The community is spread out between here, IMDB2 and moviechat.org - we need to get everyone to head over here... it's the best of the lot.

So far boards for movies of prior to the '70s or so are, with few exceptions, utter ghost towns on TMDb. My personal main era of focus is Silents through Pre-Code movies, and so far I've been the only person there's any evidence of having been on any of the boards for various of the movies of back then.

@genplant29 said:

My personal main era of focus is Silents through Pre-Code movies

Then we'll run into each other sooner or later on those boards. 😉

Yeah the whole layout of this site is much better.

I think users here tend to be younger, although refugees from IMDb probably raised the average age a bit. It's sort of like trying to terraform Mars: it will take a long time.

PT 100--

The grass is slowing growing, the air, becoming a little more breathable.

It's now been a full half year since those of us from the IMDb wave of mid-February 2017 arrived. Things are looking pretty good, in general, with the movie/tv/celebrity boards, though, regrettably, Classic movies, and their stars and supporting players, just don't seem to be the "thing" of too many members who are active posters. Yet current and recent movies, and any horror movie, get rampant posting, as do several current and recent years t.v. series. Horror seems to be the most popular TMDb genre.

All things seem to point to what PT opined, that a majority of our members who are active boards posters probably are young or youngish (under age 50).

I've been noticing throughout the months that although TCM (Turner Classic Movies) is a very popular cable t.v. channel, that has a substantial viewers base, there's never any real evidence, judging from message boards posting on our site, that anyone here other than just PT and myself now and then watch movies that air on that channel and post threads or add-on comments on boards here after viewing something there. I know our site must have a number of at least occasional TCM viewers. Yet, if so, no posting results.

Back in the IMDb message boards days, after the airing of just about any old movie, no matter how obscure, on TCM, typically at least some new boards posting would result on the specific board for the movie in question. Then either one or more member would comment or respond something interesting either within hours or otherwise sometime before very long. Very interesting, intelligent, informative posts came about. On TMDb, when I've created threads about various old movies or their stars (or some supporting players of old movies), typically not only do no comments result, but usually also no evidence, via a Like or two, that anyone even read what I posted. It's disappointing, as such good and interesting discussion could be happening.

Yeah, I have posted mostly about TCM films, but I don't usually watch most of them more than two or three times over the years, so I don't always post about them. That includes Hitchcock. Also, having posted a lot at IMDb, and then having it wiped out, was rather discouraging. I can still go to an archive site and copy some of my old posts over to TMDb, or else try to repost from scratch, but that's a bit frustrating and time-consuming--sort of like having to do one's homework over again after the dog ate it.

Also, maybe it's my age (67 this month), but I'm more interested in watching classic films and TV shows than talking about them, except for posting the occasional opinion or factoid that I think others might find interesting and/or useful. Whenever some retro network like MeTV reruns something I like (e.g., Adventures of Superman [AOS] or The Saint, etc.), I'll talk about it if I notice something worth of mentioning.

I also try to be a bit mellower over here. At IMDb I was sometimes a bit snarky, which I somewhat regret. I got tired of dealing with long-winded posts by people who either just wanted to show how smart they are, or else gave flippant, useless answers instead of serious, helpful answers to questions. (It seems, from their distinctive writing styles, that some of them came over here under new handles--I won't mention names, but I know who you are.) But I'm letting bygones be bygones, and I probably won't get entangled in more arguments with them.

I and some of my acquaintances from IMDb posted some messages here at the AOS board to try to get things going, but it's been mostly crickets ever since. It seems the younger crowd here is focused more on things like Game of Thrones, superhero spin-offs, etc. And I'm guessing they also are more into Facebook, etc., even though the format here is much better for conversing.

I have fond memories of Joe Franklin, and Mike Douglas as well (from Philly). Both were rather low key, but their guests weren't usually so. They managed to book some of the very best guests, and some of the shows were downright amazing. Same with Tom Snyder.

I agree with everything you stated, PT. And Happy Birthday!

Another thing I've noticed (that seems to suggest we have probably a mainly young to youngish membership here) is that we don't seem to have much posting representation from PBS viewers, including of more than for just certain PBS Masterpiece and Mystery series. Yet any horror, or super-heroes, and types of movies and series that are action, gore, science-fiction, etc., there's lots of ongoing posting, and frequently discussion at great length about every minutiae. Too, of course we've all seen how thriving our Beyonce board is, that was repurposed early on for extensive daily discussion of all things pop culture. Meanwhile, viewers who are largely into sedate type fare (I'm 57, but have always had more or less the same type viewing tastes and interests as now, even when I was young) might post about some old movies, or PBS productions, and/or similar, but few or no response comments or actual significant discussion result. The problem could be largely solved if we had a whole lot more members, rather than the former IMDb posters now being spread across a number of sites.

Every site I've silently observed, members frequently commiserate about the same exact things as has often been stated on TMDb threads, that "not enough are" or "no one's" posting, and where did everyone go who used to post about this, that, or the other? This is particularly a problem for fans of Classic films, and of anything niche, who went from there being one big international site where everyone converged, to the former IMDb posters having scattered to the four winds. And many older former IMDb posters more than likely just gave up and now post nowhere at all, probably having given up and concluded that when IMDb boards closed that now there's simply nowhere else to go. (Not everyone, before 2/20, participated on any of the IMDb boards where people were posting suggestions about other sites to try. I'd have never heard of TMDb had it not been that, for my first time ever, I went onto the IMDb Classic Films board, expressly in search of discussions/suggestions about movie message boards site options, five or so days before the IMDb boards closed. A day or two later I joined and started settling in here.)

