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Good to see you Poopscoop, I enjoy your adventure threads.
I'm another who had no idea about the text box expansion thingy.
I posted recently about this in a similar thread on the bike section.
TLDR. New forum software is crap/bloated with unneeded features/photo hosting doesn't work properly/entire site too slow.
Have wandered off as I just cannot be bothered here. Not worth paying for STW having experienced free forums elsewhere.
Shame. Hope it gets sorted as it's been good.
Who expects it as a convention?
I do, sample size of one 😄
The forum experience as a whole seems to be working pretty well for me now to be honest.
Maybe it's quieter because I've stopped/CBA winding the frothers up so much 😉
I think the text box expander was around for a long time on Macs before it became a thing on PC and other platforms in the last 5 years or so. (I speak as someone who uses both and gets confused as to which features are on which computer) - but yeah I expect it as a convention.
But I don't actually have to use it on this site, as I find the box just merrily increases in size as I type, anyway...
The little icon at the bottom right of the text box would be more obvious if the (useless?) gif icon wasn't there.
Half a million people come to this site a month?
If those numbers being bombarded by ads is what keeps you afloat. Then fair play while it lasts.
But you have to wonder what percentage of those "people" actually percevere with closing pop up after pop up, user agreement notices and resizing their screens to even be able to read anything when after all that it's surrounded by a ridiculous amount of badly placed intrusive ads. And of those who do. How long is a new user even likely to stay once they realise all the content is only really relevant to a tiny demographic and certain type of middle aged and older man?
A few years back I heard a friend refer to the STW forum as "Same Twelve ****ers" .
Twelve is probably generous these days.
Also kinda begs the question. Why do a bunch of old men need protected by a swear filter
Been a free member on here for years, back in the day the forum was alright, but littered with sexism at times. Last few years its been really good, sold stuff, brought stuff, posted a bit. Very grateful to have access to it.
I know things change but my experience is that the forum is now clunky, difficult to navigate, and has too much going on. I commend the people running it, cannot be easy.
I definitely visit far less 🙁
It’s not even worth posting on any of those threads any more, due to the utterly Joyless, humourless, sanctimonious, self-righteous, holier-than-though, virtue-signalling ****s all competing in their Taliban-esque way, for some inexplicable reason, to signal how idealogically pure they are .
I reckon the thing that will do for this forum is the monumental lack of self-awareness of some posters. 😉
That and people taking it far too seriously.
The little icon at the bottom right of the text box would be more obvious if the (useless?) gif icon wasn't there.
Useless? Useless?!?!!
The forum experience as a whole seems to be working pretty well for me now to be honest.
Same, it's fine - and I'm sure the few niggles are being sorted out.
It feels like the tedious bickering and political threads generally have dropped off a bit, or have I just tuned it out?
Forum is a bit quiet, but I also think it's got a bit less negative and nicer - and it's still a great place to read and share riding-related info.
There are lots of great people on the forum and for me, everything works as it should, no complaints here and I get loads of useful info from the forum. Like anywhere else on the internet, I don’t engage with the nonsensical and rude. 🙂
It’s not even worth posting on any of those threads any more, due to the utterly Joyless, humourless, sanctimonious, self-righteous, holier-than-though, virtue-signalling ****s all competing in their Taliban-esque way, for some inexplicable reason, to signal how idealogically pure they are .
I reckon the thing that will do for this forum is the monumental lack of self-awareness of some posters. 😉
That and people taking it far too seriously.
That's been implied on this thread several times already
In order for the forum to progress and expand, it's imperative that some of the STW staff downgrade their membership settings to Free User so they know what the experience is like.
Can I just ask all forum members with a lack of self-awareness to raise their hands?
In order for the forum to progress and expand, it's imperative that some of the STW staff downgrade their membership settings to Free User so they know what the experience is like.
+1
The saying "if you can't see the price then you're the product" is true, but this place is getting quiet. And if it's quiet then why pay for the add free version.
These days I probably start more discussions on facebook or watsapp groups. If I've got some niche technical query then it's more likely to get a correct answer, and if it's a geographical group then someone might even have the specific tool / part to solve it too.
