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I PM'd Mike this question, and I thought i'd ask it here, since it's still the busiest "slow" board here that I can tell. I know I stepped away from BFT for a while, and now that i've been back in the  dle for the last few weeks, i've noticed that there is no where near the activity that there was a few months back. I've been a member for many years, and i've seen the ups and downs, but i've never seen it this slow. What gives guys?
We don't have anywhere near the moderators we had. there's almost zero activity on many of the boards.
I remember when this site began it's little "expansion" a few years ago. Myself and some of the other veteran moderators made the comment that if we expand the boards too much, it could hurt our productivity. I wonder if this is the case. of course, i'm not a moderator anymore. I imagine I was removed from the list because I wasn't able to visit the boards like I use to, and I would have voted me off too.
I see some of you die hards are still hanging around. Greg, Steve'O, etc...
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Come on guys, stir the pot a little bit.
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Utah board is always busy heh
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Several things:
Forums are slow everywhere.. The vette forum, seo forums, here, even the jewelry forums have slowed down a lot more than normal this summer.. I actually think its a good thing because it might mean that more people are going outside this summer..
There are too damned many forum areas!! 
Seriously, I have never seen a forum with this many forum areas, and so many of them are never posted in.. Every state area has at least 2 areas, and the only posts in them tend to be the site wide announcements.. I can think of little more frustrating than thinking, hey a new post in the Indiana forum only to see it is the same announcement I've already read 6 times..
If it were me, I would kill all of the state boards and make regional boards.. West, Great Lakes, Gulf, something.. It would have the side benefit of getting people in the same region together who might have missed each other because they are in different states..
Also, there are a ton of other boards that simply see no posts at all.. 5 tackle forums, 6 non-fishing outdoor sports forums, etc etc etc.. I think that between the massive advertising columns, and smashed (compressed viewing area), sheer forum overload, the system has simply gotten too hard to use and people are moving to other, less stuffed, forums..
Just a few thoughts
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You're bringing up thoughts that many of us noted years ago. Now, we are reaping the circumstances of those changes.
It also came to my knowledge that many of the moderators that use to moderate many of the active boards were removed as a moderator. No warning, no explaination, notta. Just woke up one morning and were no longer a Mod. Some of the better and more active moderators at that. I can't complain about being removed myself, because I wasn't able to post like I once was. But some of these guys were invalueable to the boards remaining active, and they were removed. Bad call, IMHO. Not saying that there might not be a good reason for it, but i've yet to hear one.
I don't know that I would break the state boards down into regions, as some of the state boards have a dedicated following. That would be disrupted by combining states to form a region. Something that could be done, however, is remove some of the other boards that are not being used. Like the "aquaculture" boards for instance. Are you serious? [sly] Leave the state boards. Leave the primary fishing boards, leave the hunting and shooting boards. Get rid of the additional boards that do nothing but weigh down the site.
More importantly, don't let one or two people do the talking. Step up and say what's on your mind. Prior mods, current users, who ever. I remember when we all use to talk about things and made stuff work. What happened to that?
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those that got removed they hadnt logged in for a period of 6 months and an email was sent to their last know email address and it was returned or no reply was received.. It was nothing personal twoards any one by any means.
as for the site being slow, a new board was added that catches the majority of new members on their way in. "the intro board" In addition several of the boards have become more active on their own with out a mod being there. some areas have slowed down and others have picked up much of the slack.
as for there being less mods, that too is a misnomer, true from the time you left up to now we lost or removed 7 inactive or retired mods in turn we added 15 more mods to the site...
and you know us, we are not afraid to try something new, and we will give it more than a fair chance to work before removing it.[:p]
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I also used to be a moderator of the MN subforum. I didn't log in for quite a while and I understand why I got removed. I'm not sure if I ever got the email though. Its not a big deal as the board has always been super slow and there were 3 of us. I do know why its a slow board though, if you google fishing in Minnesota the biggest fishing forum on the internet is the first forum to pop up and that kills our mn forum traffic.
I did suggest to the angler a while back to start a hunting in MN subforum and I would gladly moderate it. Hunting is so big in MN I think that would get more hits in turn getting more people into the MN fishing forum. Right now would be the best time to start it with hunting season starting shortly.
I will keep checking in and I hope it happens. In the mean time I will keep posting and hope it picks up.
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With the cutback in staff your request may have been put on a list that no longer exists. You should try again to get it started.
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I don't know. It does seem like the motivation of this site has changed. At one time, everyone was all about helping out new anglers with getting start, giving a veteran angler a new tactic to try, or just generally telling lies about a fishing trip. [ ] I haven't seen that since i've been back, and it's . In the past, when someone posted on the freshwater board or the saltwater board, no matter how stupid or legitmate the question or statement, they had 10 replies with in a day. Now, they are waiting 10 days to get a reply.
In some instances, sites like this can make or break a new anglers perception of the sport. Kids these days rely on the internet and such, and make it part of their daily routine. Thankfully, my kids dont' have the opportunity to be influenced by the internet.
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[quote tlspyder13]With the cutback in staff your request may have been put on a list that no longer exists. You should try again to get it started.[/quote]
How do you suggest i go about this, send him a pm?
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Several new members have been turned off as well as LONG time members including myself for some things that are happening/happened. I don't post on the UT board anymore. I got shafted so i refuse. Back then i was posting 5 or 6 posts or replies every day. Now, i might post 3 replies in a week on the entire site. When i started the pike/musky and panfish boards i went nuts posting. It was mostly in vein. Very little traffic or interest. It is not worth my precious time to try and stir up interest. The site has slowed and i am not sure anything will change it in the near future. Sorry you are mad about what it has become.
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It is what it is. Thanks for jumping in though LH2.
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Hello T4ME,
Thank you for looking out!!! This time of year forum activity has always traditionally been light (maybe back to school, last minute summer plans) which has always puzzled us because although posting activity slows down traffic increases dramatically and membership averages over 35 new members daily.
It's funny as well because although hitwise (a website traffic rating company) shows the "sport fishing category" traffic decreasing this time of year bigfishtackle.com's traffic is on the rise. Bigfishtackle.com is currently the top 20 largest fishing website on the internet with a majority of higher ranking sites being "State Wildlife Agency web sites.
So thank you again for looking out, but as always you will soon see things light up brighter than ever on the site!!!
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