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To be fair, I noticed that there is a downward trend in discussion around this time every year. Many people discuss permits, construction, rumors, speculation in the early portion of the year. Hype builds up but it always seems that after opening weekend people post reviews and check out for a few months.

Not a cop-out, but I think it's an "all of the above" type thing. Yes, discussion boards are dying as the more accessible Facebook and Theme Park Twitter takeover (OU and WDWTragic, the last of the big boys, have been slow too). Yes, the community as a whole seems to get more hyped up these days about speculation games than the event itself. Which may tie into the third point, yes, HHN 26 is mediocre at best, and probably works even less having to follow up a strong contender for best ever event. Theory I've heard from a couple fans--the reason there's no clear consensus on best house (or any order to the houses other than Chance being dead last) is that they're all close to average. A good run or your personal preference as to what a house "should be" is the only difference between ranking Ghost Town #1 and TCM #7 or vice versa.

there's a bunch of people that didn't post this year. Might or might not have to do with the event itself... While the forum here is lacking in discussion, the facebook groups and twitter are having posts non stop. so I dont know. Previous years that were kinda sucky (like 2012 or 2013 with walking dead taking over) had less enthusiasm but more conversation. Maybe discussion has just moved to facebook in general. those groups just keep growing and growing.

Not just for this year, but the event in general. I remember back during the HHNvault days I would log onto the forum and would have an overwhelming amount of posts to catch up on during the entire run of the event. Now I log on once every 24 hours and have usually less than 5 posts to read. It's so disheartening.