In order for the forum to progress and expand, it's imperative that some of the STW staff downgrade their membership settings to Free User so they know what the experience is like.
A poor first impression is unlikely to make anyone want to subscribe, so they'll never know how well the forum works as a subscriber. If there was some way of providing a trial/demo period of full membership, that might help? There are undoubtedly some logistical/technical problems to be overcome for that though.
An alternative might be an occasional day where everyone gets subscriber level access to the forum. Only @Mark would be able to judge the cost of that (though I think it has happened in the past).
In my OP I was really trying to determine what type of forum content was missing / had reduced. The discussion wandered off into technical issues and how folk interact but I guess both of those factors reduce engagement as a whole.
In order for the forum to progress and expand, it's imperative that some of the STW staff downgrade their membership settings to Free User so they know what the experience is like.
A poor first impression is unlikely to make anyone want to subscribe, so they'll never know how well the forum works as a subscriber. If there was some way of providing a trial/demo period of full membership, that might help? There are undoubtedly some logistical/technical problems to be overcome for that though.
An alternative might be an occasional day where everyone gets subscriber level access to the forum. Only @Mark would be able to judge the cost of that (though I think it has happened in the past).
In my OP I was really trying to determine what type of forum content was missing / had reduced. The discussion wandered off into technical issues and how folk interact but I guess both of those factors reduce engagement as a whole.
that's a massive thing for me. If i go to a website and it's 'pop-up' 'advert' etc i'm closing the site within seconds... Simple as that. It's just a deal breaker and i doubt i'm alone.
Of course i can see WHY they need the income from adverts here.... but that doesn't mean i'd accept it.
I don't pay subscription because i like the place, want to support the staff/owners, i pay subscription to remove the adverts, it's honestly that simple in my world.
I don't pay subscription because i like the place, want to support the staff/owners, i pay subscription to remove the adverts, it's honestly that simple in my world.
Completely agree. I’ve had the odd moment when I wasn’t logged in and it’s awful with pop up ads everywhere.
It’s not even worth posting on any of those threads any more, due to the utterly Joyless, humourless, sanctimonious, self-righteous, holier-than-though, virtue-signalling ****s all competing in their Taliban-esque way, for some inexplicable reason, to signal how idealogically pure they are .
I reckon the thing that will do for this forum is the monumental lack of self-awareness of some posters. 😉
That and people taking it far too seriously.
That's been implied on this thread several times already
And yet Daz still managed to miss in his quote the most glaring example of a lack of self-awareness ! 😂
they’re just permanently angry and unpleasant
I don't pay subscription because i like the place, want to support the staff/owners, i pay subscription to remove the adverts, it's honestly that simple in my world.
Completely agree. I’ve had the odd moment when I wasn’t logged in and it’s awful with pop up ads everywhere.
Same here.
In order for the forum to progress and expand, it's imperative that some of the STW staff downgrade their membership settings to Free User so they know what the experience is like.
As far as I can tell I don't think anyone in the office uses the forum at all. Certainly not casually, or joining in with general chat or what tyres threads
The forum is dying because it's a bike forum where it's taboo to talk about expensive new bikes or tech.
'Sanctimonious Track World' hits the nail on the head.
As far as I can tell I don't think anyone in the office uses the forum at all. Certainly not casually, or joining in with general chat or what tyres threads
They're too busy using actual real mountain bikes 😉
Mark and Hannah do post occasionally, not only for website related stuff or under articles.
With the amount of work gone into this site recently, I think it's a bit much to say that they don't know what the performance/experience is like for non-members. Mark's posted about this in detail (though not recently, I think) and it basically boils down to them making most of the revenue from ads so it's impossible to get rid of them, much as they'd like to.
I don't pay subscription because i like the place, want to support the staff/owners, i pay subscription to remove the adverts, it's honestly that simple in my world.
Completely agree. I’ve had the odd moment when I wasn’t logged in and it’s awful with pop up ads everywhere.
