Why are the melee boards dead?

[AirFair]

From discussions on Reddit, it seems that in the golden age of the boards, all the top players were constantly on and posting relevant answers and topics, but ever since 2009 or so, it stopped when the community grew and MLG bought the site, and people starting using facebook a lot more in their areas, and most of them stop using it as much. Now these forums are full of stuff on Sm4sh, which is to be expected.

Is Smashboards just not the hub of the melee community anymore?

Link to the Reddit thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/SSBM/comments/2mp9or/how_did_smashboards_die/

 

[B-Will]

From discussions on Reddit, it seems that in the golden age of the boards, all the top players were constantly on and posting relevant answers and topics, but ever since 2009 or so, it stopped when the community grew and MLG bought the site, and people starting using facebook a lot more in their areas, and most of them stop using it as much. Now these forums are full of stuff on Sm4sh, which is to be expected.

Is Smashboards just not the hub of the melee community anymore?

Link to the Reddit thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/SSBM/comments/2mp9or/how_did_smashboards_die/

️Ya, I made a thread about this not too long ago:
http://smashboards.com/threads/this-place-seems-dead-to-me.350150/

It does kinda suck because back in the day when I joined smashboards the boards were full of activity you have no idea!

 

[Jim Morrison]

Nope it's not. It's only the hub of some specific character discussion. You don't get that anywhere else.

 

[AirFair]

Well I guess when pertaining to character specifics the boards have some good feedback. But in my case (marth boards), we often have a lot of new players who spit out terrible information before asking or learning more about their errors. Not sure about the others, but it would help to have some pro feedback besides PP/KK/Cactuar.

 

[Espi]

Until 09', (I wasn't around by the way, people have told me) a lot the traffic on the boards was due to regional sub forums. Now that everyone has moved on to FB groups, people don't go on the boards anymore.

 

[EPsilon933]

Facebook is just more convenient. you can read responses sooner. Also, it's facebook. Everyone has a facebook account

 

[B-Will]

Facebook is just more convenient. you can read responses sooner. Also, it's facebook. Everyone has a facebook account

Ha exactly. Also, I dug up an old thread that I started of mine....(when I was a dumb young noob lol....and a mod it seems) http://smashboards.com/threads/recovery-tier-list-updated-1-5-07.78593/

Look at all the activity it generated! Lol. I think someone made the exact topic a couple weeks ago that did not garner such attention.

 

[Spak]

N64 has always been really good at having detailed, high-quality responses in the Pikachu section, as well as PP in the Falco section. I am fairly new to the boards and I've never really been part of a big forum, so the closest comparison point I have is Neopets in ~2005... The boards seem normal to me, but B-Will has been here about 17X longer than I have, so I'll trust his judgement.

 

[BBOY15]

If we just stay on this site and don't give up on it, it will stay the best place to talk smash. Now that All Is Brawl is gone, I believe Smashboards is the only well organized and popular smash site for Melee and Project M. We can't just give up on something that has this huge of a niche. Just stay on the boards and people will come. If you build it, they will come.

 

[victra♥]

Most people have moved onto regional facebook groups.

It's a good thing because those facebook groups really help build closer communities locally (i think they're better than the regional zones we have here in terms of socialization, and accommodating for hundreds of players)

It's a bad thing because you don't get too much relationships being made across regions over online discussion. I've made a lot of friends internationally because of smashboards and it's pretty unfortunate in that sense.

 

[Juggleguy]

I have to disagree with the notion that it's been dead since 2009. During the EVO 2013 donation drive in January 2013, this place was POPPIN' with activity. I couldn't go an hour without seeing a top name like Scar or Prog or someone else make a meaningful new post. But there was a huge DDoS attack on the site in summer 2013 that crippled activity for awhile, and most people never came back. Facebook groups have kinda taken over.

 

[victra♥]

There was a huge DDoS attack on the site in summer 2013 that crippled activity for awhile, and most people never came back. Facebook groups have kinda taken over.

Yeah wow I totally forgot about that. That huge DDoS was definitely the biggest catalyst for my region to start using Facebook over Smashboards now that I think about it.

I remember we had a very inactive Facebook group back then, and because Smashboards kept crashing we kept socializing in our Facebook group in the meantime. By the time Smashboards was stable again we had already settled on FB.