To this day I have yet to encounter anyone on TMDb who I recognize from any IMDb movie, series, or celebrity boards that I ever posted on (I never participated on any type general discussion boards, only on boards for specific movie or t.v. series titles, and actor/actress or director names). Seemingly none of the Silent or Pre-Code crowds, or many ongoing PBS viewers, came here, though there was a substantial number of each such category of ongoing posters on IMDb.

@genplant29 said:

I agree with everything you stated, PT. And Happy Birthday!

Viewers who are largely into "sedate" type fare (I'm 57, but have always been into the same type viewing tastes now as when I was young) might post about some old movies, or PBS productions, and/or similar, but few or no response comments or actual discussion result.

Thanks for the birthday wish! What I'm about to say may seem to wander OT, but I think it provides a context for what we're seeing (or not seeing) here.

Your example is not uncommon. As a trained psychologist, I can say with some authority that we tend to stay with the tastes we had as youth. E.g., I grew up on classic rock, and that is still my preference. My parents and grandparents tended to have the musical tastes later in life that they had in their youth. When the first decent computer games came out in the early 1990s, I gravitated toward strategy games (e.g., Railroad Tycoon, Civilization, The Grandest Fleet, Conquered Kingdoms, etc.) instead of fast-action shoot-'em-up games. I preferred turn-based strategy games, allowing one to review and adjust strategy without too much pressure. I still play The Grandest Fleet (as I recall it was awarded Best Strategy Game for 1992) in DosBox a bit nearly every day, now that I'm a semi-retired, self-employed management consultant. (I've spoken with its creator several times to try to get him to update it for Windows, but not sure he ever will. DosBox runs it fine in Windows, so I don't mind.)

I suspect the same pattern of enduring tastes is true for films. As a child, in the summer I'd often stay up 'til 2:00 a.m. watching movies from the '30s through the '50s on TV. And that is still what I prefer to watch, with also some from the '60s and a smattering of later good ones. And not long ago, when I visited the Northwest Rail Museum, the volunteers running it were commiserating with me about their low attendance numbers. It seems that youth today would rather have their faces buried in smartphones all day instead of learning about how things work or how to build or repair anything. I think our generation may be the last one that still knows how to build or fix many things, even if we don't do it much anymore.

But I guess society just changes, and there's not much we can do about it. I wonder if it's a gradual decline, or if it goes in cycles. E.g., I recall some political pundit saying, way back in the 1980s, that the problem with modern politics is that the American people are no longer an informed electorate, but merely a television audience. I think we're now seeing that taken to an absurd extreme. And I don't think there will ever be an ethos identical to that of the Baby Boomers. I think that time has passed. But I really hope tastes are cyclical rather than in a gradual decline toward increasingly social fluff and mediocrity.

And many older former IMDb posters more than likely just gave up and now post nowhere at all, probably having concluded that when IMDb boards closed that now there's simply nowhere else to go. (Not everyone, before 2/20, participated on any of the IMDb boards where people were posting suggestions about other sites to try.)

I'm surprised that so few apparently bothered to Google around to find a place like this. But I suspect that part of TMDb's problem is that they refuse to have general and genre-specific boards like IMDb had. So people go elsewhere for general discussions, and maybe they don't really bother to come here much for specific film/TV series boards. The other thing is that IMDb has been around for 26 years, whereas TMDb just resurrected its film/TV series-specific boards only six months ago. IMDb was pretty skimpy when it started. Patience is a virtue.

By the way, to this day I have yet to encounter anyone on TMDb who I recognize from any IMDb boards that I ever posted on (I never participated on any type general discussion boards, only on boards for specific movie or t.v. series titles, and actor/actress or director names). Seemingly none of the Silent or Pre-Code crowds came here, though there was a substantial number of such ongoing posters on IMDb.

Yeah, I think that even most older people have focused on films from the mid/late 1930s onward--especially from the late '30s onward, when sound got much better (fewer stagey scenes with everyone clustered around the bouquet on the table where the mic was located) and Technicolor came in. Many film buffs and experts list 1939 as the greatest year in film. I'm not sure I agree, but I do agree that it represents a sort of dividing line in film quality. And maybe I've just become lazier in my old age, but I no longer have the patience for most silent films (or foreign-language films). I just don't like having to read the subtitles, because it detracts from the full aesthetic enjoyment of what is essentially a visual medium.

You may have had a decent number of compatriots at IMDb, but I'm not surprised that you don't recognize folks here from over there. I'm guessing that many of them may have been even older than we, and they may either be dying off or have just given up on message boards. Some may also have downsized to smaller devices (smartphones, etc.), which makes it harder to write detailed posts. I'm old school and always will be: I use a desktop computer and Win 10 OS, so I have a full-size keyboard and am a very proficient touch typist. I can't imagine trying to do this using just my thumbs on a small device.