Same here.
see im the opposite. i pay the sub as i think the forum is excellent, theres a wealth of broad and niche experience in every field, theres always someone that can help me save a few quid here and there whether its hundreds of £'s on something important (pension advice say?) or just a few quid or handy things to know.
this place has saved me a lot of money over the years and broadened my knowledge, also challenged my views in some respects which is healthy. its also a great place for everyone pulling together in someones hour of need, thats happened time and time again.
to me its worth its weight in gold, im on here multiple times per day and thats what i pay for.
if i didnt value that and just wanted rid of the ads, well theres er.... other ways of doing that that mustnt be mentioned 😉
itll be a sad day if it does ever die.
When i joined this forum in my 30s i think the STW demographic was a great representation of what UK mountain biking was. I'm now in my 50s and it feels like UK MTB and the STW demographic are now in quite different places.
Next time you pass through some woods and see some young guns building jumps and berms on the steepest part of the hill, then sessioning them on a nukeproof ebike (without some boring old man calling them a cheat), ask them why they are not on here. Bet they've never heard of it.
The forum is dying because it's a bike forum where it's taboo to talk about expensive new bikes or tech.
Cobblers
When i joined this forum in my 30s i think the STW demographic was a great representation of what UK mountain biking was. I'm now in my 50s and it feels like UK MTB and the STW demographic are now in quite different places.
Next time you pass through some woods and see some young guns building jumps and berms on the steepest part of the hill, then sessioning them on a nukeproof ebike (without some boring old man calling them a cheat), ask them why they are not on here. Bet they've never heard of it.
I think you’ve nailed it. Demographic on here remains unchanged that’s why it’s dying. Look below.
Urban Dictionary Singletrackworld
The forum is dying because it's a bike forum where it's taboo to talk about expensive new bikes or tech.
Cobblers
There is an element of truth to that, I’ve had plenty of snide comments off the back of my adventures in ridiculous, shiny, expensive bikes and parts.
Not that IGAF, but it does happen.
There is an element of truth to that, I’ve had plenty of snide comments off the back of my adventures in ridiculous, shiny, expensive bikes and parts.
Fair enough. Whenever I look at the bike forum there seems to be plenty of posts about tech bling and expensive (to me) bikes. I've seen snide comments about people riding old or budget bikes too. In fact, if we are honest, we sometimes get snide comments on threads on just about any subject! I very much doubt that there is a "taboo" about tech and posh bikes. It's just as IRL, there are sometimes a few knobbers willing to chuck their oar in.
Age demographic for the last month in ranking order. Date from Google Analytics and based on a sample size of around 27% of all users.
When i joined this forum in my 30s i think the STW demographic was a great representation of what UK mountain biking was. I'm now in my 50s and it feels like UK MTB and the STW demographic are now in quite different places.
This is it for me. And the high likelihood that a lot less riding is done these days by us older folks.
The forum is dying because it's a bike forum where people talk about expensive new bikes or tech rather than interesting stuff like actually riding bikes
FTFY]
Managed to get some numbers to add to those age brackets. Still represents a sample size of about a third of all traffic.
So only 33% are below 35. It would also be interesting to see how many sub 35 year olds regularly comment on the forum? I'd guess its proportionally a lot less.
I also think its important to not view the mag/website in the same way as the forum. I think there is a bit of a divergence between the two. The stuff covered by the mag and the news articles seems to remain current - latest kit, actual riding etc vs the general "i dont ride bikes anymore / im on my old hardtail and its suitable for the bimbling i call mtb" attitude of the forum*
*huge broad brushstrokes applied to make a point x
Hope you're not seeing a slowdown in revenue that reflects the quieter feel we are talking about Mark.
I would have guessed 55-64 to be the 1st or 2nd biggest segment there, otherwise it's sort of as expected.
There's lots of ways of making pull quotes from that simple set of numbers. For example 56% of us are under the age of 45.
9.5% in the 18-24 bracket is good too. I mean, that's around 45k monthly visitors to the site. And @blackflag makes a salient point. Let's not conflate the sorts of people who post on forums with the sorts of people who regularly visit a mountain bike website. They are are not the same thing. Cougar raised the 90:9:1 rule earlier which is still very much a thing. 1% of visitors is all you can generally predict will START a conversation (post). only 9% of visitors will generally then reply to a post and 90% of visitors will generally never do either and just watch. Check the views vs posts numbers on the forum index pages as an example.
