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What is the 'old' TalkBass?

I believe the forum remains relatively constant.

The people change. We lose some, gain others. Our greater society changes; and thus the nature of the gigs changes with our society. We see those changes in the contributed comments.

For example, I started participating in 2002; and one of my first contentious exchanges was over the then MTV cultural pressure that young women should be sexually available for any and all male advances. I took exception to this offensive (IMO) cultural twist at the time. MTV is now gone; and I believe we have made some progress on the social gender front.

If anything, our forum moderators have become more conscientious with rule enforcement, keeping discussions focused on making music.

TalkBass is a well run forum, which eschews the (highly) flawed Silicon Valley business model of trafficking in personal information. We should be so lucky.
 
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I've been here about 8 years or so. Web-based forums (fora?) just continue to become dinosaurs as more and more people like to use dedicated social media platforms such as Reddit, etc. I have been active in other forums and they similarly have dwindled. It is older folks like me that "grew up" on web-based fora that still use them. Just a fact of life.

Other comments: I am sure the moderation is effective in making this still a good forum. Also, "PC" means a lot of different things to different people, so that isn't a good way to describe something, IMHO.
 
I've done some analysis and can confirm that indeed the "old" TalkBass was far superior to what we have now.

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I had an account under an email address that I lost access to (started around 2007ish) so I made a new one shortly thereafter. While this one started in 2010, I've got more years on here than 14 (like anyone is impressed lol).

There's a bit more civility now, but I'd actually say that happened organically with knowledgeable veterans and cooler heads sticking around. Instead of being simply berated for asking a common question, people now often suggest a thread search or give some insight on how to find the answer or the right question to ask (the old "Best Bass for Metal" or "Tube vs. Solid State Watts" questions). "Underpowering Speakers" was something I mistakenly took as true, but asking here, it was tactfully shown how it doesn't hold up to factual scrutiny.

I'll leave specific examples out, but what wasn't present (or less visible to me) in the "old days" was some of the self-appointed policing by non-Admins. I don't feel there was a lack of consideration in the "old days", but over time there were more people seeking something to make an issue of. I got stories...but I'll just leave the past in the past (or archived threads lol).
 
My first thought was the old TalkBass was a bulletin board called “The Bottom Line” which started in 1993 by a college kid named Erik Habinga. It was all new - this internet thing and an amazing time. Jeff Berlin, Carol Kaye and Chuck Rainey posted quite often. There were organized collaborative cassette releases of bass players music, and endless discussion about - is an electric bass really just a guitar? There was one troll by the name of “fingers” who was chastising everyone for the forum just being a shopping site and not about bass playing. Was he wrong? I believe the term GAS started on that site.

Anyone else remember it?
 
Two seconds ago I checked the TB stats: 331,409 members total, 502 currently online. That's a grand total of 0.15% of all the members, which is nothing in terms of engagement. Often the main splash page of topics doesn't change for a few days, which is astounding since the "old" TB was in continuous change. In other words, participation is almost nonexistent. Dead.

Sadly, a few moments ago there were also 546 robots online. More robots than live members.

TalkBass has turned into a ghost town compared to the "good ole days," which is probably just a sign of the death of legacy forums, and/or a sign of membership dying off. Or maybe there's just nothing left to talk about?

This is pretty much it. 20 year club and figure the root is engagement, the variables come with increased engagement. I'll sat, I don't engage like I did 20 years ago. I love this place though.