is posting just a little less. This could easily be just that we are getting a higher percentage of people who come on only for rumor season or something, and that's driving the numbers more towards lurk. If this trend continues, it's definitely something we should look at.
But no, we are far from dying. We have more traffic and users now then ever before.
They just might not be posting as much in the area you've been frequenting over the years.
One of the areas in decline, for instance, is games played on our forums.
Mafia, Forum Magic, Colosseum, etc. These areas just don't have the interest they used to.
Don't think it's dying at all. With social media there are going to be less people. I think social media outlets like Twitter are a horrible way to communicate but some people like them over forums.
As much as the data for users and visitors may say that the site is healthy, I can honestly tell you that it's anything but. I've been around here for a good while now and the site just isn't what it used to be when it comes to QUALITY interactive posting. The GP threads hardly even reach 2 pages anymore of people discussing, the threads for decks that aren't tier 1 go without feedback or interest, no really new contributions, the list goes on and on. If you used to post a deck in something like Standard Deck Creation and it got no replies then it would be on the second page within a day. As of now the oldest thread on the 1st page of Standard Deck Creation is May 7th, over a week ago. People aren't coming here to contribute to the community.
People may be lurking and reading, but people come to a forum based on content. What happens when the people who used to actually create that content to lurk on suddenly aren't involved anymore because it's a waste of time to contribute with no feedback and discussion? I have been playing a brew online that is different than any other Standard decks on here, and I've established a very good winning record with it but I don't post it. Why? Because it's a lot of work to post an in depth explanation of decks only to have people ignore them. Nobody is interested in these forums for anything other than what they can steal from the established tier 1 decks. That used to not be the case, and it's the reason this place is dying IMO.
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Modern xWBreakfast at Urza'sxW UWGBantUWG GWRNaya ZooRWG
But no, we are far from dying. We have more traffic and users now then ever before.
They just might not be posting as much in the area you've been frequenting over the years.
One of the areas in decline, for instance, is games played on our forums.
Mafia, Forum Magic, Colosseum, etc. These areas just don't have the interest they used to.
Honestly I think part of the issue is how deeply buried those are on the forum index. The other night I had to search for 5 minutes to find where the Custom Card Creation forum had moved even though it was on the index, still. The index suffers from being way too cluttered, even though there's only so much we can do about it. The parts of the forums actually related to Magic should definitely be at the top since that's what people come here for, but the general community parts of the website are suffering for it being so far down the index, I think. A lot of bloat.
As an aside, it seems extremely silly to keep the Introduce Yourself board around and have it buried halfway down a very large Index instead of being somewhere near the top where the first places are people see. It'd be a lot more welcoming if more people actually knew it existed.
As an aside, it seems extremely silly to keep the Introduce Yourself board around and have it buried halfway down a very large Index instead of being somewhere near the top where the first places are people see. It'd be a lot more welcoming if more people actually knew it existed.
I think this is actually a really good point. The point of a "Welcome" mat is to be visible after all.
Mobile users:
Scroll to the sidebar of the site. Turn desktop mode on. An actual usable mobile page would be nice, but the desktop mode works as well as you think it might in the mean time.
If you miss the text reflow (send Google an angry email since they removed the feature,) you can download firefox and a plug-in for similar effect.
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Lycanthropy Awareness Day.
Hoping for a cure, or at least an outbreak.
I've moved to Reddit mostly, just because of the threaded conversations.
/r/magicTCG for casual-related stuff and spoilers; /r/spikes for medium quality competitive-minded content; and /r/mtgfinance for the most insightful analysis of what is happening in Magic that actually matters.
As much as the data for users and visitors may say that the site is healthy, I can honestly tell you that it's anything but. I've been around here for a good while now and the site just isn't what it used to be when it comes to QUALITY interactive posting. The GP threads hardly even reach 2 pages anymore of people discussing, the threads for decks that aren't tier 1 go without feedback or interest, no really new contributions, the list goes on and on. If you used to post a deck in something like Standard Deck Creation and it got no replies then it would be on the second page within a day. As of now the oldest thread on the 1st page of Standard Deck Creation is May 7th, over a week ago. People aren't coming here to contribute to the community.