I think when I last looked into it a few years ago I came up with the stat of 4% representing the proprtion of our actual site visitors who have ever posted anything on the forum.
The internet continues to develop and change driven by our own needs and the pace of new tech. We don;t have th etraffic numbers we had say 2 years ago but the drop in traffic has come from the types of people who bounce in and out. So what we have seen is our engagement metrics (how long people hang around/visit. How many pages they look at each visit etc.) has gone up quite a lot. The interpretation that best fits that and all the other data I have is that the casual visitor who doesn't engage and bounces is coming by a lot less often. The people who engage and are contributing and signing up for things like our newsletter are either staying the same or growing. The source of our revenues is from the latter group. in short the high traffic numbers we had a few years ago was mostly due to casual visitors who weren't really interested in what we do. The bulk of that traffic was coming in and hitting th ebig threads on the chat forum for stuff that had nothing to do with our site subject matter. That kind of visitor doesn't click on ads as they are not interested in ads for bikes (I know there are other ads but the bike stuff hits them forst and since many never made it to page 2 that's all they ever saw). So that traffic as a revenue source was lousy. The loss of those big traffic numbers has not really had a financial impact in short.
The state of the bike industry and the economy in general causing so many of us to have to tighten belts is the major cause of financial stress. The number one reason (we do solicit reasons) for subs cancellations is cutting back on the outgoings to save money. A subscriptiuon to a bike mag is a sensible choice to cut if you need to save money. Streaming services have suffered the same way as have the majority of other magazines in other industries. The current tongue in cheek catchphrase among media publishers of all types right now is 'Flatlining is the new growth' - dark humour.
Anyway, back to Singletrack. The quietness in the forum of late hasn't surprised me as the weather has been bloody amazing. Our busiest time of year is always January when it's shite outside and there's no distractions like Christmas in the way. Weather does show itself in the stats. A rainy monday is the best conditions for our traffic 🙂 Conversely, traffic to editorial pages has seen a large spike in the last month, so as forum traffic may have calmed our overall site traffic has increased around 20% in the space of a month. Google has made some changes that brings what it considers higher quality editorial content from established medai to the fore in more google searches - especially in Google chrome.
My goal for the year is to grow our newsletter subscriptions and finish the year with trhe same or slightly more paying subscribers that we started with. With the bike industry starting to show signs of recovery in the latter part of the year that means we should be in a good position going into 2026 to grow and be financially more sustainable - even profitable. There is a plan to get there and a very big part of that will be revealed very soon.
I went on a bit there. Sorry 🙂
The forum is dying because it's a bike forum where people talk about expensive new bikes or tech rather than interesting stuff like actually riding bikes
FTFY]
They aren't mutually exclusive.
It bugs me slightly that the quote above makes it look like I said that bollocks when I absolutely didn't! The quote was Jamz and was then "wittily" 🙄 edited by as a "FTFY" by thegeneralist. Nowt to do with me!
Just spotted that... Soz. I used the quote function and thought I'd quote the whole thing but I guess it's yet another forum quirk.
I should've waited 45 seconds to see if it worked
No worries, not your fault 🙂 👍
I'm now in my 50s and it feels like UK MTB and the STW demographic are now in quite different places.
Next time you pass through some woods and see some young guns building jumps and berms on the steepest part of the hill, then sessioning them on a nukeproof ebike (without some boring old man calling them a cheat), ask them why they are not on here. Bet they've never heard of it.
Whereas I'd argue that the jumpy folk have been over represented in the UK MTB media for decades. From my own experience of riding, riding with others, seeing folk riding and selling bikes, that's a tiny fraction of the MTB activity going on and I don't think that's ever been the majority of folk on STW.
I would agree with Scotroutes on that - may be partly a regional thing?
Back on topic, been here a while, mostly as a lurker but occasionally post up. Think the forum is definitely quieter than years ago, although I think this thread proves there's still plenty of people here (even if you take out the few pages of grumbling about each other). I have seen this forum going above and beyond for other forum users, laughed along with various threads and would hate to lose this place. On the other side I avoid certain topics because I know it'll just be like watching monkeys throwing poo at each other at the zoo
I think Mark and the Mods are doing the best they can and fair play - I wouldn't like to do it.
