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Is this ANN forum dying?


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Aca Vuksa



Joined: 22 Mar 2018
Posts: 643
Location: Nis, Serbia
PostPosted: Sun Nov 24, 2019 9:41 am Reply with quote
Hello there, i happened to notice how this forum site for ANN is becoming less relevant compared to the MAL, which still has more members in it. Not all users don't post their threads on this site in every section, what bothers is that is this ANN forum really dying, just to know?
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yuna49



Joined: 27 Aug 2008
Posts: 3804
PostPosted: Mon Nov 25, 2019 12:31 pm Reply with quote
It's not just happening here. AnimeSuki once had dozens, if not hundreds, of active members, but it's much smaller today, too.

ANN's distinctive feature was its emphasis on disc releases and dubs. AnimeSuki began as a site with an emphasis on torrents and fansubbing (neither of which it supports today). In a world where nearly every show is now streamed somewhere, either legally or illegally, the appeal of sites like ANN and AS has diminished considerably.

MAL has a large, and apparently growing, membership. I spend most of my time there in the Recommendations thread. While there are members there who look like the people here and at AS, many more of them are younger fans who largely focus on the mainstream shows and who have little tolerance for what they consider "old" production values. Many of them view shows made before 2010 as "too old" to consider.
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Aca Vuksa



Joined: 22 Mar 2018
Posts: 643
Location: Nis, Serbia
PostPosted: Mon Nov 25, 2019 3:40 pm Reply with quote
@yuna49

Thank you, i did experience about AnimeSuki forum also being decreased, AnimeSuki shut down its torrent site, but the forum is still active to this day.

At least MAL is still active and more members being active there, i have my own account there too, but i am not going there until the next month, because i have other busy stuff.

Also, i am considering leaving both ANN and MAL for the other stuff that interests me on March 2020. I feel leave anime fandom is faltering itself due to lack of promotion and advertising when attempt to appeal to the world.

I have my tweet account where can i check to see the current news and read it, but i am not gonna be active at this forum at all.

I also tend to watch anime older and newer on occasions, as i was born in 1997 and i grew up with the 1990s and 2000s anime as well.
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otastorian



Joined: 02 Aug 2018
Posts: 64
Location: otakuhistoryguy.blogspot.com
PostPosted: Wed Nov 27, 2019 5:05 pm Reply with quote
yuna49 wrote:
It's not just happening here. AnimeSuki once had dozens, if not hundreds, of active members, but it's much smaller today, too.


Funny enough, I actually left AnimeSuki for here because of how inactive it had become. I hadn't checked on it in a while, but I can only assume it's continued to decline.

As for the ANN forums, while yes, there's not thousands of members posting daily, I think it's doing pretty OK for an anime forum. Most people get their anime discussion fix through social media these days, or through forum-like communities like Reddit or /a/. The fact that the ANN forum gets as much traffic as it does is pretty good methinks, even if a lot of that traffic is just because ANN uses the forums as the comment section for their posts (which I think is pretty genius, but that might just be me, I'm sure lots of users might prefer or more "normal" commenting system).
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zrdb





PostPosted: Wed Nov 27, 2019 6:50 pm Reply with quote
If you think it's bad here go try looking at Fandom Post's forums-in a word DEAD. Very few posts other WTK's stuff-sad.
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Aca Vuksa



Joined: 22 Mar 2018
Posts: 643
Location: Nis, Serbia
PostPosted: Thu Nov 28, 2019 4:14 am Reply with quote
Also, this forum system is really outdated and it really needs improvement and replaced with some new forum system. The ANN staff should replace the old one with Xenforo, because the old use of the forum system is getting really outdated. This forum system has been using phpBB a lot more and it hasn't seen a change since they kept using it.
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Tempest
I Run this place.
ANN Publisher


Joined: 29 Dec 2001
Posts: 10419
Location: Do not message me for support.
PostPosted: Mon Dec 02, 2019 3:46 pm Reply with quote
The number of posts has definitely fallen. It fell abruptly about 2 years ago and goes up and down now from month to month.

There's very little correlation with traffic, good months for traffic might not mean a lot of posts, and vice-versa. Fortunately our traffic isn't following the same over-all trend.

Some of it I think is social landscape that ANN can't compete with. For example people are moving their discussions away from message boards in general. There may also be things that have changed online that ANN has failed to adapt to...

I'd be surprised if the forum software really has that much of an impact on posts. That said, I do definitely want to replace it, although I've been saying that for years.

It's been suggested that we move the feedback forum posts to the under-article style, but my concern there is that it will increase crap posts and not actual discussion.

I'm very, very open to suggestions about how we can improve the forums and the community.

-t
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NeedMoreCats
Subscriber



Joined: 06 Oct 2018
Posts: 299
Location: Westchester, NY
PostPosted: Tue Dec 03, 2019 10:03 pm Reply with quote
otastorian wrote:
The fact that the ANN forum gets as much traffic as it does is pretty good methinks, even if a lot of that traffic is just because ANN uses the forums as the comment section for their posts.

I feel that one of the things that reduces commenting is the delay in posting reviews, compounded by the haphazard scheduling of said reviews. One week, it posts the day after the episode airs; the next week, it posts 6 days after. There’s been a slow creep over the past year but it seems to have reached critical mass this season.

