Bulletin Boards...

[j2k4]

...be like buggy whips, yo.

No, really.

I just visited FST/Filesharingtalk, where I used to moderate.

A lousy 10K+ posting, used to be 100K or more-or-less constantly.

When an international board pares itself down that far...

[Alan92RTTT]

facebook has taken over the world :(

[j2k4]

So I'm told...

[Ludachris]

Facebook, Instagram, etc - all have done a great job diverting attention and participation away from forums, which subsequently has negatively impacted the activity and quality of contributions in forums everywhere. Unfortunately, the automotive enthusiast world will be worse off for it. Social platforms have changed the way the masses interact online and forum technology has fallen behind a bit. Many forums are ghost towns now, some have gone offline, while others have maintained a decent level of participation.

Most forums were bought up by one of the two big forum networks years ago, and have been running on auto pilot, which doesn't do much to help the situation.

I wrote a rant post about it here:
https://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/facebooks-negative-impact-on-car-culture-and-tech-info.520851/

Bottom line is forums will have to adjust to survive. Even then, the glory days are most likely not coming back. Doesn't mean they can't still be valuable resources for a lot of people.

[j2k4]

Excellent rant - you hit all the high-points relative to hobbyist boards.

Facebook is NOT a suitable repository for critical information; while the social aspects of a common interest are generally a positive, anything intended as purely social eventually overwhelms and dilutes the informational content.

In any case, kudos to those who recognize that fact and work to keep the good stuff alive - Alan and Lori Sheffield, in our case...

[Ludachris]

Excellent rant - you hit all the high-points relative to hobbyist boards.

Facebook is NOT a suitable repository for critical information; while the social aspects of a common interest are generally a positive, anything intended as purely social eventually overwhelms and dilutes the informational content.

In any case, kudos to those who recognize that fact and work to keep the good stuff alive - Alan and Lori Sheffield, in our case...

Thanks! I hope more people in the automotive world will recognize it before it gets too bad.

I've started on a quest to try and identify some of the dead/dying automotive forums out there to see if the owners will let me take them over and update the forum software, make improvements, and try to revitalize them a bit. The goal is to keep all the good technical information around for a long time and try and attract members to keep posting new content - otherwise, if no new content gets posted, the sites end up falling out of Google search results, which means nobody will find that information anymore. I hope to try and slow that trend and make a positive impact if I can.

[j2k4]

Seek partnerships if you can, or when necessary - appearances mean more than they used to.

There ARE people of similar mind - gotta grow that crowd, too.

[anyonebutme]

I wonder if people miss IRQ and "groups"? I don't. While I believe boards like this are best for preserving information in a searchable format, I think that is because that's what I'm used to. There has to be a better format because like everywhere else you have to wade through miles of crap posts and misinformation to find it. Google's latest algorithms doesn't help.

[j2k4]

If there's a better format, let's hope it shows itself.

A more effectively-collating algorithm would be helpful, yes, but motivation seems to be the difficulty.

[Ludachris]

Seek partnerships if you can, or when necessary - appearances mean more than they used to.

There ARE people of similar mind - gotta grow that crowd, too.

Unfortunately, partnering with other forum owners doesn't really work. In many cases, new ownership ends up being the only real solution, as partnering won't allow for any change. From what I've seen, the remaining forum owners who haven't sold off their sites to the big networks already are holding on to them because of sentimental value and either don't have the time, the motivation, money or the resources to invest in them to try and resurrect them or at least slow the decline. They usually let their forum run largely on auto pilot. Eventually their forums become ghost towns and they'll decide one day that the hosting costs and hassles aren't worth it if nobody's visiting anymore, then the site disappears, along with all the useful tech info. Or, they'll stop updating the forum software and/or the server software and the database crashes or gets hacked and the site is no longer salvageable. It's a sad situation that I've watched happen quite a bit in recent years.

In order to "try" to save some of these forums out there one will need to invest (time and money) in updating the forum software, testing and implementing new features that will enhance the forum, doing some heavy clean up to make the valuable content easier to access, creating and executing a content strategy to get quality content posted regularly, creating and executing at least a low level marketing strategy to let people know about the new content and/or new features, etc, etc, etc. All of that requires time, money, and expertise. Even then there are no guarantees. You end up having to run it as a business. How many forums are actually run that way? Most are run like a hobby.

There are no easy answers and each forum has its own unique issues and challenges, which makes it more complicated. Another part of the problem is that there isn't big money to be made if you succeed in revitalizing smaller forums - at least not for forums that focus on older, less popular automotive platforms. Most of these forums will never return back to their glory days due to the saturation of social media, even if everything was done right. Which is why you aren't seeing many people motivated to solve the riddle. It's difficult to make a business case for it.

With all of that said, I've actually reached out to Alan about 3SGTO several months ago, but I don't think he's ready to hand the site off. I get it. But I'm hopeful he might consider it before too much time passes.

[Ludachris]

If there's a better format, let's hope it shows itself.

A more effectively-collating algorithm would be helpful, yes, but motivation seems to be the difficulty.

I think it's more than just the format, it's also the way the format is managed. Sure, the forum format will have to evolve to meet changing user behavior and expectations but the forum owners will also need to do more to drive their forums in the right direction and address the issues in the community as well. But as I mentioned in my last post, it's not always easy to make the business case for it. And if there is no business case it will be very difficult to sustain long term.

[j2k4]

Thinking "partners" in terms of like-minded and willing to share the work-load...how you'd find such people is beyond me, but I can see in most circumstances that would require fresh interested' blood - something more than mere administrators.

It's a tough go, for sure, and I wish you luck.

[Ludachris]

Thinking "partners" in terms of like-minded and willing to share the work-load...how you'd find such people is beyond me, but I can see in most circumstances that would require fresh interested' blood - something more than mere administrators.

It's a tough go, for sure, and I wish you luck.

Appreciate it.