Where did everyone go?

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I can't help but notice that traffic to this site has slowed down over the last year or so. It seems like there is only a handful of us left that post somewhat regularly. Any idea as to why this is happening?

Run-up to the election.  Wait until November, December, and January.  You'll see an increase.

They're all visiting the pool on the third story.

I know a few women who left because of sexism and harassment, or not feeling heard. Some left because their friends were banned and they thought it wasn’t fair, despite not knowing the whole story from CF because of privacy reasons. Some left because of other offensive comments on the site, unrelated to gender.

Most of us haven’t left at all. We’re just busy with our lives or maintaining our WP friendships / relationships out of public view.

Quite a few who were regulars seem to be absent or mostly absent in recent months.

I'm thinking that a lot of the younger members who where here when I first joined just moved on with their lives

But I'd hate to speculate about specifics

I notice declining traffic for years, and if you click on the links beside "Forums," above, observe alex has not written any new content in many years.

I get it, life happens, and he has already poured a lot of energy into the site, and I am grateful for that. Also, he may feel disappointed also with the declining traffic. Or may be bored with the site.

I used to run a forum site too, and these things go in stages. At first, there is avid interest, then disillusionment sets in, then ambivalence, then possibly a renewal of interest, maybe there is a catalyst? I hope for a renewal in interest...

The biggest cause of declining traffic IMHO is the rise of social media which began a long time ago as we all know... these places have Aspie forums too but also many others, which makes it convenient for the user. You can engage with other Aspies, also you can join the Linux forum, maybe chess, etc. and they just have a much larger user population in the hundreds of millions, whereas most people have never heard of wrongplanet.

On Reddit, I shared wrongplanet with other Aspies, and it was news to some of them. They had not heard of it. The social media sites have a huge advantage, because everyone has heard of them, and they can search for key words like Aspergers.

I think this is a nice site though, and I like it. I do not mind that it seems a little bit old-fashioned, I think that is part of its charm. I use a browser add-on to make the background dark, "Midnight Lizard," in Firefox.

I have to agree I also enjoy the old internet feel.

And maybe it is a small blessing that WP is less popular. If you are here you probably looked for it, meaning that you are more likely to be a person that wants to gain insite into their autism rather than just coming on there to be a troll.

Also, being that I am apart of counter culture here in Canada, I can tell you once nomies get involved in anything things have a tendency to get watered down and eventually lose steam. A small dedicated group of people is a lot more stable and easier to coordinate. And and I my own opinion more enjoyable to be around.

I left Reddit after getting banned a couple of times. It was ironic because I had become a moderator of many forums, and even subscribed to the site. But, my enthusiasm gets ahead of me a lot.

I left because *reasons*

^ This.
Web forums are so old-fashioned...who wants to sit down at a dusty old computer and type on a monstrous keyboard and have actual discussions with other human beings?
So much easier to sit on your phone and scroll endlessly through Facebook memes posted by AI bots.

ha ha... truth

Some of the regulars of the past few years have been banned and that can have a knock on effect on otherwise other, active members. When those banned members stopped posting, there was less content to interact with for other members who are not banned.

Aside from that, some people post in phases, I know I have personally gone through phases of posting a lot and then sometimes post very little or not at all.

Personally, I find that there is less content to interact with on the forum nowadays and less people responding to any given discussion, so it is difficult to get involved in some parts of the forum.

Yes, I think the site is not dead, however does need its pulse taken daily to check

I go through phases too. I will post a lot, then check back a few days later, and no one has responded to most of the messages I wrote. At a certain point, it is like, why bother? Then Splitsville...

I would imagine the reason people use a forum is interaction, if it is just a case of writing things that no one responds to, then that is like on Reddit where they shadow-ban you, which happened to me a couple of times too, in addition to the actual banning. I actually paid $200 to Reddit for coins and a subscription as a premium user, that was not a good use of money.