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The Death of Motorcycle Forums

cabanza

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Very interesting article from Common Tread (Revzilla):

They definitely are on point. I never realized how much damage Photobucket did when they started charging. But I sure remember being outraged when I lost all my pics.
 

SandRdr

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Photobucket should rot in hell for the stupid move they pulled.

Social media just doesn't work if you want to find something pertinent. Probably take another 25yrs for forums to go away, they are just too useful, kinda the opposite of social media.
 
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In its current form, social media serves an endlessly broad array of topics, with very little depth. For anything technical, it's worthless. It encourages clicks, and that results in a constant barrage of cotton candy content.

Even worse, companies give preference to their social media content while neglecting their own web sites. I've learned of recalls after coming across a forum post from another customer. I wasn't able to find anything on the company's site, but I learned the announcement had been made on Instagram. I've seen the same done with information on new products. :fpalm

Here at ADVbikes, the Facebook content is pulled from here and used to promote the forum. I find nothing wrong with using social media in that way, since the intent is to direct people to more in-depth content rather than simply adding to the worldwide social media faffing.
 
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Very interesting article from Common Tread (Revzilla):

They definitely are on point. I never realized how much damage Photobucket did when they started charging. But I sure remember being outraged when I lost all my pics.
I wonder if they accidentally or intentionally forgot about the impact of forum management turning their sites into ad choked wastelands, and/or allowing poor moderation practices to flourish.
 

Yinzer Moto

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I wonder if they accidentally or intentionally forgot about the impact of forum management turning their sites into ad choked wastelands, and/or allowing poor moderation practices to flourish.

I noticed a couple/few of the sites they mentioned were bought by VS. The author may not be aware of VS and their impact.
 
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I've noticed the Jo Momma sub in the other forum is a lot less active than the CSM sub over there. Could there come a day where the CSM sub keeps that forum alive?
As long as they aren't forced to change anything about CSM, I think it'll continue to bring in a substantial amount of traffic. I recall someone saying that a large percentage of overall traffic came from the Basement, with CSM/JM leading the charge.
 

klaviator

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I've noticed the Jo Momma sub in the other forum is a lot less active than the CSM sub over there. Could there come a day where the CSM sub keeps that forum alive?
I get that some people over there think the basement is the heart of the forum. Most of the people on that forum never go into the cesspool that is called CSM. Many don't even know it exists. Sure the post count is high in CSM but there is very little actual content. Just people insulting others while congratulating themselves for being so much smarter than other people.

I mostly hang out in motorcycle related parts of that forum and I still don't see any change.

I belong to a few motorcycle groups on FB but they are pretty pathetic compared to a good forum. I go on rides organized on ADVr all the time.
 

klaviator

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Interesting article. I never considered that so many people switching from computers to phones as a major reason for the decline in forums. I access forums as well as FB from my computer over 99% of the time. You just miss so much when using a phone and it's tiny screen. But I know many people use their phones.
 
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Interesting article. I never considered that so many people switching from computers to phones as a major reason for the decline in forums. I access forums as well as FB from my computer over 99% of the time. You just miss so much when using a phone and it's tiny screen. But I know many people use their phones.
I suspect that the decline due to phones had to do with forum software displaying poorly on early smartphones. Not a problem now, but getting people back may not be easy once they've moved away from a site.
 
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I have a fairly large smartphone but it is still a poor substitute for a computer.
I agree, but the stats here probably follow the trend that most access is via phones. It's not so much about the screen size for me. I prefer the use of a real keyboard + mouse to thumb typing.
Photobucket is largely responsible as people lost a lot of data and realized they weren't in control of their data either.
That, and it instantly nuked so many reference pages, as mentioned in the article.
 
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matty

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Photobuckets fiasco definitely didn't help any forums. Some posters did bother to re post their pics in the more involved threads they felt were of vallue, but many did not bother, and it got a case of filling in the gaps yourself on some articles. And in fairness i think many were put off by this aspect.
Other factors need considering too, and on some forums unrelated to motorcycling too there were as far back as the late norties early 2010s piss poor near current ADV rider like management / moderation in operation, this devolved the forums to a large extent, and it was only a few stelwarts who kept them running at all.
The Refuge waterfowling forum went south at this time, and a strange management with brutal moderation meant some of the key posters were either hounded out banned or just left. A few on the fringe did sieze the moment and kind of made it their own with a gathering of folowers who more or less just ran around patting the new gurus on the back, and as such felt acepted.
As a sourse of real information it simply ceased to be worthwile, with a mere few putting out scant worthy of merit threads or reply posts.
Other forums worldwide did go similar directions Hunt/ fish In NZ hung on a little but it changed format a few times regulars came and went left for grass greaner new forums, and it simply lost its apeal. retro rides Vissors down and Pigeon decoying uk all had big folowings, but dwindled away or got swamped by heroes who were larger than life knew more did more and were more than anyone else. People just gave up, got disalusioned by much of this venom and went to Social media cto post pictures of the sunday lunch they were about to sit and eat for the whole world to see.
Yp. A few survive and some are sort of usefull to some limited extentb like say duck hunt chat for example, but other similar forums died out, and any left are shadows of what they once were.
 