People may be lurking and reading, but people come to a forum based on content. What happens when the people who used to actually create that content to lurk on suddenly aren't involved anymore because it's a waste of time to contribute with no feedback and discussion? I have been playing a brew online that is different than any other Standard decks on here, and I've established a very good winning record with it but I don't post it. Why? Because it's a lot of work to post an in depth explanation of decks only to have people ignore them. Nobody is interested in these forums for anything other than what they can steal from the established tier 1 decks. That used to not be the case, and it's the reason this place is dying IMO.
This honestly is what i'm feeling too. People are stopping by for sure but the discussions and postings just doesn't seem to be what it was a couple years ago (prior to the move to Curse)
Jump to the modern page, where SCG Open threads will go long after the event is finished, with people debating on why x deck or card did well. Our last GP thread there went 11 pages with ease. The standard forums may very well be different, I don't know, but the modern forum is alive and well.
MTGS is not dying, I want to put that out there first. We had our most active day in the site's history this past December.
We are somewhat slower than we used to be, but there are a lot of reasons for that, but the two big ones are that Curse is blocked by a lot of professional firewalls (so when the site moved to Curse we lost those work day posters) and there has been a rather huge shift to social media (Facebook/Twitter) in the last few years, to the point where Wizards closed their own forums.
We're most active during spoiler season (and just after leaks are posted), so in the lull between spoiler season and the next major event, we do tend to slow down.
social media is gradually over taking traditional forums such as this.
like at BC Comics and Pandamonium in Michigan I've noticed that players focus more on there own facebook groups than they do forums.
Its not just facebook groups its, youtube channels as well. maybe even twitch?
the list goes on
social media is gradually over taking traditional forums such as this.
like at BC Comics and Pandamonium in Michigan I've noticed that players focus more on there own facebook groups than they do forums.
Its not just facebook groups its, youtube channels as well. maybe even twitch?
the list goes on
Yes and no. There will always be a place for bigger sites like this, and things that appear here often get filtered out. Those facebook groups you're talking about always have a couple guys who are regulars or lurkers here. Amusingly, one of the Gathering Magic editors claimed that the community had moved on from forums like this... and then tweeted OblivionOne's false rumor without sourcing it to us here. So it's as much that a lot of people want to pretend that they've moved on from the forums, but the reality is that site traffic is higher than it's ever been.
Yes and no. There will always be a place for bigger sites like this, and things that appear here often get filtered out. Those facebook groups you're talking about always have a couple guys who are regulars or lurkers here. Amusingly, one of the Gathering Magic editors claimed that the community had moved on from forums like this... and then tweeted OblivionOne's false rumor without sourcing it to us here. So it's as much that a lot of people want to pretend that they've moved on from the forums, but the reality is that site traffic is higher than it's ever been.
"bigger sites like this"
Last time I checked Facebook (1,654m MAU), Youtube (1,300m MAU) and Twitter (310m MAU) as of Q1 2016. MTGS has 310,543 members?
"Amusingly, one of the Gathering Magic editors claimed that the community had moved on from forums like this... and then tweeted OblivionOne's false rumor without sourcing it to us here."
It only proved others are navigating MTGS to harvest talking points while not contributing to the information base of MTGS and gaining views at their websites. As you mentioned post counts are decreasing, thus sooner or later, MTGS may not even have the talking points to provide.
"but the reality is that site traffic is higher than it's ever been, it's just post counts are lower."
I dont understand this. What is a forum for, viewing or communications? Are you ok with 100% traffic and 0 post? If not, what is your threshold? The date when MTGS has the most users online was Dec 11, 2015 (4 months ago). How did you derive the conclusion that site traffic is higher? When I wrote this post, there were 174 members and 1,428 guests on a Saturday. Assuming your point of higher site traffic (174 members) is valid, it means 174 members is contributing less posts while in the past, (< 174) members were contributing more posts. MTGS HAS LESS AND LESS CONTENT CREATORS!
What the other posters were highlighting was the low post counts which you acknowledged. Your counter-argument of higher site traffic just is not convincing.
PS: I value MTGS thus I do post here still. But the moderators' responses in this thread were going nowhere.
I stay mostly at the Modern section, and that area of the forum is quite active.
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I have to agree that the Curse migration is what killed the forum for me. It took me 3 months to be able to log in without having a weird pop-up block the forum and it's nearly impossible to view on mobile.
Forum activity is in decline as a whole, with the rise of reddit and social media.
Also when I started getting interested in Magic, MTGS was the first thing I knew. It was the first result in google. Now you need to know about it to find it.
