The Effect of the MR Forum Closing


Like many of you my return to the hobby conincided with my e-aquiatence with you people. I valued your advice and your pictures. I will get used to this format is I can continue to get the detailed how-to comments and pictures. Thank you all. I gues I look forward to meeting even more people here.

ArtHill
 
David,

I noted the same thing about the timing around Student of the Big Blue Sky's post. Later he apologized on the Trains forum and seemed pretty beat up about it. :(

I hope he finds his way over here. Although I didn't agree with his points in toto I thought he did have some good ones.
 
ARTHILL said:
Like many of you my return to the hobby conincided with my e-aquiatence with you people. I valued your advice and your pictures. I will get used to this format is I can continue to get the detailed how-to comments and pictures. Thank you all. I gues I look forward to meeting even more people here.

ArtHill

Art, I'm looking forward to some more of your pics! :)
 
Has anyone hit on Argo yet? Tom sent me an email stating the forum was a little hard to grab onto, I hope he gives it another shot.

Back on topic, I think maybe MR is wondering if the 800 lb gorilla is worth having. Maybe they felt we didn't need opinions, just exchange modeling tips. Problem is, we are all little orbs of thought that are yearning to express ourselves ;)
 
dthurman said:
Joe,

When will you be releasing the operations DVD?

I started out thinking I could do one of these mongo DVD's one per quarter, have a regular day job, spend time with my family, and still do the hobby too.

Yeh, right! :rolleyes:

After doing three of these now, I've decided one mongo DVD every 9 months or so is enough to still let me have a life.

That's a long winded way of saying:

DVD Volume 4, Scenery and Bridges, will be out Q2, 2006.
DVD Volume 5, Operating like the Prototype, will be out Q1, 2007.

After the 5 volume series is complete, I then plan to move into producing how-to video shorts on any and every subject in the hobby either via my own internet site or through one of the hobby media companies ... if I can get anyone interested.

One way or another, I'm going to be doing *my part* in bringing the hobby media into the 21st century. ;)
 
jfugate said:
I started out thinking I could do one of these mongo DVD's one per quarter, have a regular day job, spend time with my family, and still do the hobby too.

Yeh, right! :rolleyes:

After doing three of these now, I've decided one mongo DVD every 9 months or so is enough to still let me have a life.

That's a long winded way of saying:

DVD Volume 4, Scenery and Bridges, will be out Q2, 2006.
DVD Volume 5, Operating like the Prototype, will be out Q1, 2007.

After the 5 volume series is complete, I then plan to move into producing how-to video shorts on any and every subject in the hobby either via my own internet site or through one of the hobby media companies ... if I can get anyone interested.

One way or another, I'm going to be doing *my part* in bringing the hobby media into the 21st century. ;)


Looking forward to them Joe. Your work has been an Inspiration and Education for me.
 
grande man said:
That's up for speculation, the troll thing seems pretty weak to me though... :confused:

Eric: We had a major "Trolling" going on in the MR forum a couple of years ago, just after I joined. One of the regular contributors went spastic and just flooded the forum for about two or three days--threw us ALL off pretty well. Bergie spent about a week cleaning out the threads, and the guy came back two or three times under different names. It was pretty hectic. I wasn't on last Friday when the latest occurance hit the fan, but it sounds even worse than the previous incident. I'm hoping that Bergie just decided that since it was the weekend, he might as well lock it down and get to it Monday. I certainly hope so.
However, I really like this forum, so at least there's a place for we 'oldsters' to hang out together, again. But the "Trolling" incident--if it was anything like what happened a couple of years ago--had the forum derailed for several days. Not shut down, but definitely awry.
Tom
 
I just got back from reading some of the forums over on MR that were not locked and what I read there has saddened and angered me some. Seems some made this a 'weekend of the long knives'. At this point I am disgusted and disapointed. Please excuse me if I am not making sense just plain dog down right now.
 
GrandpaCoyote said:
I just got back from reading some of the forums over on MR that were not locked and what I read there has saddened and angered me some. Seems some made this a 'weekend of the long knives'. At this point I am disgusted and disapointed. Please excuse me if I am not making sense just plain dog down right now.

Well I did read some of the retorts to what happened, many blaming us MR forum users, some attacking the nerve of complaining or mentioning the use of another forum. And as is usual Dave flair, I had to respond, of course I was told I should be grateful and never question the motives of MR. I think this is really why Kalmbach has closed the door for the moment, to figure out if we deserve to have the forum. You see I just don't buy into the lemming way of things. I was taught that self expression was part of the democratic way (an no, not starting a political speech) but if MR is all about just MR exchange, that may be hard to do.

