In editing all of the member interviews for the KarateForums.com 25th birthday celebration, I noticed that a majority of them talked about how activity within the community had declined over the years. This inspired me to write an article to discuss this observation, and share my philosophy on growth in this community.

KarateForums.com started as an idea back in early 2001. I was a teenager and, as you can imagine, a lot has changed in my life. I think that younger me might have been a little embarrassed by a loss of community activity, where older me doesn't feel that way at all. I'm at a stage here where I honestly don't care about activity. I mean, I do care, but not in the sense that I need it to grow to feel good about the time I spend here.

Corporate Community vs. This Community

Most people probably don't know my background, because why would you, but I've been building online communities since 1998, and it ultimately became what I do as a career. My experience has put me in leadership roles for 8 and 9-figure products, helping companies and organizations like CNN, FedEx, Sony, Cisco, NOAA, and Forbes. When I am working in that sense, I would never say something like, "I honestly don't care about activity." I may as well invite them to fire me. 

In a corporate environment, I just try to get the powers-that-be to understand that communities ebb-and-flow, that people behave like people - they arrive, they get what they need, sometimes they stay, and sometimes they graduate. 

When you are so enamored with growth, as most are in startups and big corporations for understandable reasons, that is when you can start to sacrifice standards for short term increases in activity, so spreadsheets look better. I've had to do it in certain circumstances - that's called "having a job" - but to do it is to make my work less enjoyable.

I Don't Have to Convince Anyone Not to Kill This Community

In a corporate sense, I often have to justify the existence of the community, e.g. the business value of bringing people together. But since I own and operate this community, and have done so for over 25 years, I don't have to worry about anyone shutting the lights off. This community loses money - I'd say it's lost at least thousands of dollars, if not tens of thousands by now. I've lost money by choice, more or less. I may one day try to flip a switch and turn that around (in a thoughtful way; I would never sell your posts to some AI company, don't worry), but I am not really motivated by that, and I don't have anyone I need to convince that this is worth the time it takes, beyond myself.

When you get past all that, what's left is doing something because you love it or, at least, find fulfillment from it. And I do find that here. Ultimately, we operate with a commitment to standards. Over the years, when a member has been told they couldn't do something here, some have told me that this site would be so much more active if I didn't remove their post, that if the community allowed the things they wanted, that it would be so much better. Maybe they're right. But honestly, if the community didn't adhere to these standards; if it wasn't about being a friendly, respectful community, then it wouldn't be as fun to keep going.

There Are Perks to Being Small

I'm content with this community being a community specifically for those that need it, and with that number of people being as small as it is or as large as possible. Would I love for the number to be bigger? Sure, why not? Am I disappointed when it's not? No, not really. Since I am okay losing money, and I don't care about turning 21 into 22 and 22 into 23, I can just create a space to cater to a particular style of conversation. 

This community has been quite active (at one point, probably in the top 5 or so most active martial arts communities in the world I suspect), and it's also been pretty small at times. Both of these can be interesting places to be in, but both have their own problems. I know a lot of people who build communities online, and one of my friends that I have a lot of respect for is Derek Powazek. He gave up day-to-day corporate community work and now runs a farm in Oregon. Years ago, he relayed this interesting anecdote to me:

Quote

No farmer ever said, “I wish the deer would decide to stop eating my crops,” because that’s silly. Deer don’t do that. And in the same way, you will always have problem members of a community or people coming in from outside who are there to destroy. They’re there to eat your crops and damage the fragile ecosystem that you’re trying to create, and they can’t be reasoned with, and I think online that’s the same deal.

So instead of sitting around saying, “I wish people would be good,” which is a lovely thought but very naïve, I think it’s more important to talk about pest management techniques. There will never not be pests, the pests won’t decide to stop being pests, so you have to come up with clever ways to manage those problems. And when I was talking to one particular farmer about deer, he said, “Oh, you don’t have to stop deer, you just have to make your farm less appetizing than the one next door.

In other words, the largest martial arts community in the world is a target for people who want to take advantage of what that represents. Whether that is advertising to them, lying to them, or manipulating them in some way. It's not that this community is not a target - it is - but if you were operating in bad faith and wanted to take advantage of people, would you go to the biggest group of people or the smallest one? We get to deal with less bad actors because we are smaller.

I find a lot of value in that. KarateForums.com is a special place. And it is easier to maintain a special place when the influx of new people is slower. 

Charts

I thought it might be fun to share a chart of forum posts, measured on a monthly basis, for the last 25 years. At one point in my life, I probably would never share a chart like this because of how far we are from the peak, but that's maturity for you.

