Why isn't the term "forum" "current"?
Well, everything is subjective honestly. But, if you look at this in a macro sense, "forum" is the software used to host an online community. There are online communities everywhere -- they just use different software.
Xenforo is the forum software we use to host our online community. Again, terminology is subjective for sure. People can call it whatever they like, but our site terminology has switched over to using community.
One data-point: If you visit
Xenforo.com (the forum software we use), you'll see they themselves use Community instead of /forum/.
And "colloquy" is simply pretentious.
Appreciate the feedback. Yes, we changed it to "Discussion" on Sunday. We definitely do not want to give off a pretentious vibe at all.
Styleforum seems FAR more active and engaged than AAAC and pretty clearly has a demographic that skews younger than AAAC, and yet... it's still a Forum!
I don't think terminologies determine activity or engagement levels.
You're right. StyleForum is far more active than our community, but it isn't because they're calling their platform a forum. It's because they've done something
different/better than we have in the past.
Maybe their members have been more welcoming then ours have been in past years (not now). Maybe it's because they have incorporated more casual discussion boards, like Streetwear and Denim. Maybe they just ran their online community better than we did in the past.
Our site's traffic has been declining for several years, and we've been negatively hit by several Google algorithm updates over the course of the last few.
Some of that is outlined here:
https://askandyaboutclothes.com/community/threads/trad-forum-renaming.243054/post-1959778
Not that we need to be competitive with Style Forum, but we've been working hard over the last couple of years to restructure, reframe, and optimize our entire site's eco-system. It's been a TON of work, and there's still so much more to do.
Maybe the changes will help, maybe they won't. We're doing the best we can.
Of course, I'm always open to hear suggestions on ways we can improve. I can promise you that I will always seriously consider any/all feedback & suggestions.