Forums | MacLife

Could it be that some people have gotten jobs/boy friends/girl friends/wives/husbands/children? Basically a life and aren't the bottom-feeding, sun-avoiding, computer freaks that normally frequent forums?

I mean, really, is it such a stretch to believe that priorities change over time?

This forum is actually not bad. There is humor, intelligence, bad spelling, worse logic, but basically very nice people who keep coming back.

My first computer was a TRS-80, my second was an Apple ][, and from then til now, the best, most informed, friendliest, and welcoming forum I've ever been on has been here. I don't post everywhere, and not in all threads. If I have nothing to contribute, I usually don't submit anything. Sometimes I think we all forget that silence is better than running your mouth off.

Participation on forums (BBS) tends to run in cycles anyway, much as do UFO sightings, werewolve shifting, and seasons.

Oh, and I was a member around issue 4 or 5, but damn if I didn't fall off the edge of the world until 2000, and have to begin anew with this user ID.

Last edited by sturner (2008-03-21 1:18 pm)

LukeLucas wrote:

yeah... taken from a completely personal standpoint, i just don't post nearly like i used to.

since i've joined these forums, i've...

1) returned to college
2) finished college
3) gotten married
4) started a career

i'm here all the time, reading and digesting what comes through the forums, but compared to my early days of membership, i post next to nothing anymore. its just not a priority like it once was.

Heretic!  You will be punished. Your Mac will spew smoke and Apple will tell  you it's a software problem.

reece_james wrote:

wellfleation wrote:

These forums are dead. No one seems to reply to posts as much as in the past. Something is clearly wrong and this could be the demise of MacAddict, uh, I mean MacLife forums.

The reason is obvious, tito isn't here!

tito, phy, peach...

MacMonkey wrote:

tito, phy, peach...

where did they all go? ch54?

What happened to twistedguy? I enjoyed his insight.

wellfleation wrote:

What happened to twistedguy? I enjoyed his insight.

He's around. Yesterday, 9:45PM...

http://www.maclife.com/forums/post/1544996#p1544996

IT'S DEAD JIM!

Czachorski wrote:

This will probably get moved, but it shouldn't.  There has been so much sour puss whining about Apple dominating the discussion in this forum, that it has killed this place.  I mean just look at the post counts and active threads around here.  Pathetic.   I can understand it too.  Who wants to discuss everything Apple when there is so much BS sour grapes around here, and anyone who posts anything positive about immediately gets slammed with a bunch of fringe, frantic opinions.  It is worse than the days where there were trolls.

Mac|Life forums have died.  Sad.

To get back to this little missive. If anything it' more the frantic fanboyish inability of Jobs fans to deal with any diversity of opinion.
Apple has chosen to go off in a very debatable direction hardware wise, particularly on the desktop and that is going to cause contention.
Also I think the larger issue is the demographic Apple is going after now. Seems to me Apple is primarily aimed at people who dont actually like computers particularly, arent the least interested in hardware issues and are happy in iLife land.
Not really the type who are going to be forum posters.
Time was a very high percentage of posters here were either graphics professionals or hobbyists who operated at or near a pro level. But as Apple's share has grown the percentage of enthusiastic geek types has declined and the iMac crowd has taken over. I would say that Apple has pretty deliberately made themselves unattractive to computing enthusiasts. Enthusiastic geeks have interesting things to say. The new bunch, not so much
If someone is using all in one hardware and stays inside the iLife box there isnt really much to talk about is there? It's not like there has been any actually interesting hardware news. Nothing but incremental updates for years on end also do not promote much excitement.
While Apple does seem to be engaging in some creative thought in other areas on the computer side it has been a case of just more of the same for along time. So not a lot to talk about.

ScifiterX wrote:

You are one to talk Pariah. You go of on other being narrow mind and then immediately go into a narrow-minded diatribe yourself (and double posted it at that). Just some of us in there would mind the tower you keep insisting we need but we simply feel Apple's current offering serve us every bit as well if not better yet when we point it out you do the posting equivalent of dismissing us.

Generally I dismiss when people tell me that Apple's line-up fills my needs. I usually believe people when they say what they bought fills their own needs.
My contention is that while an iMac can manage in many cases a better solution would be a desktop C2D solution that would offer greater performance a a lower price. I have been following the whole iMac vs xMac discussion on several websites and forums and the break down seems to go like this:
A minority feel iMacs are the best possible solution for practically any home use.
A large plurality of people who think iMacs are "OK" and will or have bought one but admit that had a tower been available that's what they would have bought. The people who "settled" for an iMac in other words.
Then another minority who feel as I do that AIOs are a lousy solution most of the time and are really only best as solutions where appearance and size are the over-riding considerations. More important than value, versatility, durability or performance.
So basically my observation is that the majority of forum posters would prefer a tower but will settle, a minority LOVE iMacs and another minority hates them.
So you have a majority who will buy an iMac but the majority of those people would actually prefer a tower but dont feel strongly enough about it to find an iMac completely unacceptable.
Most consumers are pretty malleable and just go along making the best choice from available models and not fretting much about what might be better. Also I would be willing to bet serious money the overwhelming majority of iMac buyers haven't the first clue there is a difference between the internals of an iMac and a real desktop machine so have no idea they are paying a premium for stuff that under performs relative to Intel's desktop offerings.
Really it's a case of pop culture mass marketing trumping technical excellence, as it almost always does. Pretty and fashionable wins at the mall.

Farmerkev wrote:

Strange, this MacPro tower next to me seems to be the most kick ass computer Apple has made to date.
If you want a tower, Apple sells them.
That some people want a Cadillac for the price of a Geo is their problem.

I have an opinion on the value of the Xeons relative to the desktop C2Ds you probably wouldn't like either. While projected changes might alter things, for the last couple of years it is the C2Ds that have really been the sweet spot with Intel. Tests I have seen suggest that C2Ds will keep up, clock for clock, with Xeons in almost all but the extremely multi-threaded environments they were designed for.
So if you are running a high end desktop application like Photoshop you would get the same performance out of the much cheaper C2D.
The fact is for professional desktop 2D graphics Apple really does not offer an optimized solution. It is an environment where neither laptop or server parts are the best choices.
But the one thing that really links the two lines together, both the iMac/Mini laptop line and the "Pro" server line: The lack of readily available, affordable drop in CPU  and MoBo replacements. I hardly think this is a coincidence and I think that ultimately this explains the Apple desktop line.

matt wrote:

Phy posts there, his own forums, and at MacStack.

and megatokyo and official rock band forums and happy but dead and chugworth and yoursider and troutsider and nsider2 and nsf and digg and fark and ...

you think hed get tire dof it after awhile

Temetka wrote:

I used to be a regular poster here.

Then the crash happened and I stayed on.

Then the BBS switch.

Then the magazine name changed.

IMO here is what happened:

Corporate mentality and a lack of true geek interest coupled with severe to ridiculous amounts of overmoderation are slowly killing the forums.

I stop by every now and then holding a candle. I have moved on. This forum will never be the Tower of Apple Knowledge it once was. It's sad sure, but life goes on.

++

I've all but stopped buying the Mags, I only stay on in the forums. MacAddict defined my younger years. I used to post a lot in balloon help, now I can't even work out which forum that's supposed to be.