decline of Qtforums

GrecKo

and because of AI posts like this ^

SimonSchroeder

Qt forums are quieter because AI gives fast answers, licensing feels restrictive, and younger developers favor Flutter, React Native, or web apps. Qt remains strong in niche industries, and initiatives like Qt Academy can help, but casual forum activity will likely stay low.

About a month ago you wrote the exact same thing with just a handful of words changed. If you don't have anything new to contribute, you should stay quiet. And if you are really a bot, I'd like you banned on the forum.

SimonSchroeder

Since we started talking about this, I now even have fewer new posts in my inbox. Now, there is almost nothing new. Can anybody else confirm that over the past two months the number of posts has decreased even further?

Kent-Dorfman

I log on every few days and see virtually nothing new in any of my frequented subforums.

Kent-Dorfman

It's sad. I prefer forums where technical excellence is the main focus, and the inevitable "virtual community social experiment" is quickly put back in the closet where it belongs...and my other lurking spot (freebsd forums) just got hacked so I cannot give my bountiful opinions there now. LOL

mzimmers

I too miss the traffic, but maybe it's not really a sign of the forum declining, but rather morphing. Let's face it: for some tasks, an AI agent is at least as good as any advice found here, plus it's much faster. So yeah, that kind of traffic is going to drop off.

BUT:

Members of this forum have much more to add than just their ability to write/solve algorithms, or serve as a document lookup. Over the years, many of my questions have been subjective, and the answers benefitted from the real-world experience of more senior Qt-ers. AI can't replace that.

So yeah, there'll be less traffic, but what remains is still quite valuable.

stasioz

Perhaps the outsourced anti spam Akismet has an upgraded algo (AI powered?) :p

https://forum.qt.io/topic/158678/can-t-reply-to-a-post-because-my-comment-gets-flagged-as-spam

hskoglund

Did you see this (via Hacker News) https://blog.codinghorror.com/if-we-do-not-stop-to-help-each-other-what-do-we-become/
It speaks about Stack Overflow but it applies equally well to the Qt Forums.

mzimmers

IMO it applies MUCH more to the Qt Forums than SO. This forum is populated by knowledgable people who want to help others. SO is populated by teenage computer nerd misfits who take perverse pleasure in negrating and flagging posts without providing explanations.

SGaist

@hskoglund said in decline of Qtforums:

Did you see this (via Hacker News) https://blog.codinghorror.com/if-we-do-not-stop-to-help-each-other-what-do-we-become/
It speaks about Stack Overflow but it applies equally well to the Qt Forums.

Did not but it does make sense.