did social networking kill gotapex?

[Cheesypuff]

I linger from time to time...but I don't really post anymore. I miss the old days of ranting and raving about trivial topics. It was definitely good times.

so it got me thinking...did social networking kill gotapex?

discuss

[attgig]

http://extensions.joomla.org/components/com_mtree/img/listings/s/18233.jpg

[mcs328]

http://extensions.joomla.org/components/com_mtree/img/listings/s/18233.jpg
:stupid:

We don't even post on G|A facebook page either.

[Devhux]

I'm not too sure why I actually have the site in my bookmarks folder (though I admit to reading the news page each day to see if lpmiller says anything crazy about the French or something) LOL!

Maybe I'm just waiting for that 2500 post marker.... or hoping that one day I'll log on and see a Pic of the Day post from Zippy. :) I think I'm getting better myself, but nowhere near his level yet.

[cheapie]

that...and we're old now. :heh:

[cruelpupet]

I think its a combo of all the banning back in the day (twi, tuvi, etc...), everyone getting older having kids and less time for here, and back in the day when there was a big keep everything PG crackdown.

[attgig]

and GA forums failed to attract the younger crowd to keep the place going...

[mcs328]

I think the ban hammer that was wielded stemmed from our outlook on life after 9/11 and the election of Bush and then Obama. I think the political forum was a good forum to vent and discuss but then I think the personal attacks ultimately led the departure of not only active posting but also to lurking. It just wasn't worth it anymore.

[Airencracken]

Cyclical. Less content, less reasons to read.

Rinse, repeat.

The censorship didn't help in any way.

Looking back though, it seems to be a pretty common cycle that communities go through. The odd thing about Got|Apex? is that I still come back here, if infrequently. But it's the same across the web (e.g. MySpace).

[Thesifer]

I always forget G|A exists anymore. Only came back today on a whim because I ran out of other internets to visit!

[DarkFury]

Honestly, I've never left...

But yeah, some folks did just "give up" because they were tired of the constant bickering between certain people. For awhile, it just seemed that some folks were just coming here to start flame wars and ultimately when there was nobody left to flame, they flamed out as well.

But I do agree that less and less younger newcomers stopped coming here as the general veterans starting growing older.

[cruelpupet]

oh...i almost forgot....the deals

The deals page I only visit when someone says they want a cheap PC, as I know G|A has the dell deals up top.

But I generally visit fatwallet at least twice a day.

[renovation]

it's the same on other forums i visit -there all fading .im not sure why but its like ten for ten. there all slowing and maybe in part do to places like facebook. but also do to people having less time to spend on there home computers. but also maybe due to cell phones and there carriers offering more for less in fees.
i know on computer geeker forums all across the net .they are much slower now adays then just 2-3 years ago.

[DarkFury]

Too many "kids" hang out on most of the computer forums... and they take bickering to a whole new level (full of cyberspeak and images to put each other down.)

Sigh... for missin' the "good ol' days". :shrug:

[Freelance Superhero]

I'll have to admit I don't come on as often any more, and when I do I mainly lurk, but it's kinda neat to log on every once in a while and see that some of you old regulars are still posting.

Thems were good times, back in the day.

[attgig]

oh...i almost forgot....the deals

The deals page I only visit when someone says they want a cheap PC, as I know G|A has the dell deals up top.

But I generally visit fatwallet at least twice a day.


agreed. i got tired of the deals page, as it just advertised a bunch of dell stuff before anything else. it was harder to recognize what was a good deal, and what wasn't with the got apex deal layout.

i end up going to slickdeals and fatwallet and ... passwird for deal searching.

[Showtime]

meh i still post consistently... during bb season. speaking of which...

[g222leav]

for me it was a combination of factors...

i mainly was attracted to G|A because at the time, I was a poor college student and discovered the deals page. From there i discovered the forums, which for me (at the time) i found much more mature that other forums. I felt that the topics had depth, and the active users had substance.

one of the reasons i stopped coming was because i had to remove myself from G|A because it got to the point that i was buying things i couldn't afford (again, college student) just for the sake of it being on sale. i also had somewhat of a personal (yet silly) online dispute with someone...that in combination to several vocal, outspoken, and actively posting members whom i was fond of being banned led me to just slowly stop coming by.

i've tried every once in awhile to comeback, and i see the same people posting...this thread brought back memories though...

thank you everybody! *tear in eye*

[mcs328]

Well I come to G|A if I want good advice on a variety of topics without being flamed on niche sites that might ignore the newbie.

