Spanking Sites Decline?

I have long been dismayed how over the last 10 years or so so many of my favorite spanking forum sites have disappeared or become inactive,
I first got online in 2005 and quickly discovered a number of sites where people with our interest could discuss our concerns and interests. And where I started posting stories, began writing.
SpankingClassics, Spankspot, and World Spanking Forum were my favorites. The WSF had a wonderful chatroom and although have generally not been much of a chatroom type did enjoy participating in that one. Even got to chat with real spanking video models. The site went down, came back, but was never the same in terms of activity level, and is now gone again, along with. a site called HappyTails which some WSF members founded when it was down.
Also the Yahoo group SpankingPages and its sister group of the same name on MSN groups and later Worldgroups, now gone too. And as we know now Yahoo groups are all pretty much dead and turned into soam holes.
And of course the original SIN group, now Spanko. But that has changed, only archived old material, no forum, and seemingly mainly interested in trying to sell paid memberships for video content.
Within the past year BritishSpanking and AllthingsSpanking are gone. Spanking Community is also gone I believe. MySpanking Forum and SpankingDen are still around but little activity.
The ipunishment group is pretty active, but mainly consists of people posting photos in a Facebook style format, not much in way of message board discussion, or stories.
I should clarify that it's message board and forum type sites(my favorites) that have declined.
Still plenty of blogs and video sites it seems.
If anyone knows of other active forum sites that exist of which I am unaware would appreciate knowing about them. Have heard that Fetlife has drawn a lot of people but not sure its my thing ,cannot get info on what it has without joining, and "buying a pig in a poke" not what I care to do.
And then there is Bottomlines, did sign up several years back but seem to have gotten blocked for some reason, lack of sufficient participation I believe. For reasons I will not go into last several years have been spending much less time online in general.
I especially miss Classics and the WSF.

There was definitely an explosion of spanking related sites from 2004 onwards that has slowly died out over the last five years or so.

I suspect that the reason for the explosion was the discovery, thanks to the internet, by closet spankos of how many others there were out there and there was a run to publish opinions and images.

The reason for the decline I suspect is that much of what can be said and published, has been done so already.

I remember the old sites with great affection, though I never joined a forum until now. I do miss some of the blogs that Tumblr has now shut down. Occasionally a decent new video is posted on Spanking Tube.

Over the years I collected what I thought were the best images, many of which are still available.

Consentualspanking.com and Glenmore Comics have hinted they are closing down. END art has been gone for a while and it makes on appreciate this site.

From what I've seen, forums are slowly vanishing, being replaced by instagrams, tumblers, etc. Sites that push things to the user rather waiting for the user to pull the content to them.

Email went through the same transition. At one point there were countless mailing lists, but then those were replaced by forums and other sites. Remember USENET? It faded around the same time as the mailing lists began to fade.

Young adults today just don't want to take the trouble to log into sites - it's just too hard to read long stories on their phones. Instead they want their phone to buzz, beep, whatever and look at photo or short message they can forward around.

Here's hoping the best sites (including this one) survive the changes.

True what you say about young adults and their addiction to their phones and social media stuff. But had the impression forums catered to an older population.
Then again, understand tumblr is deleting adult stuff, and Facebook has had similar rumbles.Of course some of it comes about because site owners get burned out, have health problems or other issues and their sites die or become moribund. Think something like that must have happened to Chross.
Right now this site and ipunishment and ChicagoSpanking Review are the only ones I visit on a regular basis. Love the comics and cartoon material CSR collects, but they drive me crazy with their insistence that only M/F is valid. It runs F/F content- while always complaining how much better it would be if. the spankings were M/F instead. And F/M and M/M are barred. Wish there was a spanking in the comic book and comic strip site(and also film) that feature these other pairings.
For instance, love old "jungle adventure" comics and film. How about a bratty "jungle boy" getting his loincloth flipped aside and his bare cheeks paddled? And of course too bad Jane never got spanked in all those Tarzan movies!

Jane was nude in at least one of those movies - even if she had a body double for some of the nudity (someone who could swim underwater better than the actress).

Goodgulf
That movie is Tarzan And His Mate. Understand the nude swimming scene took place before the more restrictive codes were instituted in Hollywood, later movies show less of Jane's body.
In another scene in that movie her costume shows off a lot of her bare flank and hipbone area from the side, looks like she's wearing nothing underneath. Don't suppose thong underwear was around in the 30s when this film was made.
Speaking of butts in movies with a tropical setting, there is Christopher Atkins in Blue Lagoon. There are better looks at his bare butt in the costume he wears than you get of Brooke Shields'!
He makes a spanking threat to her in the movie, and there is an aborted scene early in the movie when they are kids, but what a delightful scene it is to imagine Christopher getting paddled and walking around with his red bottom cheeks on display!
Now we need to get back on topic, about the sad decline of spanking discussion forums. The above was exactly what took place on the World Spanking Forum board and similar places.

Yes, they are declining due to the reasons mentioned. I myself have thought of closing down a few times, but perhaps because I blog about more than just spanking itself, I find having a public forum therapeutic. So usually if anything, I just take a break and then resume when the inspiration returns.

All that said, all one needs to do is visit any spank-blog on Google's "Blogger" and you will still find hundreds of places where people can interact. Some are very specific and cater to a particular niche, while others are very general and even lighthearted.

The things that frustrate a blog owner are:

1: lack of participation. (this is #1 for a reason. A blog takes work and it is very frustrating when a thoughtful teaser post gets little reaction. So the main reason for blogs disappearing is rooted in the public itself)

2: phonies. ( it is disheartening to try to have a discussion when you start feeling like some of the few people you are dealing with are in no way what they pretend to be)

3: sex-cruisers. (almost as frustrating as phonies are guests who are just quickly cruising around looking for something to jerk off to rather than think about.)

4: boredom. (after a while, even the most thoughtful bloggers run out of new things to discuss......or just feel like 'what's the point?' )

For these reasons, people who run places or host forums, just loose steam and call it a day eventually. And personally, I get tired of the attitude from a certain type of visitor that I am there to entertain them no matter what. My blog was always intended to be a place where like-minded people could interact freely over a variety of topics....and hopefully do so cleverly, in the old salon style. (I have often made reference to the Algonquin Round Table as an aspiration.) But the sad fact is people are just not that clever anymore. Social media has ruined the art of conversation and turned interactions into bland narcissistic revelations over what someone likes or does with little to no depth or analysis. It's like a bunch of little kids at a pool all yelling at everyone to "look at me, look at me" with no thought to look at anyone else.

I agree to much of what's been said here on this thread. I would only add that the cost of maintaining a site has gone up as well. Everyone's trying to get by and make a buck in this era anyway they can. Laments to be sure but I also remember what a wasteland it was long before usenet came along. Anyone but me, an old geezer, remember coded PO boxes and second hand book stores. Not to mention Mr. magazine? Grin!

I think the Library is in better shape than most sites. This is mostly a story archive rather than forcusing on the forums. Even if the conversation dries up there are still many stories to read.