Thanks for first hand 'then and now' perspective of Guitar Tricks' forum over the years john.

Involved in 'forum' participation since the initial BBS fidonet days, to see discussion groups evolve to usenet newsgroups and morph into the discussion forums of today, there's been a lot of change over the past 25 years. Also in the people who use them, and how they use them.

IME today, each forum even within an interest genre has a different feel established by the forum owners and participants it attracts regardless the software they choose to use. Unless it's just a skin, Guitar Tricks AFAIK use a proprietary forum software integrated into their GUI website software and design? We all have our favourite forum software, although that isn't the deciding factor when it comes to traffic IMObs. Personally, I prefer the ubiquitous pHpBB. Powerful, clean meat 'n taters forum software which does 'what it says on the tin'.

What is unusual IME is to find such relatively low traffic generated on a forum for a website targeting beginners and intermediates as their significant client demographic? All forums do go through activity periods where a core group of participants are active for a time attracting in turn wider participation through the herd or 'popular venue' effect. As they leave or change, forum participation waxes and wanes over time with the overall momentum. I haven't been here long enough to gauge that in the specific case of Guitar Tricks. I do note in the few other guitar orientated forums I participate or lurk in, that they don't have record participation levels either. It's usually the gear orientated forums where people talk about their 'stuff' that have higher participation levels.

Agree the GT user profile page is rather spartan, although I don't search or rely upon profiles often myself here or elsewhere. Absence of private messaging is odd. Pretty basic stuff in almost all forum software.

On a most positive note, access to interaction with the instructors in these forums is invaluable, with particular kudos going to Christopher Schlegel whose sincere and untiring proactive forum participation with even Gumby guitarists like me, is role model material for me. Respect. Pure gold.

I like being able to direct a question in here I can't fathom the answer for myself whether it's lesson specific or general, to one of the instructors where relevant in their Q&A sub-forum, or even just put it out there.

I agree with you and the OP. More interaction and user participation would be a good thing, but ultimately when it comes to posting and quality vs quantity, give me quality. That said, like Christophers', I always read your posts john. 😎