[BigJon]

I quit coming because I didn't have as much time to devote to browsing the forums...so in a day's time so much had gone on that I couldn't keep up with conversations (they'd go from 1 page to 7 in a day). So I just quit coming...

I ended up working at a few other forums as an administrator which ate up most of my time. 3 kids....full time job...but one day I found my way back here and saw that most everyone else had left as well.

Kind of disheartening because I did enjoy the conversations and fun we had here.

Psst...also, we getting any 10 year Galga badges? And hows that order of G|A t-shirts coming along?

[kimchicowboy]

i forget how i got here. i know freelance and cornmonkey and other IRL and forget who got here first. but the deals were good and i was a poor college student. don't know how many good deals there are now as there were back then (last 90s, early 2000).

i guess facebook took over and stuff. stuff meaning life. there were definitely good times on the board, that's for sure! glad to come back every now and then and see what's going on and give my input.

and i'm with MCS about being able to get some helpful advice from you folks that are always so friendly and willing to help! :)

[Hoser]

I can't believe that I joined over 10 1/2 years ago. I found out about got|apex from someone at work. I still usually visit the site daily, but not nearly as much as I did in the past. I can remember coming back from vacation (no internet access) and finding hundreds of posts. That time is over and won't happen again.

One of the first deals I remember getting was the Creative Nomad MP3 player free if you downloaded some mp3s at some website. I've gotten various other deals throughout the years, sometimes buying things I didn't really need, but I enjoyed.

I never got into arguing with people online, because there's no point in it. Some people takes things too seriously, and others have no sense of humor.

As for some of the bannings, maybe timeouts would've been better. They were judgment calls that were made by the people running this site, and they make the rules here. There is no freedom of speech here, the rules are variable and can change from time to time.

One person nobody mentioned yet was dopey. Interesting that he doesn't show up in a member search. People that created accounts for SPAM purposes are still listed. Most of them have the same join and last visit date.

[DarkFury]

Dopey's account was probably lost during the "Taliban" incident when the top 5 posters of G|A at the time had their accounts virtually wiped. Since Dopey was already banned at the time, I guess the admins didn't bother with re-creating that account.

[cruelpupet]

I can't believe that I joined over 10 1/2 years ago.


Damn...I just realized this account is almost 10 years old.

[cruelpupet]

Just tracked down my first account here...and the join date was


Join Date: 03-02-2000

Damn I feel old

[g222leav]

definitely miss dopey...i miss all you guys. i thought about it a little bit more today. i think maybe we all just kinda grew up and grew out of g|a

[Houdini]

I attribute it to facebook for most people as well as time. I do miss the good ol' days.

[Arch113]

<-- Long time lurker here :)

[Cubsfan]

One of the first deals I remember getting was the Creative Nomad MP3 player free if you downloaded some mp3s at some website.

Hey! I got that one! I think it was spend $50 at emusic. At the time it was like a $150 or $200 player too

[DarkFury]

definitely miss dopey...i miss all you guys. i thought about it a little bit more today. i think maybe we all just kinda grew up and grew out of g|a
Only those who WANTED to grow out of it...did.

Choice is a wonderful thing. Plus, they are all welcome to come back if they want to... but in the end each has to make their own choices about that.

[kimchicowboy]

<-- Long time lurker here :)
shoot. long time lurker indeed! welcome! :cheers:

[mcs328]

<-- Long time lurker here :)
wow. Thanks for checking in :thumb:

I think I miss Dopey, Pink, theresa, nickel and Irish. Some banned and some just MIA.

[Arch113]

Thanks :)

I check the news section everyday, and the forums couple times a week. But I don't post much, just read.... :)

[faither]

I'd agree that the censorship scared off many and social networking was less of an issue. That and as others have said, we're all older and still evolving.

[LPMiller]

there was no censorship. There was an expectation of behavior. There still is.

[cruelpupet]

there was no censorship. There was an expectation of behavior. There still is.


You say tomato, I say tomato

[eSDee]

The Political Forum was driving me crazy so I left. I got tired of trying to drop knowledge all by myself after the other lefties either left or got banned. I decided it would be better if I didn't spend so much time on the boards so I didn't ruin my real-life day with some BS on the intarwebs. But I still check back in from time to time.

