Just to let you know, we are back in a recession of forum activity. There have been 18 posts in the last 3 days which is very low and bad. Activity should recover fully in about a week and a half based on past recessions. B)

It happens. Activity dies until new topics are made. I'll post some tomorrow.

Even posting new topics may not jump-start activity that quickly. Economic laws say that you cannot get out of a recession just-like-that. It does take some time.

There's only one thing to do at a time like this...post, post, post, and post again. B)
Has there ever been a recession on a weekend, I would think it would be mostly on school days?

There have been several times of little activity during weekends. low activity isn't a bad thing. Posting a lot is not healthy. If you make a post it has to be a well thought out one to allow people to find some way to reply to it.

Yes, but having little posts make the forums boring, then everyone leaves. :( You could probably have a bunch of people join the forums if you posted all my '05 soaker images and said SM has photos and internals for the '05 line. ;)

^^ We plan on doing just that, but having little posts for a while is not necessarily bad. Low points of activity are included in the economic laws which govern this forum. You cannot have periods of high activity without also experiencing slowdowns. It just seems different because other forums are affected by seasonal changes, not these boom-bust cycles. So just be patient, and wait it out. Activity will rise again. Just not yet.

I haven't been posting much lately, I've been browsing but didn't really want to post on anything.

oh, come on! not that I disagree (the post was pretty pointless), but I usually end my posts with '...' and the capitalization thing is just ridiculous.
<_< :huh:

I think we can agree that the post was spam. Capitilization isn't a big issue IMO, but i'll enforce it if that's what the admins want. Just try to make your post relate to the subject and be long enough to avoid being categorized as spam. If your post is tiny, it will only dra more attention to other mistakes you might have made.

It is not just that post. Hunter has realized that he posts spam and still does it. I've let it slip several times now and its gotten to the point where I just have to draw a line and say enough is enough. I have been fairly laxed on spam, but I don't want the forum to become all spam.

We're trying to find a comfortable balance between spam and extremely strict and harsh rules. ;) Just makes your posts over a sentence long, try to end them with a period, and capitalize your first letter. Not too much to remember. We're not freaks for grammar or spelling, and forgetting a comma is fine.

You are too generous. But if you ever start a zero tolerance without a damn good reason, then I'll leave... (ha see I did it! (and I do it quite a lot))

I realise that you don't have a zero tolerance policy, but we don't have a large forum here. If you're annoyed with hunter just threaten GBH or something (I'm joking :wacko:) But please don't turn into Grammar Nazis. Please.

Ok....sorry guys...I do sort of have to work on better posts. Been busy. BTW I don't even know what GBH is, so threatening it would be pointless.

@Admins-what would I add too a post atating that there is a reccesion in activity? I had to delete that post because I couldn't thin of anything to add to it.

@Leprekan-thanks for the support. ;)

BTW is this long enough?

Ok..shutting up now...don't want to start a flame war.

No flame war. That will not happen. As for your post i believe you said something along the lines of:

yup another recession...accept for the easter topic...something else.

What you could of said was:

Well, looks like we have another recession. There is some activity in the easter topic though. Other wise it seems the forums are pretty quiet.

It doesn't have to be like that but something that has a little more meaning.

LOL, remember that we have the most lax and forgiving rules of anywhere. The warning system has never been used, people have never been banned, etc. And the only restriction for things like sigs/avatars is that size has to be "reasonable."
Basically we have "set your own limit" only use common sense to decide what is too big. No other forum does these kinds of things. We probably will never have a "zero tolerance policy." That is almost a last resort.

Uh...You did use the warn for me. ;) But, yeah, this is one of the best forums I've encountered...that's why I post so much. Of course my liking to post a lot sort of makes my posts bad...as is evident if you look at my warn level. :lol:

@admins-Yes! never put on a zero tolerance rule...the lack of one is what makes this forum so cool, that's why it's expanding so fast.

