Divalent

Well, even if folks rediscover (or newbies discover) this place, it is currently extremely poorly organized for the traffic that expected. IMO, no chance this place can be resurrected without some reorganization to concentrate the few discussions one would hope would be sustainable. Here is a copy of a message I sent over 4 years ago (sept 2021) to the folks that ran this place, a time when traffic was waning, but still greater than it was in the fall of 2024 (right before DZ.com got sold). If I were to change any of my recommendation, it would be to combine even more forums. (Maybe other folks can think of additional things.) The problem is I don't know how easy/hard it would be to make these changes. --------------- I'm a relatively long time member of the Dropzone.com community (~10 years) and am a bit sadden to see the activity here drop so much over the last couple of years. Part of that is FB/Instagram migration (and we'll see how long that lasts; I think it possible there will be some reversal, albeit gradual, back to dedicated topical websites). However, in part I suspect that it is also due to this website not adapting to the smaller traffic levels: IMO the content here is both low, and spread out over so many separate forums that the effort needed to access a bit of content has gone way up. So I though I'd give some unsolicited advice to help improve things. The main suggestion is to greatly *Reduce* the number of separate forums: at the current traffic level, it is just too atomized. It seems to me you want to make it easy for people to engage with others. Outside of Bonfire and Speakers Corner, there are only a handful of new threads started each week. Who wants to check into 25 different forums to find the 4 posts that were made in the last week to see if you find them interesting and worth engaging? (If they were all in one or two forums, you could see the titles in a glance.) My specific suggestions would be the following: 1. Delete these forums: - Q&A. It's not worth it. And to the extent there is activity, it would have been posted in the correct topical forum. You need to concentrate content, not spread it thin. Questions get asked there and ignored, very likely because few people saw them (not because no one who comes here often knows the answer). - Tandem (combine into instructors; or kill both and make those topics part of General) - Wind tunnel (little used, and General or Instructor forum can cover) - Women (little used, General forum can cover) - Disabilities (little used, General or Safety forums can cover) - Combine "Announcements" and the 3 "Dropzone.com" forums (bugs, suggestions, and scams) into just 1 forum. - consider combining several, or all, of the "skydiving Disciplines" forums into one or just a couple Forums. Or close them all up and shift it to the General Skydiving forum. I mean, the CRW forum had one new thread started in the last two years (and that was a guy looking for a t-shirt). The Relative Work one has only 2 new threads in the last year, both on the topic of how they might revive the disciple. FreeFlying has just one new thread in nearly 2 years (A guy asking for advice on where to train: *no one* answered him!) If they were posted in a common area with more traffic, likely those posts would have generated more discussion. As it is, even an excellent topical thread is very likely to go unnoticed by the many here. 2. Cull the pinned topics in the forums. There are too many that are long past their usefulness, but by being pinned, can obscure recent interesting threads (since you have to click on the forum, then scroll past the pinned ones to see what is new there). Plus old irrelevant ones make the place look abandoned (or more abandoned then they really are.) I'd estimate you could unpin at least 80% of them. 3. Create a new forum for DB Cooper (and allow multiple threads)! Okay, I know I said to reduce them, but why add a new one? Reason 1: The DB Cooper thread activity always dominates the History/Trivia forum, so you rarely see a real history/trivia posting highlighted on the front forum page. (so any new post there is likely to be a DB Cooper one, which skydivers mostly don't care about, so they miss it (so then no one posts there with history stories.) IOW, the aim it to make the History forum more useful. An example, look in the Intro and Greets forum, where a long time skydiver recently posted a story about redoing his training undercover (pretending to be new), just for fun. That post should belong in the History forum. But no one visits the history forum (bc of DB Cooper) and most long time skydivers rarely visit the Intro/Greets forum. It got 54 views in 5 days (vs ~300 for the single new post in the Joke Of the Day thread over the same time period). But this post really should be in the History section where it topically belongs, and where it can be found more easily. It is a shame that so few people will see it. Reason 2: A separate DB Cooper forum would attract some eyeballs, but still keep the topic contained. And if new threads are allowed, could make it more useful than that single thread is now. There is a good amount of activity there in that single thread (probably about equal to the total of the rest of the site, outside of Speakers Corner and Bonfire), and if you aren't going to get many skydivers using this site, at least try to capture a tangentially related topic that can drive even more unique viewers/posters. Most other forums for discussing DB Cooper are controlled by a particular faction in that community; DZ.com would be neutral, and so likely could "take over" this segment. (Yeah, they are mostly insane whacko's, but they probably generate enough clicks, so maybe try to get a side benefit apart from the main purpose in Reason 1 (which is to improve the value of the History forum).) I'm not saying this would revive the site, but it might help stem the decline. It is still the best place for folks to go for skydiving information and community, and it would be sad to see if continually decline. Reducing the number of forums by about half, and so concentrating the remaining content into fewer topical forums, can only benefit engagement. I know most of your traffic is in Speakers Corner (and bonfire), but those forums exist in an active state only because the participants were drawn to this site by the topical skydiving forums. Regards