If you get too worked up about this place - go out and ride your bike, its nice out there
So maybe you'd like to see more of this type of riding?
Try to forgive him for saying "air down" when he means "let some air out", the latter phrase does get used eventually 😀
Whereas I'd argue that the jumpy folk have been over represented in the UK MTB media for decades. From my own experience of riding, riding with others, seeing folk riding and selling bikes, that's a tiny fraction of the MTB activity going on and I don't think that's ever been the majority of folk on STW.
I'd say a good 50% or more of the riders I know are jumpers or looking for the steepest gnarliest tech they know - but there is a good mix of ages from 20's to 60's - some of the 50 plus age group make up the hardcore ones though. Personally at 53, I'm a) - not into breaking myself and b) - dont mind some steep tech, but prefer it as part of a ride. If I hear they are going sessioning, I'll go and ride somewhere else
Just a thought - maybe we all need to remember this a bit more. We do seem to have a lot of arguements coming from misunderstandings. I certainly shall
Hanlons razor "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"
Age demographic for the last month in ranking order.
So basically it's an inverse curve to likelihood of having a car accident.
Hey @mark - where's the under 18s bracket, do you have to be 18+ to create an account? Aside from maintaining a degree of decorum I thought that was one of the reasons for the swear filter.
Google doesn’t collect data from under 18s.
so they say.
Ahh, a good point well presented.
Google doesn’t collect data from under 18s
I read that and my immediate thought was...
so they say
🤣
Hanlons razor "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"
👍 Very true, should you ever fail to share my view on something I will remember that you are most likely not being malicious 😀
Ohhhhhh - saucer of cream for the buccaneer 🙂
Thought you were being a touch cheeky.....deliberately so you little stirrer 😀
It's a lot more toxic and less humourous than it used to be.
this basically.
Used to be here most days. Commented a bit. Then people started with the minutiae of their pet peeve, and if you disagreed, there'd be a pile on.
Can't be dealing with it. I was here to relax and enjoy. Not be lectured about the fact anything to right of Che Guevara is Trump incarnate.
So - off to reddit. Find a sub or two i enjoy. So now, when I want to find out about something, STW is not the first place i think of.
And, you know, life. Sun's out, less time on a PC. More work, less time doom scrolling a forum.
Not new news but a forum is like a pub.
Initially you pop in and like the feel of it. After a few quiet drinks on your own you get to recognise faces. You join in the conversations as you’re like minded people and it’s a good laugh. You enjoy being there.
Then it gets busier, more people come in. You no longer recognise all the faces, there’s less common interest. Too many people talking too loudly to properly follow the conversations. Far too many shouty people who like to use their pub persona to be a big character … often too aggressively. You find yourself no longer enjoying the experience.
It’s no longer the kind of pub you first came into and you notice many of the like minded people are no longer around.
Then you realise that the landlord is working so hard to keep the doors open that the pub has just become a mechanism to earn money to keep the lights on at the expense of the atmosphere that the pub had originally. The landlord steps away from conversations on the customer side, none of their business. After all, the more people who come for the shouting, the more pints and peanuts get bought … with advertising everywhere to earn more money.
You tolerate it until you set foot in another pub that more suits your style and leave the shouty people to it, maybe popping in occasionally for old times sake but it certainly isn’t your regular anymore.
It’d be interesting to know what the foot fall is on the chat forum compared to the bike forum. Is it STW really a place for ‘Singletrack’ riders any more or just a place for people who have or have had in the past some level of interest in biking?
I count six new bike forum threads in the last day but 10 new chat threads. Is the forum here to be its own standalone business stream or to support the magazine. Can a more general customer base achieve that?
Ah ****, we're the old bastards in the snug aren't we? Moaning about the people enjoying themselves too loudly in the main bar.
It’d be interesting to know what the foot fall is on the chat forum compared to the bike forum. Is it STW really a place for ‘Singletrack’ riders any more or just a place for people who have or have had in the past some level of interest in biking?