klaviator

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Photobucket is largely responsible as people lost a lot of data and realized they weren't in control of their data either.
So far all my Photobucket pics are still there. I had a paid account. I think it was around $27 per year and I had just paid for a year when the fiasco happened. I figured that after that year my pics would be gone but that didn't happen. On ADVr all my pics stayed the same. On other forums they got the "proudly hosted on Photobucket" mark across them. I'm guessing that ADVr has something in its software to get rid of the mark.

Recently photobucket has been sending me E mails about my account being inactive. I won't give them a penny.

As soon as Photobucket did it's thing I switched to SmugMug. Then came the VS takeover of ADVr. Those things made me realize that I really don't have control of anything I post online or even store remotely. SmugMug could do the same thing that Photobucket did and raise their rates to a extortion level.

For those who post on other social media there are no gaurantees there either.
 
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No durable, long term guarantees once it leaves your hands, just as you said.

A side topic related to that is the questionable longevity of documentation in the media. News reports and associated photo libraries are available from long ago, but what happens when that information is all digital? I think most organizations now see the value of retaining that data and storing it in a useful way, but there's probably some drop-outs in coverage, especially during the transition to digital photography. When storage media was more expensive, it was easy for a photographer or organization to decide to delete whatever wasn't important at the time to free up space.

It's not a new phenomena: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11_missing_tapes

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MrWellAdjusted

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I get that some people over there think the basement is the heart of the forum. Most of the people on that forum never go into the cesspool that is called CSM. Many don't even know it exists. Sure the post count is high in CSM but there is very little actual content. Just people insulting others while congratulating themselves for being so much smarter than other people.

I mostly hang out in motorcycle related parts of that forum and I still don't see any change.

I belong to a few motorcycle groups on FB but they are pretty pathetic compared to a good forum. I go on rides organized on ADVr all the time.
Really, because it seems quite stagnant to me compared to just 3 years ago, but it's great for the community if you feel nothing's changed. I feel CSM is much more diverse in its member's than you are claiming, but we're going to disagree on that subject, so there is no point for me to bother making examples. If it's not for you, it's not for you. I'm glad you're active here, I hope you stick around, the community needs an independent forum as opposed a forum owned by a publishing group, or VS.
 

klaviator

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Really, because it seems quite stagnant to me compared to just 3 years ago, but it's great for the community if you feel nothing's changed. I feel CSM is much more diverse in its member's than you are claiming, but we're going to disagree on that subject, so there is no point for me to bother making examples. If it's not for you, it's not for you. I'm glad you're active here, I hope you stick around, the community needs an independent forum as opposed a forum owned by a publishing group, or VS.
Different people will have different experiences on ADVr. There are many who will agree with your assessment on what is going on there. I think it really depends on where you hang out. The areas where I hang out are as active as ever. If anything I am seeing more activity. Despite the VS takeover I see even more activity from the inmates that I know. I personally know and ride with a fairly large number of inmates and participation from them is up.

I agree that having an independent forum like this is a good thing. It doesn't have nearly the activity level of ADVr....yet, but hopefully it will grow. I'm trying to do my part to help this forum grow.

It's good to have an alternative and backup to ADVr because who knows what the future holds for that forum.
 

GMK999

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It should be considered that Basement type threads take away the direction of the site for advertisers and potential buyers. Eventually leading to the demise of the original scope of a website.
At ADV there are some 14 million posts in JM and 6+ Mil posts in CSM ( Not sure if the total is 14+6 or the 6 is included in the 14). Would the site have held as much interest from VS without that post count? And as an investment would VS be willing to let those go to focus more on the travel side of the forum? Probably not. The bus is rolling and it is rolling quickly away from it's roots (Motorcycle travel and recreation)
The site as we knew it is gone as are many other sites for the same reasons. Post count is key to making money .
 

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