I feel like it is dying and I know I certainly don’t spend as much time on the new sites as I did on FWF. I liked the chatter from the newbies on FWF (i.e. trees threads, car crashes, boundary disputes, etc.) along with the more seasoned posters/posts. I think the constant movement of new and old people kept the posts interesting and entertaining while still providing useful insights. I can understand how others might have been tired of those types of threads if you had read them for 18 years, but I was only around 7 years or so.
The two new forums are mainly just the “old guard” posting and it seems like groupthink on many of the topics. Discussions seem less about getting all the knowledge out there/vetting ideas and more about being right or proving your opinion is the best.
I feel like the situation is similar to my love of football right now. I love my college team and for years have been a season ticket holder, spending my Saturdays at the game, etc. My team has suffered for years, but I just kept supporting and attending. This year was especially bad and we had more drama than all of daytime TV combined trying to right the program. The break in the cycle allowed me to realize there was more to life than watching that team on Saturday (in the stadium anyway) and that I had become a little too engrossed in the sport. Same with FWF, it was addictive and when the addiction was broken, I found there was more to the internet than FWF or its descendants.
The fracturing of the community between the two sites didn’t help either, but that is neither here or there.
Let’s be honest. FWF was dying for the last three years of it’s life. I know humans have a tendency to romanticized times which have passed, but good discussions on fatwallet were few and far between during its last days.
As for a merger with phatwallet - no way. The owner over there sounds like a prick; “I was here first so f a merger, it will have to be an acquisition.”
That’s not how it works for me – if you are logged in and click Unread on the top menu for the threads you follow, then clicking on any followed thread should take you to your last read post. You can see the post number in the URL.
I completely agree with the quality of posts comment. For me, the last year or two at FW were entertaining more than educational. I might learn a few useful things but not as much as 5+ years ago.
However, I read so much more new and valuable financial and money making tidbits in the first month or two of reading Fragile Deals than the last year of FW.
Maybe the energy and new discussions are dying down a bit now because people are busy with the holidays or there’s not as much going on lately other than political events, but I greatly appreciate the quality and focused content on this site.
FW was just so easy to go to and get lost in thread browsing. I would look through HD and FWF.
A problem now is life. I run out of time to do things now, and am not as concerned with buying “stuff”. so no need to constantly peruse HD type forums.
I try to pop in from time to time, but it is more lurker mode, rather than active contributor… other than these flyby responses, days after the topic has been laid to rest.
I was really into this new forum…until I wasn’t. Nothing has changed for me at all. I just haven’t been interested in participating as much as I was the first few weeks. Nothing against anyone here, well nothing against most here, I just haven’t been in the forum mood. But I did the same thing on FW too. I came and went, sometimes for months at a time.
The [Fragile Deal] Summary email reminded me to check out the forums. It’s been a month (or more) since I came here. Not much happening in my unread topics. No Earth shattering in the suggested topics - did find 1 interesting. But, the interface is not like Fatwallet and not as easy to navigate (as Technologist pointed out).
