[Implicated]

I've experienced the same things with the same communities. The forums for the outdoor/backpacking community seem to have seen a dramatic slow down in the last few years (I run a used backpacking gear 'for sale' post aggregator and have seen a decline in # of posts over the years - with reddit/subreddits being the only venue that's growing) and the subreddits seem to be 'growing' but their post quality (obviously, this is my opinion and it's not necessarily shared with everyone involved) is suffering greatly.

[toasterlovin]

Yeah, there's a reason HN is text only. The medium dictates the message. If a medium has images, then that medium becomes dominated by images because images are much more captivating that text.

[smileysteve]

I think we're seeing a dramatic slowdown in the people actually participating as well. I'm seeing club participation down for a lot of activities.

[forsakenkraken]

I've noticed this as well. Even activities which are widely popular eg, Football, American Football are apparently struggling. The niche sport that I do isn't doing too badly, but the clubs aren't attracting new members and many of the new participants aren't staying in the sport long term.