A man walks out to the street and catches a taxi just going by. He gets into the taxi, and the cabbie says, "Perfect timing. You're just like Frank." Passenger: "Who?" Cabbie: "Frank Feldman. He's a guy who did everything right all the time. Like my coming along when you needed a cab, things happened like that to Frank Feldman every single time." Passenger: "There are always a few clouds over everybody." Cabbie: "Not Frank Feldman. He was a terrific athlete. He could have won the Grand-Slam at tennis. He could golf with the pros. He sang like an opera baritone and danced like a Broadway star and you should have heard him play the piano. He was an amazing guy." Passenger: "Sounds like he was really something special." Cabbie: "There's more. He had a memory like a computer. He remembered everybody's birthday. He knew all about wine, which foods to order and which fork to eat them with. He could fix anything. Not like me. I change a fuse, and the whole street blacks out. But Frank Feldman could do everything right.” Passenger: "Wow, what a guy!" Cabbie: "He always knew the quickest way to go in traffic and avoid traffic jams. Not like me, I always seem to get stuck in them. But Frank, he never made a mistake, and he really knew how to treat a woman and make her feel good. He would never answer her back even if she was in the wrong; and his clothing was always immaculate, shoes highly polished too. He was the perfect man! He never made a mistake. No one could ever measure up to Frank Feldman." Passenger: "How did you meet him?" Cabbie: "I never actually met Frank. He died and later I married his wife."

A wife buys her blond husband a scale to help him with his new diet. A week later the blond says, "Honey, this here scale is great! Now not only can I weigh myself, but now I know how much I'm pooping out 'cause of this new diet I'm on!" The wife says, "That's great; I never thought of that. So you step on the scale before you go to the toilet, step on the scale again when you're done and the difference is the weight of your poop?" And the blond says, "... yeah, I guess I could do it that way..."