Here's another cut of this chart, from 1 year before we launched the new version of the site, through today:

The one caveat to these charts is that in the tool I'm using, I can't exclude private posts or posts that have been removed. So, a big "pop" might have just been a spam attack.  That is definitely the case with some of these. In July 2025, we experienced such an attack, and implemented some changes that have reduced that type of spam to practically nothing, which means a lower overall post count, but not in a way that actually matters. For that reason, the chart is not as interesting as it could be, but the trend line is still worth a look.

Conclusion

What does it mean? Well, I tend to believe that what we have seen over the last 25 years is a diversification of platforms, where people have spread out onto more platforms as they had more choice. Many, many people opted to dive into more generic, mainstream social media platforms where people connect around the individual - e.g. I am a friend of you, Patrick, and follow your updates - as opposed to a shared interest or pursuit. And there are plenty of other options for online communities, and people have gravitated toward those that gave them what they needed.

I don't see that as bad. I don't see that as the death of anything. I just see it as more choice. It has put stress on platforms that relied on money in order to continue to operate, for sure. But niche, focused communities are still out there for any topic you can think of. We have a place in that ecosystem, and I'm proud of this community and all that it enables. Thanks for reading and for being a part of what makes this community special.

I would guess (and that is all it is) that part of the reason for the decline is that more people are moving away from discussion forums and more to social media.  Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, ect did not exist in 2001, so there is more competition now for discissions than there used to be. Plus, with the addition of smart phones having cameras more people are now recording their comments/experiences and posting them on their own accounts instead of writing them out on a forum that is run by someone else. None of those existed when this forum first launched either.  I am also guessing that there are many more MA forums now than there were 25 years ago, or even ten years ago. 

Sometimes I do wish there was more activity, since I check the forum almost daily, but I agree there are perks to being small.  @Patrick has done a great job of weeding out the spammers, scammers, and trolls (or pests) who often overtake other forums.  I'd much rather have a smaller group of people who are here for the right reasons than a larger base but full of people looking to start trouble.  

The way I see the current activity is that it's busy enough to engage but not so busy it's hard to keep up.  If it got to the point where it was like Twitter, where every topic gets beat into the ground with a lot of the same responses and requires endless scrolling through the mud to find comments of substance, I would either leave or visit much less often. 

Very good points @Patrick. I totally agree that quality is a lot more important than quantity.

It is good that you can post a question / topic on here to get some advice / technical input and the responses are considered etc. and not just a variation of "i am amazing" which can often be the case on other sites!

Now that was the post of posts, @Patrick!! Very informative and extremely helpful across the board. To expose yourself in this manner is very appreciated, and important for us to understand and know you better. Thank you!!

It’s of no surprise to anyone here that I depend and need KF and its members, even more now, than before!! This community, across the board, is just the right size that it needs to be; no more…no less…just right in a Goldilocks and the Three Bears bed way.

Patrick, to me, and I’ve stated this before, is the perfect example of the book, “Who Moved My Cheese?”, by Dr. Spencer Johnson. Patrick doesn’t wait for the cheese to come to him, he searches for the cheese; that mindset has served KF and its members (us) quite well for 25 years so far.

Thanks for sharing all that information, Patrick.  It does put into perspective how activity here has changed over the years.  I do appreciate the high quality we've always asked of the members that join.  I grew up in a small town, so the "small town feel" of this forum is rather comfortable.  You walk down the street and you know most people.  And if you don't, your just a handshake away from making a new friend.

I appreciate what you do to keep KF chugging along, Patrick.

Thank you for the kind words, KarateKen, DarthPenguin, Bob, and Brian. It means a lot. Thank you for being a part of what makes the community so special.

On 6/15/2026 at 11:37 PM, KarateKen said:

... people are now recording their comments/experiences and posting them on their own accounts instead of writing them out on a forum that is run by someone else. None of those existed when this forum first launched either.

As I mentioned, I do believe the theory of diversification is generally correct, and what we're seeing. I did want to add a reminder here for anyone reading that when you post on your account on Facebook, Reddit, or Twitter, you are still posting on a thing run by someone else. If you have your own personal blog or website or something you host, you can justifiably feel a bit more ownership, but yeah, you're still playing in a garden tended to by someone else on mainstream social, too.

On 6/15/2026 at 11:37 PM, KarateKen said:

@Patrick has done a great job of weeding out the spammers, scammers, and trolls (or pests) who often overtake other forums.

Thank you so much, again, for your kindness. I would just throw in there that the staff we've had, both currently and the many people over the years, have been instrumental in these efforts, as are members who actively report in appropriate content. Just like you have done, KarateKen. It helps!

On 6/15/2026 at 11:37 PM, KarateKen said:

The way I see the current activity is that it's busy enough to engage but not so busy it's hard to keep up.

That is an eloquent way to put the current benefits.  

Thanks again,

Patrick