Is Online Dharma Dead

Hello. Is online dharma dead, or is there somewhere else people are going to fill their dharma needs? No judgement, genuinely curious.

I think online dharma is most useful for new meditators and people who have no other source of interaction in regard to their practice. So for example, Reddit has a pretty active set of meditation related communities. They bore the shit out of me, and are generally a source of disinformation but occasionally wisdom appears there. DhO is currently going through a posting lull but has had an influx of more seasoned meditators in the past year or two.

Curious about why you asked the question, Tom, and what you're thinking now in regard to AwakeNetwork.

EDIT:

I'm curious to better understand this place and why it slowly sank into inactivity. People stopped coming here and posting, and as that happened, there was less reason for others to stop by and post, creating a vicious cycle that ultimately led to its current state: dead.

I asked because I feel badly about not keeping this place alive. As you note, it is a vicious spiral for online communities. And when I logged in for the first time in probably 2 months or more, I saw there was literally no activity for 5 weeks.

Not really sure what I want to do. It doesn't cost much to keep it going but, by the same token, I could just lock it down as read-only for the occasional passer-by.

Not at all pointing fingers, but this funny picture says it all:

Hello again, AwakeNetwork friends. After thinking about this a LOT, I think that it might be time to retire AN. While it costs me next to nothing to keep it running, the infrastructure is getting old and needing updating. But the traffic here makes it hard to justify spending the time to do so. Either you are all talking somewhere else, or online dharma is, if not dead, then on life support.

Either way, I am going to be putting this site in read-only mode by the end of the month, unless people respond to this with strong negative feedback. Your private content will be fully accessible while in that mode, but cannot be updated. I'll keep it running in that mode for the foreseeable future, unless I figure a way to re-energize things, or something else develops.

Thanks for sharing this place with me.

I just want to say goodbye to AN. It was fun, until it wasn't due to inactivity. I think it best to do what Tom plans to do - stop the activity and let the place be a nice, quiet resource for those interested in reading the content. Speaking as a founding member (some might say instigator) of KFD, of DFRG, and AN, it's embarrassing to have AN out here with virtually no action.

So long, AN. 

Michelle Stone wrote: I would personally like some way to at least download my personal log, if only for personal amusement and nostalgia in the future.

As long as the site remains up, you will have access to your logs. I may write a tool to self-serve downloading your stuff if I get some time.

Thanks everyone!