A nun walks into mother superiors office and lets out a sigh, heavy with frustration. "What troubles you, Sister?" asked the Mother Superior. "I thought this was the day you spent with your family." "It was," sighed the Sister. "And I went to play golf with my brother. We try to play golf as often as we can. You know I was quite a talented golfer before I devoted my life to Christ." "I seem to recall that," the Mother Superior agreed. "So I take it your day of recreation was not relaxing?" "Far from it," snorted the Sister. "In fact, I took the Lord's name in vain today!" "Goodness, Sister!" gasped the Mother Superior, astonished. "You must tell me all about it!" "Well, we were on the fifth tee — and this hole is a monster, Mother — 540 yard par 5, with a nasty dogleg right and a hidden green ... and I hit the drive of my life. The sweetest swing I've ever made. And it's flying straight and true, right along the line I wanted ... and it hits a bird in mid-flight!" "Oh my!" commiserated the Mother Superior. "How unfortunate! But surely that didn't make you blaspheme, Sister!" "No, that wasn't it," admitted the Sister. "While I was still trying to fathom what had happened, this squirrel runs out of the woods, grabs my ball and runs off down the fairway!" "Oh, that would have made me blaspheme!" sympathized the Mother Superior. "But I didn't, Mother!" sobbed the Sister. "And I was so proud of myself! And while I was pondering whether this was a sign from God, this hawk swoops out of the sky and grabs the squirrel and flies off, with my ball still clutched in his paws!" "So that's when you cursed," said the Mother Superior with a knowing smile. "Nope, that wasn't it either," cried the Sister, anguished, "because as the hawk started to fly out of sight, the squirrel started struggling, and lost his grip on the ball, and it fell right onto the green, and rolled to about 18 inches from the cup!" The Mother Superior sat back in her chair, folded her arms across her chest, fixed the Sister with a baleful stare and said ... "Jesus fucking Christ! -- You missed the God damn putt, didn't you?"

My wife said she was good at multitasking. But I don't think she really is. The other night I told her to sit down and shut up, and she couldn’t do either!

It takes me just 3 mins to walk to the pub, but 30 mins to walk back home. The difference is staggering.

Jews don't recognize Jesus as the Messiah. Protestants don't recognize the Pope as the leader of all Christians. Southern Baptists don't recognize each other at the liquor store.

Four older golfing friends In their fifties, they would finish their morning golf and decide to have lunch at Hooters, because "They have those servers with the big boobs, the tight shorts and the gorgeous legs." In their sixties, they would finish their morning golf and decide to have lunch at Hooters, because "they have cute waitresses and good wings." In their 70s, they would finish their morning golf and decide to have lunch at Hooters, because "they have clean bathrooms." In their 80s, they would finish their morning golf and decide to have lunch at Hooters, because "we've never been there before."

A Priest, a lawyer, and an engineer were caught in a pogrom. All were sentenced to death by guillotine. They came first for the priest. As they placed him under the guillotine, the priest asks to be executed face-up so he can face heaven in his final moments. They did so, and then pulled the switch. Nothing happened. Well this country had a rule that you could only have one attempt to be killed, so the priest was set free. They came for the lawyer next. Thinking that facing heaven might also save him, he also requested to be executed face up. When they pulled the lever, again nothing happened. By rule, the lawyer was also set free. Then they brought in the engineer, who naturally also asked to be placed face up. But just before they could pull the lever, the engineer held up his hand and said: "Wait! I think I see the problem".

John: "My wife ran off with my best friend Mike yesterday." Eddie: "Mike? Since when has Mike been your best friend?" John: "Since yesterday."

An old lady goes to the doctor and says: "Doc, I can’t stop farting. They’re silent with no smell, but I’ve let out 20 in the past 5 minutes sitting here"/ The doc gives her some pills and tells her to come back next week. The next week the old lady comes back and says "Doc, I took the pills, the farts are still silent but now they stink!" The doc says "Great! We’ve cleared up your sinuses, now let’s work on your hearing!"

I came home today to find my kids have been on EBay all day. If they're still there tomorrow I will have to lower the price.

Jack and his wife plan a safari to Africa. Because his mother-in-law had never been to that part of the world, his wife begged him to include her on the trip. Despite his misgivings, Jack relented. The trip goes quite well and all three are having a good time, enjoying all the sights and all the wild animals. One morning, Jack and his wife wake up to discover her mother not there. Concerned, they go out and start looking for her. Walking along the trail, they come to a clearing only to find the mother-in-law face to face with a very large lion. Jack's wife is very afraid. She says : "Jack, do something! Do something!" Jack looks the situation over carefully and ponders for a few moments. "Nope" he says, "That lion got himself into that predicament, he can get himself out."

Panties aren’t the best thing in the world ... but they’re close to it.

I'm like the fabric version of King Midas. Everything I touch becomes felt.