People not joining forums

[Shawn Gossman]

What do you think keeps people from joining most forums these days?

Is it all to blame on social media? Is it to blame on outdated registration pages? What could it be, in your opinion?

 

[Tracy]

Heck, I have them joining to download resources.... and have a big notice at the top letting folks know that it is not necessary, that they are available as a guest.



Don't know how I could make it any plainer. I would rather not have folks join if they are only going to grab resources and not participate on the site. That's why I have them available to all.
So folks will join, it's just getting them to participate that is problematic.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

Don't know how I could make it any plainer. I would rather not have folks join if they are only going to grab resources and not participate on the site. That's why I have them available to all.
So folks will join, it's just getting them to participate that is problematic.

That would be annoying.

I wonder if you could gate a better download. They can join and download (or not join and download) the resource but if they want the better resource, they have to hit a certain number of posts.

 

[Tracy]

That would be annoying.

I wonder if you could gate a better download. They can join and download (or not join and download) the resource but if they want the better resource, they have to hit a certain number of posts.

That would go against the philosophy of the site. For most of the resources there are the same release versions (except some have BETA and STABLE). And most are already available elsewhere. I just try to centralize them.
I just thought it was funny how folks will sign up for a site even when they did not need to. It's not really annoying to me, just hate how it inflates the member count when they aren't really active.
As for resolving non-active users, that can be done fairly easily through the script and some add-ons.

 

[Heatman]

There's no doubt about how much impact social media platforms have had on forums over the years with how it has siphoned off a great number of users from forums over the years but that's not only the reason why people no longer like it very much to register and use forums.

Forums have failed to adapt in so many ways which is even why some of the already forum's users are leaving it behind. Also, the sign up process of forums is a big challenge like having to use email verification, solving CAPTCHA puzzles and even having to wait for manual admin approval in some forums is too much to ask.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

Forums have failed to adapt in so many ways which is even why some of the already forum's users are leaving it behind. Also, the sign up process of forums is a big challenge like having to use email verification, solving CAPTCHA puzzles and even having to wait for manual admin approval in some forums is too much to ask.

I totally agree!

I think the forum registration system is what prevents many people from joining. It's old and terrible. It needs to be simplified.

 

[Tracy]

I totally agree!

I think the forum registration system is what prevents many people from joining. It's old and terrible. It needs to be simplified.

One issue that forums have is the requirement for email entry since many "contact" processes utilize it for transactional communications. But if you notice, other "popular" social sites do similar.
Even FarceBook requires either an email or a phone number to register on their site.



X/Twitter is not much better.



And I don't know what came after that as I didn't take X any further.

Compared to my XF site:



And if I remember correctly (it's been years since I created a FB account) you had to get an email confirmation/SMS text via it also as well as with X/Twitter? With the XF sites, if you have a valid Google/X/GitHub/Microsoft/Yahoo email then the XF account creation is a lot easier.
I really don't know how you can make it much easier other than just let folks create a username and password with no verification that they are real. And that's an open door to spammers/abusers.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

Social logins might be a good thing to enable on forums. It makes it easier for folks to join and it's common on big social platforms and apps.

But yeah, everyone asks for an email.

 

[Heatman]

Personally, I don't have problem with using email and its verification but is needing to solve captcha puzzles necessary especially when the person will go back to their email to complete the verification process?

Social logins might be a good thing to enable on forums. It makes it easier for folks to join and it's common on big social platforms and apps.

But yeah, everyone asks for an email.

Yeah, enabling social media logins or even using Google login can be very easy but it looks like most people don't like using it to create account on forums.

 

[Tracy]

but is needing to solve captcha puzzles necessary especially when the person will go back to their email to complete the verification process?

If you are using Turnstile from CloudFlare you don't see that. It checks and if it can confirm you are human you get passed through. Otherwise you may get a check box to confirm you are human.



The Google captcha and HCaptcha are image based. Just one more reason to use CloudFlare if your script supports the use of the Turnstile captcha.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

If you are using Turnstile from CloudFlare you don't see that. It checks and if it can confirm you are human you get passed through. Otherwise you may get a check box to confirm you are human.

View attachment 471

The Google captcha and HCaptcha are image based. Just one more reason to use CloudFlare if your script supports the use of the Turnstile captcha.

Is it sad that I immediately just tried to tick the square? LOL

 

[Heatman]

Is it sad that I immediately just tried to tick the square? LOL

I hope you didn't try to zoom in when it's not ticking as well