Q for Justin

Hi Justin,

I visit the site every day and read the latest posts. I have done so for many years.

I've noticed that the number of posts have really come down recently. Is this a seasonal thing?

Do you keep stats on visitor numbers, forum posts etc.

What I'm trying to get at is, has interest in all things Spanish died down since the credit crunch?

I lived and breathed Spain at one point (from 2003 to 2009), then moved back to the UK in December 2009 and got back to "normal" life, started again (home, job etc etc).

Just wondered if others noticed a slowdown. Also wondered how many people have moved back to the UK?

 Hi Eva2008

I can't answer for Justin, though I would be interested in seeing his reply.  We live in Jumilla in Murcia region, about one hour from the coast.  Where we are, nobody  has gone home or is considering doing so, as they consider they have a better lifestyle here than if they moved back to the UK.  Having said that, we have heard that many younger people from the Pinoso area have returned to the UK due to lack of work, though the pensioners are still here!

Interested in hearing other people's experiences.

Sue

I imposed a 6 month exile on myself with EoS last summer. It was getting to the point where if anyone dare say anything nice about Spain they were berated by a whole host of people that had had a bad experience. And it didn't matter if you were sympathetic or not to peoples misfortune, for them (not all of them of course) Spain was a nightmare and you were somehow mentally deficient if you didn't use every post to slag off Spanish lawyers, the legal system in general, politicians, banks, builders...

I used to come away with the impression that I should feel guilty because my house purchase went reasonably smoothly.

At other times I just felt it got a bit, not intentionally racist, but, I wasn´t comfortable reading it. Silly stuff but it was just the way it was worded "We´ve recently bought a quad property and unfortunately some Spaniards live in one of the residences, you know how noisy they are..."  and I found stuff like that sad.

But yes, noticed the forums aren´t quite as busy, haven´t seen Norman Sands, Poppy, Campana etc

Still a good place to get some good, free advice from other expats and I´m sure it'll pick up again.

Yes, the forums are not as busy as they were say, two or three years ago, even though we are at our highlest level of visitors of all time at the moment.  Visitors to the site are up by around 20% compared with January last year.  It goes up every year.

We have around 100 new members sign up every week...but these are different times today.

We used to have many more people using the forums when they were having development build nightmares, wondering where their money was and people panicing over the tumbling property market.

Today, people have, to a degree, more or less accepted how things are and where they are going so they are less likely now to question everything on forums.

It has all settled down a little as it had all gone a bit crazy.

Current forum usage is probably at the right level of usage relative to the site traffic.  I think previous levels of forum usage were abnormal, especially when you compared it to other similar Spain forums.  You have to remember too that many people join the site solely to keep in touch with people in their own communities and therefore only use their specific community forum for this.

Our private message facility is busier than ever so I think more and more people are actually preferring to communicate more in private too.

So, all in all, website traffic is up and forum activity is, I think, about normal.

Justin

Without the input good or bad from Forum sites like EOS. Where would we be? Please keep up the good work you and your EOS team do Well done Justin.

Always remember to keep the sun in Ya Heart. 

Possibly it's just a phase but there are a couple of newer contributors who are a bit overbearing which might encourage lethergy.   A lot of people come to EOS to float ideas and for a discussion, rather than be told one person's opinion.  Far more annoying are the small number who just make daft unfunny comments, though thankfully at least one of these seems to have gone.  The contributions from TJ and others on the "Coming WW Credit Crunch" are greatly missed.  That was an amazing and enlightening thread (I always thought that M3 was a road in Surrey).  But this is still the best forum for a wide variety of common issues/information.

Without the input good or bad from Forum sites like EOS. Where would we be? Please keep up the good work you and your EOS team do Well done Justin.

Seconded El alamillo

It's extremely quiet on my community forum but I'd say a lot of people there have settled down and are not in need of information as badly as in the beginning. Most posts were related to furniture purchases and utilities. There was a peak when some people got stung by con-men, so maybe no news is good news?

I miss techno ape though, he seemed so upbeat. I remember when he came on to the Siesta Show. Optimism to spare.