What is happening to the Forums?

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wombat457

wombat457

I'm the one
Maybe I have too much time on my hands, the joy of being retired, but what is happening in the forums now a days? Before I took my sabbatical, you couldn't be on here for more than 1/2 an hour without something being posted. Now the posting rate seems to have dropped off into obscurity?

Could the lack of postings be a result of a dwindling interest in the forums or perhaps the hobby as a whole?
 
Posting was extremely busy over the weekend, but there are many of us who are working and don't have time to post.
 
Chet,

Fair point, I do sometimes forget that some people in this hobby still work; symptomatic of the uneducated believing this is an "old mans" thing :)
 


Many forums slow down over the Summer months. People spend more time outdoors, and away from their computers.
 
Terry makes a good point. I haven't had a chance to get into my train room in almost a month just to run trains, let alone work on any model railroad projects because the room where I keep my work bench is currently under construction.
 
While I have noticed some slowdown on weekdays, what I have noticed more is an evolution of the forum. We used to have a sporadic "Weekly Photo Fun" (WPF) that evolved into a "Monthly Photo Fun", that skipped July altogether. I do admit that I only contributed occasionally, posting more photos in the Coffee Shop. That's (WPF) an area that I wish we could resurrect.

Willie
 
I got run over by a train while rail fanning a few weeks ago. Just got my left hand free from being stuck to the rail to type this post. If I can keep the buzzards from chewing my eyes out, I should be able to reach a stick that's laying nearby to help pry my other hand free.
 
Tony,

I also noted the slowdown. Since I'm upstairs most of the time while my wife recovers, I pop into the forum 3 or 4 times a day. I put the lack of activity down to summer activities having precedence over the railroad. I have two projects in the works, but with everything else going on, I just can't seem to put the time together to finish them.
 


wombat457 said:
Maybe I have too much time on my hands, the joy of being retired, but what is happening in the forums now a days? Before I took my sabbatical, you couldn't be on here for more than 1/2 an hour without something being posted. Now the posting rate seems to have dropped off into obscurity?

Could the lack of postings be a result of a dwindling interest in the forums or perhaps the hobby as a whole?
Click to expand...
No, on the later. I believe other forums are doing fine. True it is summer, but I think we are just in general loosing our regular poster type folks, and not attracting anyone new. Usually there is a constant influx of new posters, and used to be about 1 in 10 hung around. That doesn't seem to be happening lately (last two years or so). I think the lack of posting is making them seek conversation on the other side of the tracks. A forum always needs the grandman and spacemouse type people - preferably 10-20 of them at a time.

I've been trying to step up and say something about all threads that get posted a lot more than I used to, but just me doing more isn't going to attract anyone.

Plus I've tried a few "deep thought" threads and some "join the conversation type" that don't get very far. I guess we don't have a lot of folks who just like to contemplate the truth of the model railroad world, or do research to add to the conversations. sigh.
 
I have to agree with you Iron.

Also, people seem more interested in the coffee shop or just sticking to their own thread.
What I don't understand is that since my post of July 26th, over 400 views but only 3 posts.
I continue posting here because this is where I first started and got lots of help getting started.
But I'm more implicated elsewhere with writing in a magazine, having hangouts (Google plus) and posting.
The other place has lots of experience seniors participating, here it seems they're all sitting on the sideline and having coffee...lol

Another reason could be all the Facebook sites for train modeling, maybe we should post our forum on all of them.

Personally, I'm very appreciative of all those that have help me out with my questions or posted in my thread.
To you all .... Many Thanks
 
I am also beginning to wonder if there are now too many model railroad forums. I know that I am on five myself, very active on three of them and only moderately active on two others. I recognize that many of our members are also on some of the others as well. There are many more that I am aware of, but I only occasionally lurk on them. I really miss the old pre-Zealot "Gauge".

Willie
 
Yep, seems like a lot of forums past month or so have been slow. I don't like it either but that's what happens.

