The forum has been in a sort of post count depression, I'm going to try to post more and bail SM out of the depression...join me! lol

I just love it when SSC and ISCF are ablaze with activity, and it is dead-silent here, don't you? :P We're never going to grow if people don't post! I still stand by my theory that new topics spur activity, but there have to be lots of them in order to have any impact. Plus, I really have to get the ball rolling on my account, so we can get the damn upgrades and stuff already. I was promising the new domain and forums set like a year ago. I have some great SEO techniques in v2 pages, but I can't capitalize on those until we have our new domain and hosting. I took another look today, the exchange rates are still fabulous. We are getting quite the bargain by using SolidInternet. They used to be really unreliable, but the company has changed quite a bit since then. [2004]

Ok, this is ridiculous. Why are th other forums buzzing with activity, yet we remain dead silent? SM once had periods of activity like so:



But now all we have are these kinds of trends:



Sure, you could argue that while the activity is less, it does not include tons of stupid topics and "one week" n00bs. Still, it would be nice to have real activity here, something we have not had for ages. And the suammer/winter comparison doesn't work. We've been quiet for all of 2006 so far, and one of our most active months ever was February 2005.

Yeah, I have noticed that Soaker Media Forums is much more inactive than SSC and even iSc. Does this have anything to do with the fact that hardcore water wars are on the decline? After all, you've been trying to build your site mainly around tactics, and although I think it's fine, you can't expect too many posters.

I would point out the summer/winter debate, and I would point out the fact that the member population here is somewhat minimal, but you seem to have those points covered with activity last year...so I am truly at a loss. Have we lost any major contributors? Does this have to do with the mainly inactive v1 and v2 sites? Hopefully, a paid server and full SEO will help.

Wow. :o

I wonder what's up? I try to visit every day, but I don't post unless something interests me. Otherwise, I just read.

I would go on more posting sprees...but I've been busy. I remember the days of me getting 40 posts a day lol

I'll make that my goal "patriot music plays* *tear drops from eyes*
You can't have a winter summer arguement in June, you just can't really it already is summer 80/90 degree days? Perfect for water wars...

This has less to do with there being less new threads and less interest in "hardcore" water fighting and more to do with the fact that they haven't had many new members to replenish the forums. Note that most of the people on Super Soaker Central and iSoaker.com are new right now, while here hasn't seen many new people mainly due to the fact that it hasn't had a direct connection to the search engines.

I do appreciate the attempts to rally people up because no one wants to see a dead forum, but this is not the way to generate interest. This really creates a feeling of obligation to post. The whole "posting spree" deal really turns me off. I post when I have something to say, and over the years I have collected nearly 4500 posts alone. I'll admit that I've sent emails out to people to start posting during a period of less posting, but to be honest with you those emails were largely ineffective in restarting the forum.

Of course, I could also be complaining as well. Super Soaker Central had several days with 150 - 200 posts daily back in 2004. Right now a bad day is 10 posts and a great day is 100 posts. I would say that posts today are generally better than posts before. Numbers don't show post quality. Post quality is something that these forums do have on their side very much because they're well protected from less experienced users. ;)

I don't see why anyone is complaining. SSC and iSF are getting swamped by 12 year olds, currently, and SM has thankfully missed most of that. I've always liked SM because, due to its size, it is often overlooked by new members. People may call SM an elitist forum, but if SM remains relatively newb-free, that's fine by me.

Soak On

I'm complaining because it is just depressing to see other communities lighting up with activity, then going to your own place and seeing little if anything. I have a strong sense of destiny, of which my predictions have not been that far off-track. One of them is that SM will grow to become a popular site. Well, on Friday afternoon, we shall get one step closer. Due to Finals, last minute projects and the such, I haven't had time to buy the hosting and deposit the $225. Friday.

I, personally, find it hard to post when there isn't much activity and when there isn't much to reply to. Granted, I have been spending my time over at SSC, but I do come here every now and then--and in those cases, I find that there isn't much to talk about. Hopefully, the SEO will kick in and increase the popularity. Even if it brings in new users, that might be okay if the post quality is kept as high as it has been here and at the other online Soaker forums.

I think that the reason why nobody is posting here, is that most people don't know about SM or other forums. Most only know about SSC and ISF. If we all make our signatures have little things that link to SM forums, we could get more activity.

You'd also spam up every forum and take away activity from other forums. Don't do that.