The font is downright painful. The word ‘languorous’ comes to mind when I try to read paragraphs in this confounded font. Boring, slow and inefficient; words taking up way too much space on my phone or Ipad. I also really miss the option to easily select the last page of a thread without needing to scroll down and attempt to hit the correct page number. For me, things started to go downhill when they introduced “Agree”, “Like” and “Helpful” counters. A small minority may get a boost from those affirmations but the majority will be left with negative feelings (lots of data on the phenomenon). End of tirade, I still think this is a great place for objective intelligent feedback. I hope things turn around.
I exclusively use my phone to access CC and it’s a chore, not fun anymore.
But I’ve been on here since I was a sophomore in high school and many posters here feel like extended family. So I want to keep up my pregnancy updates just like I do with close family and longtime friends. If it weren’t for that though, I think I’d be more or less completely gone.
I have a few thread I follow and occasional new ones. Love our book club even if I don’t post much (usually behind on the reading), and long standing threads such as good deals, wedding, dressing young, etc. I bookmark the cafe and now rarely try to find anything else. I read it on an iPad and have gotten used to the font. Really, I am no loner the target audience since I no longer have anyone in school or trying to get into schools. Hard to market to me.
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It seems to me that this is all for a purpose. I assume the mass of white space is supposed to be filled with advertising, and the conversation aspect is optimized for minimum reading and maximum advertising. I wonder if it would be better to let the sponsors know how awful the new set up is though, traffic loss means advertisers pull out and it is all for nought for the site.
I’ve been hoping the quiet is due to summer vacations. I guess we’ll know soon.
I guess I’m in the minority but I’ve visited other forums that have changed formats and I get used to it after awhile. This set up is fine for me.
It’s summer and I’m busy so I’m not posting that much.
I think that the all powerful Facebook and it’s groups have taken over the earth. I visited another forum that traffic is down and I think it’s because people are using Facebook groups like they did message boards.
I like it here and think of so many of you as friends. I moved after my kids went to college and CC has been a great help to find smart provoking conversations that I don’t get here in my IRL
Here is what I have noticed…
There just aren’t as many parents or students posting questions…or responding even on threads they have started.
It used to be that I could look at the financial aid forum here multiple times a day and there were new questions and responses to them. Now…that isn’t the case at all. Sometimes there are no new posts between the early morning and my bedtime. I think that’s a significant reduction in posts.
At the moment I’m interested in the wedding thread. Days go by without a post.
I, too, have the Cafe tab open, and it is the only place I go anymore. The helpful, compassionate, insightful conversations and responses of this community keep me here even as my youngest approaches her 31st birthday. Thanks to those of you who contribute.
I’m going to go out on a limb and see if I can get anyone to agree that since this post (@conmama 's OP) the Parent Cafe has seen an uptick in # of threads and # of posts on those threads.
I don’t much visit other forums on CC so can’t have an opinion there.
But the last couple days, more activity here. Thumbs up.
Has anyone looked closely at the analytics link posted upthread? The site started on a steep dive the day the new design went live. It’s quite astonishing. This site is literally dying and it’s sad that the owners are content to let it do so.
This is steep skid for CC. Are “pageviews” just for the mainpage? Or does every click count as an additional pageview? The relaunch has forced users to do a lot more clicking, so if those additional clicks are still resulting in plummeting pageviews, CC is in really sad shape.
I’m not sure how I missed this thread, except that, like most, I’m spending less time here.
Those analytics are eye-opening. There’s an obvious peak each spring and an expected drop in the summers, but the 2019 peak was lower than the 2017 summer melt. What happened in 2017, which is when the larger decline started? Serious question. The decline is noticeable after that year. Does anyone know whether it’s possible to get info from years ago? When I was first on and active with my kids’s searches (roughly 2008-2014), I felt like it was really hopping but maybe I was on more/different forums that still get more traffic than the cafe.
I’ve said before that I’m on cc on my laptop not a phone so I just don’t find the changes that big a deal, but I, too, have noticed a drop in traffic, like thumper. I rarely start threads at this point, but I did recently on the FA forum. I was surprised how it only yielded nine responses, and I think three of them were mine. I have been hesitant to post in the past because things took on lives of their own and went down rabbit holes, but not this time. Which was nice, but also surprising.
I am really looking forward to jumping into the MOG or whatever threads when applicable, but cc might be gone before my kids get there!
ETA: A couple of people have mentioned focus groups. I guess I missed those. Can anyone shed some light on that?
I don’t know if the # of threads and posts in the parent cafe are up, but if they are I’d attribute it to threads that seem to have been created for the purpose of increasing involvement. Genuine involvement is sustainable, but as we saw from the slew posters who seemed “off” who joined just after the update, activity designed to drive traffic isn’t.
Is 2017 the time that we had the last cc overhaul? I know a lot of longtime posters never came back after that.
That’s what I was thinking, romani.
Curious. What purpose does the blame game fulfill? Will it check a mark off your list when/if you figure out the “why” of the analytics?
Drop in posts = negative (for CC and participants)
Drop in message board morale = negative (for CC and participants)
Negative morale = negative vibe, creates more reasons to walk away - unless you like that kind of negative torture!
(and I’m completely aware that I said I was exiting the thread and have posted twice today - last ditch efforts for my own mental health to try and promote a shift to proactive and positive)
IMO, this site lost its humor, if it ever had one.
@abasket, I love data. Analytics make my heart race a bit. There is no ill will intended by the question, just curiosity. I don’t know why you seem to take it so personally.