Is this Site Declining and losing Members?

FordDiesel250 wrote:
This site seems to be going strong. Me thinks the demise of this blog has been grossly overstated

Well that's what I was trying to get at. I kept reading this in different posts and wondered if it was true and if so why.

It occurs to me that in the more than three years I have been coming to this site that I have never noticed a new forum added or deleted nor have I seen any sense in responding to the users needs or complaints or for that matter praise here.

There are two areas that may be contributing to the alleged demise: One is that I have noticed for the first time ADS appearing now in the RV.NET portal. My feeling; I pay for this site with my substantial purchases from CW and GSE I don't need ads here.

The second is the UI (User Interface) of the site is dated, clunky and needs work for sure. The hassle involved in Quoting, Photo upload and other aspects like the absolutely abysmal dictionary and search functions need complete overhaul to bring them up to anywhere near today's standards.

My Gut Feeling is that it is true that participation is down and has changed a bit for the worse not the better...but that could also be a function of the forums one reads.

I generally read the GS Club, Travel Trailer, This forum, Towing, Tow vehicles, Upgrades and Modifications, RV Lifestyle and Full Time RV, and the Alaska amd Mexico forums and occasionally read the RV Parks and Public Lands forums.

I tend to stay away from Pets, Food and the others.

If you assume that this site serves a valuable purpose for GSE As I am sure it does,and if you agree that it is the Customer/Members of this site that pay for it and thus are stakeholders in it's success or failure then it would seem obvious that there should be some mechanism for progress and change. But I don't see one.

Perhaps what is needed are some new Forums and an overhaul of a few of the forums here to make them more interesting. As I look at the lowest attended forums I see this:

Tent Camping
Family Camping
Workcamping (the least attended)

Some of the most popular:

Class A
Fifth Wheels
Travel Trailers
Technology

Now this list is not comprehensive or scientific in any way and it is the result of just a cursory look at the number of Posts and Replies listed for each forum. I purposely left off all of the Ask Marcus Forums.

Perhaps what is needed is a safe place to criticize, praise or suggest changes to the forum possibly moderated by a disinterested third party at GSE and not able to be read or operated by the Moderators (more like the Ask Marcus Forums) so that there could be no chance of retribution for critical posts. This would serve to protect both Moderators and members. This is not meant as a stab at the Moderators but as long as that sword is hanging over the heads of posters then it is unlikely to result in full and honest posting of problems, ideas and suggestions. And would result in members being allowed to speak their minds.

I am not holding my breath on that one but if you look at some of the other RV sites you see some pretty interesting forum topics.

Overall it is a good place, but it has some serious flaws.