I personally think that Facebook is too linear, where as Got|Apex and other message boards have a lot more depth to them. I think that's where the next step of social networking is going but until then, I prefer this type of web interaction.

[DarkFury]

Welcome back Brotha eSDee...

Glad to see that you didn't fall off the Earth. :D

[LPMiller]

You say tomato, I say tomato

.....so we both say the same thing?

[eSDee]

Welcome back Brotha eSDee...

Glad to see that you didn't fall off the Earth. :D

Thanks brother you too :thumb:

[cruelpupet]

.....so we both say the same thing?


Yes, just different perspectives

[renovation]

i know Dopey and tryed to get him back here -he said there was no way of that happening ~

[nickel]

people just move on... have all the theories you'd like, but it comes down to the fact that things are always evolving.

[DarkFury]

people just move on... have all the theories you'd like, but it comes down to the fact that things are always evolving.
Welcome back Nickel...

BTW.. even when you evolve, that doesn't mean that you can't come on back home from time to time...

So glad that you could visit. :D

[sourdough]

Hi everyone, :) I come around occasionally when my baker has the time to make me and then plug me in. Otherwise my superior yeast cultures sit in their plastic jar in a dormant state in the back of the fridge.

[Grafalgar]

Wow, dang, I haven't been here in a while. Got introduced by Avlena well before we were married. It's been five years now.

Like others have said, it's pretty much the same everywhere. At a couple of other forums I frequent the monthly spammers post more than the few remaining folks do. Same reasons - got older, got married, many had kids. No time to write novels on message boards.

Still a bummer, though.

[frenchbread]

Hi everyone, :) I come around occasionally when my baker has the time to make me and then plug me in. Otherwise my superior yeast cultures sit in their plastic jar in a dormant state in the back of the fridge.
WHERE THEY BELONG!

[revil]

I stopped coming here because I needed to refocus myself and do more productive things. Moving to Japan didn't help either. I still occasionally stop by to rant about something strange.

[mojo]

i don't have a fb or myface acct. but i admit to being here less

i agree with esdee - there was some hostility in the political forums. but on both sides, not just toward the left.

also, i think better feedback is given elsewhere. you can post a deal and people actually say "thanks" and stuff like that. and tshirts, while silly are still a nice token

as with anything, it should be give and take. and when your rewards for an activity diminish then you have less incentive to do that activity

[johnnymk]

I'm on Facebook and love it. I can pick and choose friends , mostly those who think similarly to me.

I believe that America is going through a major transformation and it is being changed by the will of the politicians, not by the citizens themselves. People are picking sides and it is a battle among those who believe America has a future and those who don't really care, unless they can suck off the system.

People don't want to hear the other side anymore. They've heard it and they're tired of it. I got tired of dealing with the other side here so I left and have no regrets. However, I do miss a lot of the members.

However, I do check the Deals Page every day.

[DarkFury]

People don't want to hear the other side anymore. They've heard it and they're tired of it. I got tired of dealing with the other side here so I left and have no regrets. However, I do miss a lot of the members.

However, I do check the Deals Page every day.
Honestly, when you leave politics and religion out of the discussion for the most part, even people with differing views seem/tend to get along much better.

Too many folks are just not willing to "agree to disagree" and let things go. They so much want to have the "upper hand" on anyone who doesn't think like they do thus the controversy and the tension increases.

But hey, if you only want to hang out with folks that only agree with your positions, then by all means... that's your right. Still, people could be alot more "civil" when there are differing opinions (and that is my own personal opinion).

[Kevster]

Hey folks - just checking in here. I'm still around occasionally, but I'm generally on other forums (and facebook, but not that much) now as G|A just isn't what it used to be. I do see Dopey every once in a while on the Woot! boards, and I'm always available for an IM if anyone wants to ping me for a question or just to say hi. :)

[WhiskeyPapa]

Facebook killed forums for me. I have only so many minutes per day to spend online, and other activities have taken me away. I also missed my 10th anniversary here without a whisper. Wow, 10 years ago I was just a punk with only 7 kids. :D

BTW, our first grandchild is due a week from Monday!

[DarkFury]

BTW, our first grandchild is due a week from Monday!
CONGRATS!!! :D

[tupacboy]

i remember joining this forum in college.. have our 10 year reunion next year... time flies...

