Livejournal Versus Websites

[author_by_night]

(This public post mostly refers to Harry Potter fandom, but can apply to others. I just don't know how it works in other fandoms in terms of websites over LJ. But if it's like that in other fandoms, or just the opposite, I'd still love to know.)

When I first came into fandom, messageboards were huge. But now, I've noticed a decline. Messageboards (and websites overall), old and new and revamped, seem to get far less traffic.

My question is - what's the cause? Obviously there are many reasons. Without naming names, some boards over time became so big that it got confusing for the members. Then suddenly, many members left, and it eclined from there. There's also the fact that members who had time to run the sites and messageboards and/or be active in keeping things going there had less time.

But could Livejournal have an impact as well? I wonder if people aren't choosing Livejournal over messageboards and websites, and that's what I'm asking. I know with me, I do certainly find it's sometimes easier to post on Livejournal.  For one, LJ doesn't have the "newbie stage" - the newbie stage being the stage wherein new members are more or less ignored on the basis of being new. For another, I myself am a very elaborative person; at a board, half of what I'd want to say would probably be considered "tl;dr" ("too long, don't read"),  so I have to shorten it. But when I shorten things, I'm often too vague and make no sense.  On many occasions, discussions at messageboards have prompted Livejournal responses, because I'd rather not write a full page reply. ) However, on a website, I do know what I'm going to see and discuss; it's harder to have a firm idea of that with Livejournal, because even LJ communities change.

Thoughts?

Comments

[bragg247.livejournal.com]

We've talked about this before, I think - I don't think LJ has caused the decline so much, as there's just been a decline in general. The HP fandom was gargantuan once, but it was never going to be sustainable, even if the series had gone on forever. (Like you, basing this mostly off HP, as the only other fandoms I've been even slightly a part of are for long-dead series, and as such will always remain on the miniscule side.) From what I've seen, the decline's been fairly universal - journals, sites, forums, the whole nine yards. I think some big boards getting too self-important for their own good and driving people away probably helped things along, but not much more than things like the Strikethrough fiasco did.

~bragg247

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

I don't know if I agree that Harry Potter fandom isn't sustainable, although I do think it's probably going to be much smaller eventually. Sort of like when the books first came out, before the rest of the world caught onto the fact that you could harvest your obsession into the net, when there were patches of huge fans here and there, but those patches had a fairly moderate number and all. And I think that eventually it'll be a completely different fandom.