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True story. I had to get the server technician to unblock it so that I can check and post stuff. Either way the filter at my job is so anal that most images won't appear anyway depending on where it's hosted. I can't access tcgplayer or mtggatherer. But at least I have you, MTGSalvation...
As for decline in real life, people just get old. My buddies have started popping out kids or simply not having the time and money to invest anymore 'cause the economy is in the sewers. As for newer players not making that much of an appearance it's probably harder for them to get cards due to the economy as well. I remember when I was still in high school and even the beginning of college, I was a casual player first and competitive player second. But I was able to get dual lands for my more cutthroat decks for around $20 a pop. Gaea's Cradle and the like was still cheap as well. Newer players only have access to newer cards which, if they wanna play formats not Standard, have to pay a pretty penny because the price of admission for Modern is steep (thanks, netdeckers!) and Legacy or Vintage is even more ridiculous. Only playing Standard is maybe even more expensive because you probably invest a lot in cards that nosedive in value when they rotate. And the mana base in Standard is always expensive. The middleschoolers and highschoolers probably don't have jobs and live off of allowances for their hobbies. MTG can be a pretty expensive hobby.
Anyways, those are just my hypotheses on why the Magic situation is as it is. The economy in Puerto Rico is verily more messed up than the States but the States's economy is not doing that well, either. So that's probably my vantage point on the matter.
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The trade section of MTGsal pretty much died when this site switched to Curse and the fact that none of the problems of the trading post platform got addressed combined with the rise of Pucatrade and Deckbox means it will pretty much lose a core set of members that are more likely to switch to puca/deckbox and i've even started seeing reddit trades and fb groups dedicated to trade crop up. And then there is always MOTL.
The mobile version of MTGsal is pretty atrocious, slow loading times combined with workplace site blocking means a lot of people will more than likely head over to reddit or facebook for their news/discussion/etc.
Misc subforums like entertainment and watercooler loses pretty hard to reddit. The LoL thread used to boast huge numbers of posting during season 3 but now its pretty much dead and any sort of news, results, teasers can be found on reddit with a huge community there. Same can be said for movies, tv shows, etc
Deck discussion might be one of the few places that MTGSal has a good hold on. I personally can go to the modern living end thread and discuss only living end with a tight knit group of players and get a lot out of the discussions that come up every so often. I'm aware that this plus for mtgs might be contested in the future as i've seen subreddits dedicated to specific decks appear more which basically function in a way similar to the subforums for specific decks. The platform for specific deck discussion is probably better on mtgs compared to reddit as reddit tends to show only recent news and news that people like whereas a forum like mtgs keeps everything saved in no particular order other than posting time.
I would be very curious to hear some unvarnished stats from a moderator person as to the actual statistics here. Like # of users, User retention rates, #'s of updates--which areas are vibrant and which are dying off. And a comparison to the pre-Curse #'s if that's possible.
I don't want to be Chicken Little for no reason, obviously, but it really does feel like this site is withering away to nothing lately.
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Red/Blue Mage since 2007.
"I block with Lightning Bolt."
UR Storm/ Unstorm/ Pyromancer Ascension
Random Tron/ Eldrazi brews and whatever I can brew with my leftover cards
RUB Tempo/ Midrange/ Control
(whatever cards I have from Modern that haven't rotated yet)
UR True Izzet
UWR Narset
UWRGB Planeswalkers (Progenitus)
U Azami-KAZAM!
RWB Feelsbadman Aggro (Khalia)
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We aren't at liberty to give out hard numbers, but what our data shows is that post counts have sightly dropped but active users have increased. So, the site is growing, but people are talking less. This could perhaps account to why it feels like the site has less activity.
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MTGS also used to have a sprawling "outside Magic"-community many years ago; this has all but disappeared. On the other hand, some areas of the forum (like Commander and Modern) are possibly healthier than ever, from what I've heard - I don't visit those areas myself.
The less talk could also come down to the outside of magic areas having less activity (especially WCT, Debate, and Clans) as well as the fact that we lost most of the gutter group over the last few years since we closed that down.
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The overall shift to mobile might play here? I am not really inclined to post anything on a mobile device. A properly formatted mtg-related post is a poor match for a smartphone...
I also have the feeling that prices are rather high these days, this might limit the influx of newer players. $1.50 lightning bolts and so...
These are the decks that I have constructed, and are ready to play:
01. Ankh Sligh to be exact.
As far as this site is concerned, a peak in traffic in December may explain your relative experience of short term decline. I don't think it's indicative of any long term trend, per say.