I tend to be most active on the one I moderate, which seems to be one of the generally more active ones. I participate in 5 or 6 forums but only a couple remain semi active during the slower months. MRH and Trainboard are pretty slow right now and here somewhat too.
 
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Horseman:

What I thought strange, but didn't mention as I thought it may have been too confrontational, was people use it being summer as the reason yet when I posted the question there were (apparently) 40 or so members and 3 or 400 guests online yet for the most of the day not one new post of any kind. Even right now, there are apparently 32 members logged in. I realize, as Chet said, some people maybe at work and logged in or never log out like me, so that may inflate those figures. Summer may attribute to some of the "non stop posting" like it used to be, but we have had summers in past years as well.

One of the things that seems to inspire posts is the arrival of new people to the hobby in the forums and, as you said, that doesn't seem to be happening as much - even though I didn't recognize a lot of the names that were logged on. Perhaps we are attracting new members, but new members with experience who don't need to ask questions?

Hawke,

I think you are on the right track with much of what you said, right now there are 44 people viewing the coffee shop but (possibly) not that many viewing all other posts. I guess that raises the question of why? What does the coffee shop have that the other threads don't have?

I also know what you mean about the views versus replies. I asked a question at 8:30 am yesterday morning and despite having 60 or something views come 11:00 pm last night, there was not one reply. Granted, this morning I had 80 views with 3 replies.

Willie:

You maybe right about there being too many forums to pick from and perhaps we are loosing potential new active members to those other forums/places and or loosing our own members to them. I am only a member here so I don't know what goes on in other forums or how they are performing, but if what Horseman has said is right, that other forums are doing okay, what are they doing that we aren't?

I may well be wrong here but why join a forum, a place for conversation, exchange of ideas and thoughts if you don't want to engage in that conversation? It doesn't make sense to me. With that being said, perhaps a better question is:

Why did you join these forums?

All of this is why I suggested that interest in the forums/hobby may be dwindling. The forums are simply not what they used to be, in terms of activity, a year or two ago and certainly not how they were when I first joined.
 
I am also on a few other forums, but find that this is the most friendly forum and the easiest to post photos. I am in HO scale and find more HO scale modelers here. I do have interest in other scales, but one of the other forums seems be be mostly N scale and another in O scale tin plate. It is easier to post photos on this forum than others also.

I do try to keep up on my Logan Valley thread, but haven't been able to do much work on it in recent months, let alone operate trains. Like Greg said, It's summer and people are enjoying it, going camping, going on vacation, ot like me, making home improvement while the weather is good. I know that there are times that I have way too many things going on and not nearly enough time to do everything that I want.

In the winter, when it's cold and the snow is flying is when I get more time to devote to the hobby.

One thing I do enjoy is watching the progress that members are making on their layouts, such as Lloyd and Dave (LASM) along with watching the development of layouts, such as Tony's. Some of the forum members have some really nice layouts and I always enjoy seeing photos of them.

What did happen to the photo of the week thread. Guess I could start one.
 
OK guys. Earlier today I started a Monthly Photo Fun since that's what we did last time around. I did see that Chet posted some pictures already. Thanks for the support.

Willie
 


I think people are on different forums for different reasons.....I've actually been a member on this forum for many years but only got involved in actual discussions due to some back and forth with you Tony last summer...so I check in regularly. I'm a member on numerous other forums,visit most of them daily and contribute when I have something to offer. One other forum, that is pre-dominently o-gauge which is of no interest to me I check into multiple times a day because of some of the volatile discussions which I find amusing. The actual modelling discussions that are of interest on different forums will get a visit from me fairly regularly, ie:daily, otherwise some forums maybe once every few weeks.
I've dropped out of forums that have either gotten so slow as to be catatonic or have evolved to be of no interest.
One of my favourite forums that I would drop into multiple times a day was related to a magazine where the discussions were about the articles and the subject of the articles and were very very active but once the magazine stopped publication the discussions slowed right down. Now I just quickly drop in maybe once a week to see if anything of interest to me is being discussed( usually not).
 
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