With the daily streaming reviews, most posters are reluctant to comment on an episode before the review for that episode has posted—which is fine and appropriate. However, I may have a lot to say about an episode that airs on Thursday, but by the time the review gets posted on, say, Tuesday, I’ve watched six other shows by then and I’ve forgotten what I wanted to say. That immediacy is gone. I think these delays are, to an extent, killing the conversation.

I mean, there have been several shows this year where there’s been such a delay in the reviews that the show has fallen off of the New Anime list. And there’s been no warning or explanation given. This state of affairs sometimes makes me feel frustrated and dissatisfied. And these days it’s all too easy for dissatisfied viewers to drift away, which is not something I want to see happen. I love the streaming reviews and hope the future sees a real uptick in the talkback.

I really enjoy ANN, I feel I’ve found a home here. I don’t want to see it disappear just when I’ve finally started joining in on the conversation.
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Tempest
I Run this place.
ANN Publisher


Joined: 29 Dec 2001
Posts: 10419
Location: Do not message me for support.
PostPosted: Mon Dec 09, 2019 7:04 pm Reply with quote
There have been some problems with review posting the last two seasons. We hope to get them back to less than a day later in the next season.
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james_the_composer



Joined: 07 Jan 2007
Posts: 12
PostPosted: Wed Aug 19, 2020 3:10 pm Reply with quote
Discord and Reddit took over Forums. I liked Forums more personally but Discord I guess fits the bill these days.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter



Joined: 07 Mar 2009
Posts: 23667
PostPosted: Fri Aug 21, 2020 7:58 am Reply with quote
I think certain social media sites like Twitter have also leeched away forum participants. I'm sure for some younger anime fans, posting on a message board must seem... quaint (assuming they are even aware of them).
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toprak



Joined: 29 Mar 2020
Posts: 349
PostPosted: Fri Aug 28, 2020 4:59 am Reply with quote
I came here since short time, In fact generally all forums are dying each month, it's just because discord, reddit etc.
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Violynne



Joined: 09 May 2014
Posts: 128
PostPosted: Fri Aug 28, 2020 9:28 am Reply with quote
Otakuch wrote:
I came here since short time, In fact generally all forums are dying each month, it's just because discord, reddit etc.

Forums aren't dying. They're evolving. Most news sites have shut down their comment sections, but those who still offer them do so through other channels such as apps.

People don't carry laptops around anymore. They carry phones, and because of this, many sites have adapted their comment sections into phone apps. This offers the best of both worlds because if I use the web version, the comments made by people through the app are also there.

ANN has no app. Worse, this website is absolutely horrendous to use on a phone. The "front page" news is okay, because it's pretty much just a feed, but trying to access the forum or provide feedback? Forget it. Not worth the time or effort.

I'm glad ANN still cares about the feedback from its fans (even if it's not always done so nicely), but the reality is the closing of the forum is inevitable at this point since nothing is changing.

It doesn't cost much to run/host a website, regardless how many users there are. What costs is the staff resources, as paychecks are important things to people.

I suspect if ANN has a chance to survive, it's going to have to seek volunteer help to drive its library into the current generation.

ANN's encyclopedia is the most valuable asset on this site which isn't directly contributed to by paid staff. Everyone contributes to it. To have this as an app would be so appreciated, words cannot express how much I'd love to have an anime encyclopedia with fan input at my fingertips.

From there, the rest should "write itself out", so to speak.

ANN's twitter account is boring. It's just a news feed, and to be frank, old news by the time it gets to the site.

I am not posting this to step on any toes, but I cannot believe for a second I'm the only one who's thinking it's not just the forums that are dying.

ANN as a whole seems to be hobbling around using a wheeled walker, and yet, this pisses me off.

Side note: I'm starting to see "moderator approval" messages now when I post and I'm curious as to why this exists.

My account isn't that old compared to others and I'm pretty sure I haven't said anything to piss anyone off.

At least, today.
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Lone Immortal Bai Xiang



Joined: 05 Apr 2022
Posts: 4
PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2022 5:37 am Reply with quote
The reason forums are dying is because new anime fans are still teens and teens nowadays own phones, not computers. It is a pain to compose long, thoughtful posts on a phone, so they gravitate towards sites where you are expected to only write a bit of text and post a lot of pictures and short videos instead.

Once part of these communities, there is little incentive to go out to look for other places.


There's also the thing where forums have been superseded by various new solutions for a lot of functions they once exclusively covered. Stackexchange is better at answering questions and being a library for general knowledge that you can find via search engines, for example.

Do forums even have a single killer feature left for which there aren't alternatives on these new platforms that work good enough?


I believe the only thing forums are good at is jumping into old discussions and not posting into a void, where there is essentially no chance of anyone ever seeing your post. But this one strength has always been discouraged as necroposting, which I'm now probably guilty of doing.
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TF



Joined: 09 Nov 2003
Posts: 354
Location: Belgium
PostPosted: Sun Apr 17, 2022 7:05 am Reply with quote
classic forums (like ANN) are past it's hayday.

There will still be post but it'll never be as active as it once was. The thing I dread most is the question whether or not ANN can compete against MAL and continue to exist.
I like ANN for it's simple use and easier rating system with more nuance than MAL where you have to give a score.
Still, the fact remains that MAL is more popular than ANN and ANN hasn't really changed much over the years. It makes me wonder if the people behin ANN still want this site to continue and keep existing.
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