Y so ded, bruh. Eh. Like they say: Yolo. More room for me to spam one-liner shyt that'll rot yo' brain.
The new forum layout made summer traffic kind of slow, and ever since autumn started in the Northern Hemisphere in September, traffic has slowed even more.
This layout definitely takes some adjusting. It has a lot of features, which are very nice. I've grown to like this layout but there definitely is something still very appealing about the simplicity of the old one.
I honestly don’t think the layout killed forums... as that has changed before, I personally think it was the overall attitude of forums that killed it. I predict new participation will continually decline unless forums becomes more inclusive or invitations are actually extended using other channels. I do not think that any other forum topics, made by members other than ATA themselves, will draw the interest of 300 unique replies from different users in a single month from this point on based on how most users perceive forums at this point. I believe the summer of 2018 was the last time that level of activity has been seen other than possibly the selfie thread. At this rate, I predict that there will also be less lurkers. TL;DR Want forums to live?... bring life to it.
Idk, I've seen a lot of people say that the new layout is deterring them from using it ー both people that posted in old forums, and those that had just lurked. The attitude in forums certainly isn't nice, but I know the new layout has definitely played a significanf factor in traffic decreasing.