Anyone else noticed that forum posts are slowing down?

[MLD]

i agree that the likes of FB and the multitude of different sub-forums in defender land is killing consolidated wisdom. for example, on FB i joined, to name a few: HMLR, AULRO, Sydney Defenders, 130 Defenders, bagged defenders, Cummins LR, LS swapped land rovers and others that have fallen off the list of the regulars. All those posts on those FB pages once resided on AULRO, Defender Source and DefenderNet forums.

Whenever i do a search for specific information on a part, dimensions, weights, specifications etc, those forums that are slowly dying are my primary source of info. Hell, i can't even find posts on FB that i saw the day before because the algorithm says its not for my eyes any more. There is a stack of knowledge on FB but because the way information flashes past you and searching is a nightmare, there is a tendency to see the same question come up all the time and the same answer given. Consolidated knowledge forums would make those repetitive questions redundant. While i'm ranting, my observation of most FB responders is they do not read the OP and answer some different questions they think is being asked. Or they tend to spend all energy arguing over semantics of a post within it. Don't get me started on punctuation. Don't get me double started on AI generated content or spoofers that post without purpose often stealing information from other posts as their content. best i put down the keyboard before i blow a capillary.

[POD]

Yes I had not considered the impact of FB groups when I made this observation. The plethora of little compartmentalised groups certainly isolates information. I have to admit that I would sooner post a question afresh on the forum than search the archives- it does seem to annoy some people when you ask a question that was answered five years ago but I think it tends to keep the thing alive as a 'community' (an over-used term) rather than an online searchable database.

[DiscoDB]

not to mention that AI is going to great lengths to steal everybodies knowledge for their own enrichment and give nothing back to the sources they raid.

Interestingly I was searching for some technical information on the D3 on google and the Google AI response gave me a very detailed explanation which summarised multiple AULRO posts all with links for the source comments and supporting confirmation from non-AULRO sources.

One of the threads it linked from AULRO had over 150 pages, many of which had different opinions.

Was the first time I saw Google AI summarise posts from AULRO for an answer.

[HardCharger]

i have been asking for ages for people to let me know they are having the issue.

send me the results of going to whatsmyipadress.com via a pm and i will get it looked into. also let me know what device and browser you are using please

I couldn't PM as I couldn't even log in.

I didn't know where to send my concerns to in this instance so I waited for a chance that I finally could log in to air out my difficulty in accessing the site.

Right now, I use my old MacBook Air via Safari and my iPad Pro also using Safari. Lately it has been a hit or miss situation for me. I do, however, still get the updates to the posts I follow via email so that's something.

[incisor]

Interestingly I was searching for some technical information on the D3 on google and the Google AI response gave me a very detailed explanation which summarised multiple AULRO posts all with links for the source comments and supporting confirmation from non-AULRO sources.

One of the threads it linked from AULRO had over 150 pages, many of which had different opinions.

Was the first time I saw Google AI summarise posts from AULRO for an answer.

they would be pulling that from google search results over the years i would think, known ai bots are blocked but i cannot stop them using their google search results and numerous other bits of data they have collected and can still get via other means that don't obey robots.txt etc.

been my experience that ai bots cannot be throttled only blocked, mainly by ip. yet to see any other way of successfully controlled if they don't want to play the game properly.

have heard mention of a couple of commercial products, way too expensive to implement here that maybe getting them sorted