Again, the amount of site traffic is higher then it has been in any year previous. The rate of new members has grown. Now, if we look at just the 2012-2013 area, that was spamville central, evidently. We saw more user/post growth in that year than any other. However, that seems more like a fluke, as the upward trend is actually very streamlined outside of this one upward bump.
The only thing of any concern at all, is that the total new posts we received in 2015 was only ~ 2% higher than 2014. Our userbase and traffic grew by more then 2%, so even though we're getting more posts per day/year overall, the average person is posting just a little less. This could easily be just that we are getting a higher percentage of people who come on only for rumor season or something, and that's driving the numbers more towards lurk. If this trend continues, it's definitely something we should look at.
But no, we are far from dying. We have more traffic and users now then ever before.
They just might not be posting as much in the area you've been frequenting over the years.
One of the areas in decline, for instance, is games played on our forums.
Mafia, Forum Magic, Colosseum, etc. These areas just don't have the interest they used to.
No longer staff here.
People may be lurking and reading, but people come to a forum based on content. What happens when the people who used to actually create that content to lurk on suddenly aren't involved anymore because it's a waste of time to contribute with no feedback and discussion? I have been playing a brew online that is different than any other Standard decks on here, and I've established a very good winning record with it but I don't post it. Why? Because it's a lot of work to post an in depth explanation of decks only to have people ignore them. Nobody is interested in these forums for anything other than what they can steal from the established tier 1 decks. That used to not be the case, and it's the reason this place is dying IMO.
Modern
xWBreakfast at Urza'sxW
UWGBantUWG
GWRNaya ZooRWG
Honestly I think part of the issue is how deeply buried those are on the forum index. The other night I had to search for 5 minutes to find where the Custom Card Creation forum had moved even though it was on the index, still. The index suffers from being way too cluttered, even though there's only so much we can do about it. The parts of the forums actually related to Magic should definitely be at the top since that's what people come here for, but the general community parts of the website are suffering for it being so far down the index, I think. A lot of bloat.
As an aside, it seems extremely silly to keep the Introduce Yourself board around and have it buried halfway down a very large Index instead of being somewhere near the top where the first places are people see. It'd be a lot more welcoming if more people actually knew it existed.
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I think this is actually a really good point. The point of a "Welcome" mat is to be visible after all.
Scroll to the sidebar of the site. Turn desktop mode on. An actual usable mobile page would be nice, but the desktop mode works as well as you think it might in the mean time.
If you miss the text reflow (send Google an angry email since they removed the feature,) you can download firefox and a plug-in for similar effect.
Hoping for a cure, or at least an outbreak.
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This honestly is what i'm feeling too. People are stopping by for sure but the discussions and postings just doesn't seem to be what it was a couple years ago (prior to the move to Curse)
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social media is gradually over taking traditional forums such as this.
like at BC Comics and Pandamonium in Michigan I've noticed that players focus more on there own facebook groups than they do forums.
Its not just facebook groups its, youtube channels as well. maybe even twitch?
the list goes on
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"bigger sites like this"
Last time I checked Facebook (1,654m MAU), Youtube (1,300m MAU) and Twitter (310m MAU) as of Q1 2016. MTGS has 310,543 members?
"Amusingly, one of the Gathering Magic editors claimed that the community had moved on from forums like this... and then tweeted OblivionOne's false rumor without sourcing it to us here."
It only proved others are navigating MTGS to harvest talking points while not contributing to the information base of MTGS and gaining views at their websites. As you mentioned post counts are decreasing, thus sooner or later, MTGS may not even have the talking points to provide.
"but the reality is that site traffic is higher than it's ever been, it's just post counts are lower."
I dont understand this. What is a forum for, viewing or communications? Are you ok with 100% traffic and 0 post? If not, what is your threshold? The date when MTGS has the most users online was Dec 11, 2015 (4 months ago). How did you derive the conclusion that site traffic is higher? When I wrote this post, there were 174 members and 1,428 guests on a Saturday. Assuming your point of higher site traffic (174 members) is valid, it means 174 members is contributing less posts while in the past, (< 174) members were contributing more posts. MTGS HAS LESS AND LESS CONTENT CREATORS!
What the other posters were highlighting was the low post counts which you acknowledged. Your counter-argument of higher site traffic just is not convincing.
PS: I value MTGS thus I do post here still. But the moderators' responses in this thread were going nowhere.