Forum Activity

[A-man]

Any particular reason why gotmead is dead?

Seems in the last few years this place went from hopping to flat.

 

[4give]

I hear what you're saying... Not sure why, but I can hypothesize that it's due to the tremendous amount of teaching and data that's already out there. Several posts (including ones I've made) have referred to links and/or teaching topics that are already published. That doesn't do a whole lot for social interaction on a forum. I'm not a patron, but maybe all the conversations are happening on those links and FB groups, etc., instead of on the free forum posts. Maybe it's just a cycle where those that have been interested in mead are in a good spot right now, or quit making it, and there will be another swing in traffic volume. All speculation on my part, but it would be nice to see more folks participating.

 

[darigoni]

For a while the gotmead site was VERY SLOW. Slow enough that you would get tired of waiting for it to load. I’m thinking the site lost a lot of users right around that time. Also, as was already said, people may have moved onto the Facebook sites (Modern Mead Makers and Gotmead). And, of course, some of the regulars who hung out on the site have come and gone. Hopefully a new generation will come along before the site becomes a total ghost town........

 

[m0n5t3r]

also, once you got the basics (which mostly doesn't involve interaction these days, most interaction will either be a link or "listen to podcasts from x to x", as the information has mostly converged to the good stuff), there isn't much to talk about (even for spice combinations I usually search "x y mead", and will usually find someone who made it and tells about it on some blog or reddit); and, while I'm not a reddit or facebook user, I look at r/mead from time to time and 90% of the content seems to be photos of carboys and / or bottles; lots of activity does not useful content make

 

[EricHartman]

I'm not sure how far back you are thinking A-man... I know in my travels over the forums there was a massive amount of activity 5+ years ago... It seemed like there was a lot of experimentation and learning going on as a community. That certainly created a ton of knowledge, expertise, and content! I think some of the problem is that the experimentation with "how" is fairly well ironed out with TOSNA, O2 additions, rehydration practices, etc... now its more with the what. As Monster and Squatchy have pointed out these are more individualistic journeys, that are directed at our particular tastes, and are somewhat hard to describe on a forum.

Added to this is the dominance/ease/portability of social media groups and forums are becoming a somewhat antiquated medium in general.

This question of yours has lead me to believe my link blast may not be a good thing. I have stored my journey into mead making, over the last year, into a collection of links. Given my inexperience I'm hesitant to share advice, after all I'm no expert; however, I've been plenty happy to share my list of links to the experts I've found. I wonder if this tends to stifle discussion?

 

[MrRogers]

I think that, unlike a few years ago, there are several places around the web where you can find good information about mead, Facebook groups probably being the most active (at least from the ones I know). Also all the information available in this forum, as well as the podcast, is piling up, and most of it was written years ago by people who hasn't been around here for a while. At the moment I'm trying to catch up with mead making, after a break, and even if I just stick to GotMead content, the information already available is probably more than enough to keep me busy. I was never very active in the forum, being mostly a reader, so nowadays it would be even harder for me to come up with new and relevant topics, and even to find the time to write about them. And it only gets more difficult when I start adding all the other sources of mead making knowledge. In Facebook alone there are quite a few mead groups, some with overwhelming activity, to the point of making it almost impossible to follow.

So, in a way I would prefer to actually stick to one place, but then comes the "fear of missing out".

 

[Squatchy]

Forums are somewhat a thing of the past as FB is super active and many people (most) don't really want to learn the process. They want a spoon feed instant answer. Regardless if the responder is proven to be one of knowledge or not. This is a great place to come learn as almost all anyone could teach these days are well covered here in this library so to speak. I'm a moderator on the biggest FB page and there are a ton of great moderators on that group. As well as great mead makers. But with that said. Most of "the buzz" each day is always the same old beginner questions. If you look across the full spectrum on the web these days. Almost all of the forums are in the same boat. There really isn't anything I can think of that hasn't been covered here.

As mentioned in the above. Some of what people ask for all the time are questions that only they can answer. The "how much" is a ridiculous question. I understand that most people are used to reading a fixed recipe and want that for mead. But not too many would get on a forum and ask how much creamer should they put in their coffee. Or, how much salt should I put in my soup?

Stick around here and learn and you will be miles ahead of those that want to be spoon fed on FB.

 

[bernardsmith]

I wonder if the reason that the forum seems to have become fairly quite in the last few weeks is in part because of the fact that a few weeks ago we were all locked out. And IF (IF) after a few weeks of being unable to enter the forum to share ideas, to learn from others or to offer thoughts you learn that the forum is not quite as important as you considered it because there are other media out there (as Squatchy suggests), so it may not be so obvious that you will return... You quite simply get out of the habit...

 

[darigoni]

One of the things I complained about, after Vicky made some upgrades, was that posts would be deleted off of the Activity Stream, after 24 hours. So, if you come to the forum, after 24 hours from the last post, none of the new posts will show up and you have no idea when or if there has been any recent activity. It seems like an easy thing to fix......

 

[rb2112br]

I don't even look at the Activity Stream for new posts. I just look at that little chat icon in front of each sub-forum. They are a different color if there are new posts in that sub-forum.

 

[A-man]

I agree with all of you for the various likely reasons to the posting decline. Very sad that FB would become the primary discussion forum. It's such a lousy format (not to mention abominable company) but these are the times.

I have a background in homebrewing beer though I have been away from that for some time. I became interested in mead recently and have done a crash course in the differences and will be doing my first batch by this weekend. In any case, this may be the longest thread on this forum in some time, lol.

May all your meads be drinkable.

 

[EricHartman]

In Facebook alone there are quite a few mead groups, some with overwhelming activity, to the point of making it almost impossible to follow.

So, in a way I would prefer to actually stick to one place, but then comes the "fear of missing out".

I found the same thing on the FB groups. The convenience was nice but there were so many posts that I was overwhelmed! I ended up returning to gotmead for my meading community.