When I first joined, there were also a lot of younger members around my age, including myself, who, back then, were extremely active, but not anymore. Members such as @HPS_250, @CreeRSW207, @High Intensity, @Fluorescent05, @Binarix128, and @alexd120. @HPS_250's uploads specifically were what gave me the opportunity to identify really obscure and interesting fixtures.

It also seems like the Canadian members are slowly disappearing. We've had members like @The Cooper OVX, @lite_lover, @Model25FanForever, and @lights*plus who have mostly disappeared. Even @joseph_125  doesn't even post much anymore.

Indeed, I'm also starting to notice this sort of thing, though I joined later. It is sad, but, people live their lives, you included Ian! I have been missing your detailed uploads lately, but I understand it's for good reason.

I suppose I’m to new to feel what someone leaving the site feels like…

When I first joined, there were also a lot of younger members around my age, including myself, who, back then, were extremely active, but not anymore. Members such as @HPS_250, @CreeRSW207, @High Intensity, @Fluorescent05, @Binarix128, and @alexd120. @HPS_250's uploads specifically were what gave me the opportunity to identify really obscure and interesting fixtures.

It also seems like the Canadian members are slowly disappearing. We've had members like @The Cooper OVX, @lite_lover, @Model25FanForever, and @lights*plus who have mostly disappeared. Even @joseph_125  doesn't even post much anymore.

Back before I joined, @HPS_250 's gallery was the first one I ever perused in detail. I was also intrigued by his AEL 115/315 warmup animation. About the Canadian members on here... yeah, even @joseph_125 has been posting less. Though some do occasionally pop in, post a masterpiece, and log back off for another 6 months. It's very cyclical, but also very fair... life goes on, people move on, nothing is forever.

@LightsoftheWest — it's great to see you post and identify fixtures still. It's nice going down the road and looking at [X manufacturer] [Y model] and "categorizing" each in my head. Without your constant IDs for reference, I would have far less of a clue of the lights all around me... as @Baked bagel 11 said, I certainly miss your detailed fixture uploads, but I do understand and respect the constraints surrounding your decision.

I don’t really touch on this subject, but I’ll put my two cents.

Forums in general were a fad of the 2000s. I’m on other forums, and I’ll tell you they’re all pretty much suffering from a similar decline in participation from their users, both legacy and newcomers. Some sites have even gone completely under, like our competitor GoL.

The trend I believe is most have migrated to social media groups, such as Facebook. Social media overall in the past decade plus has become increasingly popular for many communities. Those leftover who do not do those platforms stay here, whether active or inactive.

Lastly, the pandemic gave this site a real boost due to stay-at-home orders which led to a significant increase in participation/new users. But since that era is long over with we don’t have that advantage.

I believe L-G itself does go through slumps, but doubt it will go under. But ultimately users are not obligated to engage regularly.

A few of those people LightsoftheWest mentioned have NEW PHOTOS FROM THIS YEAR!

Correct, I have been less active on here then compared to a few months ago but it seems like the general interest of the site has shifted a bit. Much less North American, UK and AUS lighting on here now. Pictures that would get interest in the past would end up with no comments, etc. Couple that with being less active in collecting (I probably have too much stuff to be sustainable long term so I might be thinning out some stuff) and this past winter being much more harsh compared winters in the past 5 years so I've been finding less lights in the wild to photograph as well. Plus, I seem to have less free time now so I've been trying to comment a bit here and there but not as often as I used to be.

GoL did kind of show a similar decline but the community was much smaller and was much more focused on only certain aspects of lighting so once enough people left the site kind of died out, even years before it became inaccessible. Anyone know the full story behind that? It seems like the domain is still active as well as the hosting but something went wrong in the configuration which renders it inaccessible. I believe there were attempts to contact the owner/webmaster but I haven't heard anything since it went down probably almost 2 years ago at this point. I heard most of the GoL members ended up migrating to sites like Facebook. There are probably other lighting communities as well on platforms such as Discord, YouTube, Instagram, Reddit etc where former LG members ended up.

I do agree with Danny, a respectful discussion on why people might have left the site could be beneficial in preventing others from following suit. Same goes for at least giving a reason why a thread is locked from the person that locked it. Helps to prevent misunderstandings as what was demonstrated here.