Thanks John I will take that as another compliment We rehash the same stuff on here over and over (when you have been on this site as long as I have I guess you see that). We have new participants so that is fine but most of the early participants have tired of it, get weary of the sucking up, and left but I have stuck around for the most part because sometimes there are still a few new and interesting topics. No post will please everyone and my idea of a good one is to create thoughtful and civil debate. Maybe we should all only start posts that we know will get all likes and everyone will agree on
Do you think there is a lot of participation among newer members? I've been here about 7 years, and at least in that time, it seems like the majority of posting is done by the same small-ish group of people now as then. Of course, if they are the ones putting in the work, that's fine, but there's also a good deal of clubbiness about it, where one person's posts will always get multiple replies while another's, even if it's similar in content, doesn't much get noticed. Perhaps that's because a lot of the newer people haven't met the older people in person. That in-person familiarity seems to be a big part of it.
This does have something to do with social media. I've become much closer with people on golf Twitter, much more quickly, than I've become close with anyone here. Identities are basically hidden here. There are no profiles, no way of knowing who anyone is or what their likes are outside of what they post. That creates a coldness, and a distance, and perhaps a reluctance for newer posters to join the fray. I'm not sure it's fair to expect newer posters to "earn" their attention either, when, as I said above, some people can toss off any leftover of a thought and get guaranteed engagement.
I've spent some time recently thinking about this subject and why golf architecture Twitter sometimes seems more fruitful for me. It probably isn't a like button, but it does have something to do with demystifying who everyone is. The ease of sharing media doesn't hurt either.