One of my shop chiefs introduced me to the site around '03/‘04 - dude also taught me how to squat deep and deadlift. Dude was a fuckin’ monster
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Couple of problems with this idea. The biggest of which being, if it’s so easy to look at a picture and know whether or not someone’s using… you tell me which of these guys are natural:
I’d like to think the majority of people on Testosterone Nation don’t care one way or the other whether a model in an article is using AAS.
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It’s a stretch to say Facebook is being emphasized. Social media, in general, is being used more than before by pretty much everyone. Facebook has definitely not killed the forum, it actually drives traffic to the forum. New users and posts, and increased views, are on track.
The only thing that can kill a forum is if more people post just 22 times in the last two years, as you’ve done. Members make the forum, which I’ve always said. Real life changes, especially when we’re talking years and years.
So if you’ve decided to post less because you’re not into talking about training anymore or you don’t like the new look or you miss old members or whatever, no problem. But that’s not remotely the same as saying the forum is dying.
Are you claiming the number of posts per day isn’t DRASTICALLY down since say 2010? Or even 1999? I could sit around and post to myself all day, but that doesn’t seem very productive.
edit: When was the last time a thread hit 10,000 replies and was locked?
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For the record, I am still pissed the protein powder is now in bags.
Next thing you know, people will be benching on days besides Monday, and people will put the weights on with the numbers facing out.
It will be chaos.
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It’s never happened, actually. But 2 of the 5 highest-post count threads of all-time are still active today. Literally today.
2 more of the Top 5 were still active as of last year.
The new forum system doesn’t lock threads, so that’s not a thing anymore.
The posts per day have trended steadily upwards in the two years since the new forum was put in place. I’d have to do more footwork to find stats prior to that, which I’m not interested in doing. I feel I’ve stated the case.
Considering the online landscape was drastically different, on this site and everywhere on the web, it’s not remotely comparable. But yes, the company entering its 20th year of business is doing better, by every metric, than it was in its first year.
You know there are a couple thousand other people here to talk with, right? Like I said, I totally get that people come and go. But it’s ultimately your decision, it’s not because of the site.
You really should say for reply count - you locked a gem of a Zep thread a few weeks ago just as it was getting somewhere 
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love this. Those could all be pictures of steroid users, they could all be natural, and it could be a mix. I don’t have a clue based on that, and neither does anyone else, as much as they’d like to think they do. Skinny dude in the blue shorts who barely looks like he lifts looks better than at least half a dozen guys I know who are on a gram of gear. And I’ve seen natural lifters who look better than all the pictures.
As to the quality of forums, articles, and the topic at hand…
2 comparisons come to mind for the people who are whining about the state of today’s TNation.
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The guy who follows every step a band takes until they get popular, then claims they sold out and they’re awful now.
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The ‘back in my day’ guy. It drives me insane how many people want to say that literally EVERYTHING used to be better. The last generation worked harder. They were smarter. Everyone’s entitled now. The 80’s bears would be the 2018 Patriots. The 80’s lakers would beat the 2018 Warriors. Athletes are soft now. blah blah blah blah blah.
I know Chris isn’t interested in doing the ground work, but I see absolutely NO REASON to believe traffic on this site, or posting in general, is less today than it was at any other point in the site’s history. Just doesn’t make sense to me.
Re: Stu and Steel talking about how they’ve changed much more than the site has… ditto for me. I was 18 when I found this site. I’m 34 now. Literally half my life I’ve been reading on TNation. Been posting for quite a long time now too. Do I use this site the same way I did back then? No. I spent almost 10 years without forum posting, and rarely reading in the forums, before I entered discussions. Now I almost never read the articles, and I’m posting in here everyday. So it goes. Not better, not worse.
One last note: I was one of the people who really didn’t like the current forum structure when it was introduced. But I really, really like it now, there’s much more I can do with it than I used to be able to. It’s solid.
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They used to lock threads at 10K posts regularly. You couldn’t keep up with the posts if you missed a day because there would be 300 new posts in an active thread… Now I can be gone a couple of months and the little line showing me what I missed is only a quarter down the page. The traffic in the forums (which is all I was referring to) is dramatically decreased. Maybe Biotest has more sales. For sure there is more social media exposure (since that used to not exist). But the forums aren’t what they were.
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Nope. The old forum system locked threads at 1126 posts. From what I can see, there has never, in the history of the forum, been a 10,000 post-long thread. If you can find one, please link it.
Those types of threads have always been far and few between. But for sure, I agree it’d be great if they happened more often. All it takes is for members to start talking about a topic.
A lot of it also depends on the section. During their contest preps, Brick and Rob’s log’s were getting tons of posts pretty much daily. While the Strongman forum, which is even more niche than bodybuilding, can go days without a post.
You know at least part of this is a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? You’ve posted more in the last six hours that you did in all of 2017. It’s just a pretty weird position to be in, being someone who very rarely posts on the forum… complaining about there being not enough posts on the forum.
You can keep saying it, but it’s still fake news.
Based on most of what you’re posting here, I sincerely don’t think you’re using the forum correctly.
If I’m away for a day or two, I’ve missed a hell of a lot.
How many people’s training logs do you post in or follow?
How many threads discussing training or competition(s) have you engaged in over the last few months?
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I’ve definitely had threads recently go too quickly for me to keep up with, though granted my work schedule has changed and I have considerably less free time than I did in 2007. I do still read threads in the morning that I would reply to after work if the conversation hadn’t veered off in another direction over the course of the day.
It was better in the past. It’s nice now too, but forums in general have seen decreased traffic. I’m on gun forums, and car forums, and fitness forums and they all have suffered. A lot less noise now, but oftentimes the noise is what’s fun.
I do credit Chris Colucci with single-handedly holding T-nation together after the Great Purge in '12. (Was it 2012? I’m pretty sure it was).
If there is one thing I miss more than anything else its Debs avatars.
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Man that yellow on black still looks good. Still better than the current look.
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What about Halloweds?
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