BTW I just got an email from Bergie about this. He hopes it's only temporary.

PS, what are long knives?
 
Chip,

When getting around this forum, the "Active" link near the top of the page is definitely your friend. It's the one I use the most often here.
 
JeffShultz said:
Chip,

When getting around this forum, the "Active" link near the top of the page is definitely your friend. It's the one I use the most often here.

Same here Jeff, it really adds to monitoring the forums.

BTW I happened to check out your website the other day, nice pictures of Joe's operating session.
 
I found this forum about 2-3 weeks ago, and found several of my friends(local, that is) also on this fourum. It is much deeper than either the MR or Atlas Forums and has a lot of good information. Even though it appears to use the same basic software, there seems to be a lot lss of those mindless 'poll' threads.
Good to see a lot of my 'cyber' friends here!

Jim Bernier
 
dthurman said:
Well I did read some of the retorts to what happened, many blaming us MR forum users, some attacking the nerve of complaining or mentioning the use of another forum. And as is usual Dave flair, I had to respond, of course I was told I should be grateful and never question the motives of MR. I think this is really why Kalmbach has closed the door for the moment, to figure out if we deserve to have the forum. You see I just don't buy into the lemming way of things. I was taught that self expression was part of the democratic way (an no, not starting a political speech) but if MR is all about just MR exchange, that may be hard to do.

BTW I just got an email from Bergie about this. He hopes it's only temporary.

PS, what are long knives?


David,

I read the exact same thing, a level of fingerpointing, smugness and general character assasination that just got my goat. Whta realy disturbed me was the mild suggestion that we, those of us on the MR forums in particular, in some way brought this on ourselves or deserved it, even going as far as to say that we wasted space and so forth. Needless to say it just made my night.

As to my "Weekend of the Long Knives" its a play off of the Night of the Long Knives which happened in 1934 it was called, Nacht der langen Messer or Reichsmordwoche, "the Blood Purge". It was a brutal purge of political rivals in the SA paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party. Occurring late on a Saturday night, the lethal purge was targeted against Nazi members who were associated more with socialism than with nationalism.

This History Moment has been brought to by the Crazy Coyote Corp.
 
I was asked to join by a freind (Darth) who was asked by Ken L. and I'm glad yes I was mad that Trains (model railroader Forum was shut down) but I like it here as I've been in the hobby over 40 years I really don't get into wheathering and scratch building mainly don't have a place or the room for it at present but I do enjoy reading what you alll say and learning from you all . I enjoy both forums now but have to say this one more than the other as its faster and when your on dial up it makes a big difference as for me to go into the coffee shop on Trains site I can go get a soda and a pack of crackers and still have time normally but here It only takes about 30 seconds at the most.

RT
 
GrandpaCoyote said:
David,

I read the exact same thing, a level of fingerpointing, smugness and general character assasination that just got my goat. .

Wow. Harsh. I did not get that impression at all, but maybe I am just naive. To me, this was a corporation trying to deal with bad behavior by a few jerks (or one jerk, more than likely) taking advantage of a service Kalmbach provides at no charge to us but significant cost to them.

MR couldn't leave the trashy posts up all weekend. Unlike a private forum like this, the vulgar posts would directly impact the public's view of the company. And the jerks would just have added more. Kalmbach probably also couldn't ask Erik Bergstrom to work all weekend on Troll Alert. Then what do you do the next weekend? And the next?

In my mind, they handled this the only way they could, given the situation. Lock everything down so it won't melt down again over the weekend, clean it up, and hope it goes better this weekend.

Is Kalmbach or their online presence perfect? No. But I think they are doing their best in a tough situation for them. What's RMC's on-line presence like? Or Hundmann's? RMJ, MR'ing? They can barely put out magazines, let alone a useful web site.

Personally, I think it's a mistake to ascribe evil intentions or bad attitudes to people who are trying to do their best with a difficult situation (not of their own making) when they don't handle it perfectly in our 20/20 hindsight.

Just my view.

Regards,

Byron
 
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Byron

I think Coyote and myself are more in shock over what the forum members are saying or insinuating. While I think MR overeacted just a little, your right, they have a right and a duty to CYA their forums and their name. I do think they have a tough game to control, they need to allow free exspression, but at the same time, they also need to control any negative posts towards their advertisers. Pretty thin and grey line there.