Back when I had visibility of such things, posts in the two forums was as close to 50:50 as made no odds. Chat tended to have fewer but longer threads than Bike. A quick eyeball scan of the first page of both just now shows that in Chat there are many threads into the thousands and some in the tens of thousands (the Ukraine thread is over 100k posts!); meanwhile over in Bike (aside from the stickies) few come close to that, most are in the hundreds.
As for viewing figures, I have no clue. That's a question for Mark.
(the Ukraine thread is over 100k posts!);
Whoops, mia culpa, that's Views. It's still a lot of posts though, 21k
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"
who you calling stupid?! 😡
It's a lot more toxic and less humourous than it used to be
Nothing is ever as good as 'it used to be', file also under 'modern life is rubbish'. I think some of this is people simply pining for their own lost youth / middle age / good times on a bike and projecting it onto the forum. I bet there were similar threads back in the 'golden age' of the forum too.
Remember when people were so disenchanted that they splintered off and formed their own alt forum, mostly so they could swear more freely I think. Wasn't that right in the heart of the forum's supposed prime time, if this thread is to be believed, of being amazing, non-toxic, darkly funny etc.
Memory is notoriously unreliable and the past is often rose tinted by default.
If the forum is 'dying', I suspect it has more to do with the bigger picture of forums competing with the massive reach of social media. In a way it's amazing that 'legacy forums' like this, mumsnet, pistonheasds, ukc, etc are still even there.
I'm not surprised, it's incredibly slow to login, to post, to view. I load up 5-8 interesting post at a time because I'd be dead loading up one by one.
It logs you out on the regular, it's clunky to use and so half the time I just give up.
I'm on a forum that's paid for by it's 30k users and it's so much better, just can't embed bsky posts yet.
I used to spend almost all day every day browsing the forum but since Christmas it's become pretty much unusable for me. Painfully slow to load pages so by the time a topic actually opens I've wondered off to do something else. As a result I haven't bothered renewing my sub as I've unfortunately finally got to the point where I think it's a complete waste of money.
I can’t help thinking that the people who are having problems have problems caused by whatever machine or operating system that they’re using. I’m not at all technically proficient and it’s been a seamless experience for quite a while now, I’m using iPad and iPhone with the latest IOS..
I'm on a forum that's paid for by it's 30k users and it's so much better, just can't embed bsky posts yet.
Posted by a free member.....
I can’t help thinking that the people who are having problems have problems caused by whatever machine or operating system that they’re using.
There has to be an element of that. It's not as snappy as it could be and the guys are working on it, but for me a page load is 2 seconds which I'd hardly describe as "painfully slow." I can't remember the last time I was logged out other than by choice, let alone "on the regular." My phone gets logged out sometimes but that's because I only use it for web browsing if I have to.
I've no idea what people's loadout looks like, but if you're running ad blockers or script killers or cookie cutters or whatever, things might break. That said, my primary browser is likely locked down tighter than most folks' and I have network level security in place, and everything still works.
What does it look like in Incognito mode? What does it look like when you're logged out?
I can’t help thinking that the people who are having problems have problems caused by whatever machine or operating system that they’re using. I’m not at all technically proficient and it’s been a seamless experience for quite a while now, I’m using iPad and iPhone with the latest IOS..
same here, plus a MacBook and I refer the honourable person to my first post on this thread.
Counted 10 seconds watching the wheel turn to post that ^
I can’t help thinking that the people who are having problems have problems caused by whatever machine or operating system that they’re using. I’m not at all technically proficient and it’s been a seamless experience for quite a while now, I’m using iPad and iPhone with the latest IOS..
2020 iMac 27"
Processor Name: 6-Core Intel Core i5
Processor Speed: 3.3 GHz
64gb ram
iPad Pro or iPhone XS with latest iOS software
this is the only forum I have an issue with
edit - 16 seconds to post above
Am old enough to remember when this place used to be primarily about an interest in bicycles. Then at some point it became an extension of all the other same nonsense on social media in general... and for some of us that means it not only becomes incredibly boring, but more recently grouped with things to make a conscious effort to avoid.