I personally have never used the warn system and your warn level is at 0%, so :blink: ? Anyway, I'm glad to see activity is back up. B)

GBH = Grevious Bodily Harm :D

And about my last post, I was a little pissed off. Sorry. But I meant what I said about zero tolerance.

:huh: ???

dude, if you're just restating the same thing with different wording, what's the point? what he wrote is easier to type, that's the only major difference. personally, I think this anti-spam brigade is getting way out of hand. I can understand wanting to cut down on tiny, pointless posts, but spelling and punctuation is just ridiculous.

BTW, no offense Hunter, but you are notorious for making ill-planned posts.

p.s.- 'Otherwise' is one word and 'could of' is improper grammar. :lol: :P ;)

Uh, this is the first time I have made any sort of deal with spam. If you look at it a lot of other boards you will see that they take spam much more seriously. I decided to to let hunter know that he posts a lot of spam. Like I said, he posts a Sh*t load of spam and we don't care too much about it. It was getting out of hand so I just let him know that he needed to cut down on the spam. No big deal. I was just leting him know and that was that. No problems have arised accept from you. I really don't think I'm too harsh. In order for us to have control of the board we need to prove that we will enforce rules.

I really don't have that big of a problem with grammar, cause obviously im not that great myself. :rolleyes: If someone posts extremely bad grammar when the they could of made the post a little more understandable then I dont see the point of him making a short post that no one can read. :P

If you're going to say that I am going way out of hand, you have no idea how fixed on spam other boards are. It's not a huge issue. It's done, over and hunter gets the idea.

We've mustered 10 posts in the last 24 hours. Bad, but we are better off than some other places. Water Talk and WGN have both gotten 1 post in the last 24 hours. ISCF has gotten a few, SSC has had a lot like always. It seems like we've lost a lot of momentum. The days when Wetmonkey, CG, Nibor, myself, etc. kept firing off posts are gone. Hopefully activity will pick up with the site redesign and 21K giveaway.

I have had loads of coursework and revision lately, this will probably continue for quite some time. I have no time for anything anymore. But I will try to post more often.

I've noticed that the way I start to tend to not post is that I look at topics and stuff, it's just I don't have the motivation to post. So, if you come across a topic, and you have anything to say that is not rediculous, post it!

I suppose that's just about how I feel. Don't worry though, there'll come a time when I'll start posting in earnest again.

I am the same. I at the moment just seem to be looking at posts at the moment. Just going through a not much posting stage at the moment. I will probably pick up again sometime. :)

Is it just me or has SM gone into a hole? We need people to start posting topics, the board doesn't run without them.

I'm not sure, it seems to me like all the forums but Isoaker have been very quiet lately.

i agree, time to start taking an insane amount of pics again! i just built palisades around my fort, i could photograph those.

Have you posted a picture of your fort yet?

Yeah, it has gotten bad again and been bad for way too long. SM has had 7 100+ post days and 25 50+ post days in its 1 year, 4 month history. The current posting level is just sad [like less than 20 posts for the last whole week]. Everywhere else has seemed to come out of it, yet SM has kinda been forgotten? We've had 640 posts in a aingle week once, more than all the posts in the past 3 months combined. Combined! So far this March has seen 100 something posts, but last march was 9 times that!

I don't know what to do really, it seems like motivation is lacking in general. We can't close down after such glorious success in the past, but we can't keep going with 1-5 posts a day either. :(

I would wait until next summer. Maybe SM will become the place to talk during the winter?

If there is still such pitiful activity through this year, it may be time to lock the board and keep it only for reference.

I don't think SM is dead yet. There were some real quality conversations around February.

We've survived some pretty bad times. But they were intermingled with very good times. I've been noticing less good times and more bad ones. I would surrender to an XP Backfire before even considering the thought of considering the thought of considering closing SM. But the motivation to post has been way down. Perhaps time for a wave of new topics?

When I get my grades back up I can get more internet time which will in turn result in a big posting spree!