I saw posts by the trains forums members accusing the MR group of creating the problem, I saw personal barbs being done at some others for mentioning the "alternate forum" which once lockdown was over those posts seem to have vanished. That is one thing that does bother me, the censorship sometimes is a large brush. Again I understand their position. I noticed just the other day that Bergie had posted a retort to some posts about the product reviews, and the "who is this Bergie fellow". If I am not mistaken, he was I think a little disturbed by the posts and ended up locking them and I would imagine delete them out over time.

I see a odd venom happening on other forums about Kalmbach, over at Atlas and other boards, they all seem to have this vendetta. I think the forum at MR is just growing to big for just one person to over see, plus you have a large influx of new members (that's a good thing) that may or maynot know some of the manners that go with posting online.

BTW welcome aboard.
 
cuyama said:
What's RMC's on-line presence like? Or Hundmann's? RMJ, MR'ing? They can barely put out magazines, let alone a useful web site.

That may well be the best choice. Running an online forum is a full time job, and it's a lot different from traditional publishing. It's more like a coffee shop or neighborhood tavern than a magazine. You have to deal with many different personalities, and do it on a real-time basis. No editing or proof readers here...

Doing it as an adjunct to your primary business is tough. Lots of folks think you simply set something up and people will flock to it in droves, buy your products (if you have any to sell) and all you need do is collect the money. I wish, but it's not like that in reality...

The more people you get, the harder it gets. It's a delicate balancing act, and one that takes plenty of patience and practice. Also, as others have mentioned, it's not a job for just one person.

We work hard to try and overcome those problems here. Hopefully we're doing a good job of it.
 
David:

In general, I agree with you.

The way the current forum is structured, it's made to be easy to moderate. The one great big general discussion topic allows that.

But with the traffic levels and the all-over-the-map postings, I find I get mentally exhausted very quickly on the MR forum. An hour later, posts I am interested in are already on the third page. I see questions on subjects I cover in my forum clinics pop up over and over, so then I have to go hunting to find my forum clinics and dig them out again. They're usually back on page 14 or something after a week or so worth of postings ... again, very exhausting for me trying to be a good citizen over there with my posts, trying not to create too much *noise* and keep the posts meaty.

The fact that the "who's bergie?" question even came up would be a bit of an embarrassment if I was the moderator. This means he's never around as far as many posters are concerned, which doesn't speak well of a moderator, IMO. Sure, you don't want heavy-handed moderation, but on the other hand, Bergie can only moderate from 8-5, meanwhile the board goes unmoderated for some 16 hours.

And Bergie's in meeting through the day or working on other projects, so he's kind of in-and-out a lot. With over 10,000 visitors to that forum in a week's time there's just no way one guy can keep up.

From my conversations with the MR staff, I've found they are surprised by some things they see on their forum, like trolls. I don't mean this unkindly, but I think they have some more learning to do about the big bad internet. The internet has been a kind of a back burner project for them, although I also sense they have reached the stage in their involvement with the internet that I believe the lights are beginning to come on.

So while I expect them to be like a gangly kid in their internet presence for a while, I also sense they see it as more important to their future than before. I know in my video discussions with them, they are thinking quite progressively and I'm encouraged by that.

So time will tell. I personally believe as the largest Model RR media outfit in the business, Kalmbach needs to move the internet side of their business to a front burner if they are going to survive in the next 10-20 years. I think the primary source of hobby information (and for most other kinds of info too) will be the internet. Paper publications will never disappear completely, but they will be a mere shadow of their size and circulation we see today.
 
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As previously mentioned, I've been in the other man's shoes. Not like modelbob, but a Super Moderator that had 15 other moderators working the individual forums. The problem was that the "modelbob" guy was never around and we(I) had no way to contact him. Still we had around 3000 members and 200-300 online at any one time. Anyway, it made for some pretty delicate diplomacy. I did this for 2 years.

Bergie has been extremely lucky.

So if the site I worked on was like this one, the one like MR imploded when one guy tried to run it himself. What brought down the site was that advertisers put pressure on the site administrator, who was also the business's marketing VP, to stiffle remarks that criticized the advertisers. When he did, the users revolted and administrator clamped down and the users when to our site. This created a fued between our site and the corporate one--a one sided fued, because we had no animosity.

After two years of this fued, I sent a couple emails to the administrator that talked about marketing in the internet age and eventually he started seeing the light. We eventually made peace. The outcome is that he saw that the users needed to be able to criticize the advertisors and the advertisors needed to respond directly to them in an open forum. AT about his time, the marketing guy got some volunteers to run the forums.

The MR site, as far as I can see, has not made this transition.
 



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