[cadetevon]

BTW, our first grandchild is due a week from Monday!

Congratulations! :thumb:

[ArkiStan]

Wow 10 years for me, too. And to see a simple nostalgic thread could bring so many of us back together. I still have the quicklink at the top of my browser and I can't help but click it a couple times a week, even if only to see how quiet it is. Not sure what the main cause is, but it's been sad to see the forums slowly dying. We should have a large scale get together somewhere as a farewell party before the forums die out completely.

[kimchicowboy]

BTW, our first grandchild is due a week from Monday!
Congrats, WP! family getting a little bigger, eh? :)

[kimchicowboy]

i think what's interesting is that i haven't "friended" many of you on FB. it would seem difficult to transition the community we have here onto FB. I dunno. I don't see forums completely dying out.

[ShawnLee]

Interesting - I haven't even seen this thread till today, even though I check in on the larger site every now and then. It's still on my "to do" websites, but life is consuming enough. I enjoyed much of the time I spent (wasted) here, and still enjoy it. I bought my last computer off of a G|A? deal, cause I knew it'd be there.

As for otherwise, I'm fb friends with a few of you - friends IRL with a couple of others. But I'm not only nostalgic about the people who were here before, I'm also nostalgic about myself. Read a few of your old posts, I hope you've grown and matured in the ten years since you started posting here. Not that I necessarily disagree with myself, but I think I'd be more tactful these days.

[mojo]

Facebook killed forums for me. I have only so many minutes per day to spend online, and other activities have taken me away. I also missed my 10th anniversary here without a whisper. Wow, 10 years ago I was just a punk with only 7 kids. :D

BTW, our first grandchild is due a week from Monday!
congrats! :D

[WhiskeyPapa]

Congrats, WP! family getting a little bigger, eh? :)
Between weddings and grandkids, we're going to see it start to increase exponentially in the not-too-distant future!

[cruelpupet]

Between weddings and grandkids, we're going to see it start to increase exponentially in the not-too-distant future!


Start signing them up with G|A accounts....problem solved

[Thesifer]

Another thing that ruined GA for me was when they started posting daily in the 'Deals' forum with all of the site deals. Now my 'New Posts' link is always annoying to search through for content I want to read. Whenever I wanted a deal, I always just went to the DEALS page.

[oogeooge]

Got Apex was rocking in the old days. I don't think social networking killed G|A. The prolific spreading of internet usuage is what killed G|A.

[Maarchk]

I think it's just evolution and other distractions. This was one of the main deals pages I knew about, and the deals were awesome so I was here a lot. Then the forums were big and fun and that was good too.

But time changes, deals are harder to come by and I think this page focuses on tech, so for computers, I come here, but not much else.

The forums were always good but a little dicey in the politics range. I imagine people got tired of the fighting or being watched for crossing the line and went to facebook where they can just say whatever. I visit now and again but I just don't have much time and the threads that used to overwhelm me by growing pages every day, are now posts every couple weeks.

Perhaps there will be a revitalization, but with google having the quick answer to almost every single question, forums aren't really practical for answering questions. They are nice for discussions. But as was said above, most people seem to already have their opinion worked out and there isn't a discussion as much as an argument.

But i miss and enjoy the G|A people and I'll drop this in my book marks and try and come around a bit more.

M-

[gwilks98]

To be fair, I don't FB much anymore either. My FB is mostly flooded with uninteresting crap like "going to the pumpkin patch with my best girl sara!" My mom has completely taken over being the first to comment on any post I make so aside from blocking her from some of them, (you can't block her from them all or she'll get suspicious) I just get annoyed.
Tangent: There ought to be a level of importance you assign to your FB posts so that people can specify what level of detail they care to hear about your daily lives. I could give a rats ass if you made chicken spedini for dinner, but I'd like to know if your cancer came back.

G|A is the exact opposite. It used to have tons of useful stuff to read and discuss. I liked NOT knowing people here on a personal level. It's not that G|A changed: people just stopped posting as much here.

[DarkFury]

Yeah, FB is way too "personal" for me. Folks who actually know me don't need to know that much detail about what I'm doing.

[jstreet]

I think for me it was the Internet changing and my life changing. Growing up in a relatively small, insular, homogeneous community, and suddenly getting the Internet in the mid-90s opened up so many doors. This was a good central place for pursuing tech interests (and good lord, the discounts/free things then), pursuing web interests (there were so many new things to look at/learn), and talking to a really interesting cross-section of diverse people in the world I'd never have gotten at home.

But the Internet changed for me. Today it doesn't feel "special" like it did for me from the mid-90s to probably 2002-03, I think because everyone got it and it became so integrated. It used to feel like a separate, mysterious, strange thing and that made it so much more interesting. Anonymity was interesting because it wasn't really available in real life; interacting with strangers was interesting because I didn't get to meet a lot of new people in real life; learning how to code/interact with the web was interesting because no one really knew how. And now that's not really true. As far as the decline of anonymity goes, a lot of that is probably due to social networking; a lot of current web functionality is crippled if you choose not to share, or share as your true identity.

And I guess my life changed, too. A lot of conversations I had early on via the Internet had to be online-only because I didn't have an outlet in real life. In the mid-90s I hadn't come out yet in real life, so I found people I could talk to online about being gay. We were all just pseudonyms and so there was no risk of really being hurt. And there weren't a lot of people in my small town interested in discussing technology or politics, so it was great to get to do that online. But now I'm out, and I have been at a university for ten years in a big city, so there is no end to my chance to meet/befriend diverse people and talk to them about anything I could want.

I do feel nostalgic quite often though for the old days. I like my life now, and my interactions, but I miss the wild-west appeal of the Internet when it felt like an adventure. It gave me an enormous motivation to explore and contribute (which touches upon what you wrote, Air, about content). I don't create any content now, I just consume it, in a very formulaic and rote fashion (email, facebook, news, finances, scholarly research, log off).

Maybe there's something there with the creativity angle, too. The commercialization of the Internet brought corporate culture/content to bear. It would take someone like me an increasingly large amount of time to generate unique, compelling, relevant content to compete with the corporate world, for an increasingly smaller benefit as people spent less time here (and on every site) and more time elsewhere on the increasingly large number of sites. I mean consider the days when you could actually find it useful to use a category-based directory like Yahoo or Geocities to discover the relatively few places worth going. Now that would be unthinkable and you just Google and pray. It's so individualized and the opposite of a community-based approach. And my skills at creating content - web pages, programs, etc. - used to be so absurdly advanced, and now I struggle to design a website that's even vaguely professional in comparison to what's average these days.

I dunno. I do miss this place, and the people that were/are here, and that time period in my life. There were bad parts for sure, but there was a lot of good. It just doesn't seem like that time could exist again.

Anyway, rambling instead of studying for finals.

[ufcrusher]

Personally, I still lurk and comment when I feel like it, but between everything going on in my life I have little time to be super active.

I will say that the lack of other posters definitely impacts my post count. While there are a few old timers around, many people seem to have departed.

[DaFunkyUnit]

:wavey:

[revil]

Also things drastically changed for me when someone on here took me to a sh!t house and then he raped a log. I won't name names, you know who you are... :nono:

http://revil.com/p/IMG_4145.jpghttp://revil.com/p/IMG_4153.jpg

[kimchicowboy]

Also things drastically changed for me when someone on here took me to a sh!t house and then he raped a log. I won't name names, you know who you are... :nono:

http://revil.com/p/IMG_4145.jpghttp://revil.com/p/IMG_4153.jpg
WTH is a hof? :shifty:

[revil]

WTH is a hof? :shifty:
Hasselhoff apparently left quite the impression in Korea.

[RoniMan]

Wow, what a great topic! Looks like it brought out almost everyone, seeing all these names makes me a bit nostalgic
o <-- actual tear

I don't think social networking killed G|A b/c Friendster, Myspace was around and we were still here. I think like any "relationship", you hit a plateau point, and you have to decide if you want to keep working at it to make the relationship work. Unfortunately for the internet, there's always something new popping up. So a lot of people (myself included) just took the easy way out and found another "exciting" page to go to. (Sorry Apex, it's not you, it's me =P)

I can't speak for others, but I was definitely thankful for the level of civility (for the most part) maintained here. I like politics, but just found that it's hard enough to be in a heated discussion in person. To engage in online discussion with someone who you can't "read" is even harder. So it was nice to have a forum that catered to those who wanted such topics.

I still come back once in a while, but I am on FB for the most part. I still keep in contact a quite a bunch of you, and I have G|A to thank for that.