Wednesday April 24,2024 Are we at the end of the road?

[Jim Donovan]

Folks I am writing this late Tuesday and will be curious how many respond tomorrow, I suspect not many. Since the site re-opened traffic has steadily dropped and build threads have almost ceased. Even the daily chat has less then 10 people on a good day, today there was 3. The reasons are many but the result is the same, the site is no longer meeting the purpose for which it was designed. Jeff e mailed me asking  what is up and what now? The site is very stable, Craig Rusty has done an incredible job of bring everything back and improving the site's ability way above what it originally had. We simply have too few posting threads or reviewing otherswork. Cost is not an issue, or perhaps it is. I learned a long time ago that things that were free were perceived to have no value. Put a cost to it, be it ads, subscription, whatever and people would say they were not getting their money's worth, but they would come.

Folks, I do not have any magic answer, the site needs everyone if it is to prosper. Please let me know if you feel it still is relevant to you, what you think needs to be done to bring the people back or if time has move on.

Thanks
Jim

[nycjeff]

Hello Jim, I agree with you, the forum has not regained it's past volume of build threads or layout tours. Maybe if you explain once again how easy it is to submit pictures, which we all love, more people will submit content that we could all enjoy. It doesn't have to be new stuff or new kits- anything railroad or hobby related would be good. I know that there are a lot of very fine modelers out there and that there are many facets of our hobby that could be discussed and appreciated. I for one would really like to see the forum return to it's past glory.

[Keep It Rusty]

There are many potholes on the journey to success for a forum. And this one has hit a fair few in its time.
Unfortunately for forums, in recent years, Facebook has become more and more ubiquitous for folks to share their modeling progress and showcase the results. To be honest, it is a neater way of interacting with people who follow one's work. That said, there's no greater platform for posterity than a forum... it just seems as though that's not the highest priority anymore.

As I mentioned in my email, I think it would be a great shame to pull the plug here given everything. I think there's life/potential in the old girl yet.

Jeff -- for some months now a guide has existed here on the forum detailing the two methods of posting an image. It can be found in the top-most board, "The Yard" and also on the landing page. It surprises me this still seems to miss some people by, so I will look into making it more prominent.

https://modelersforum.com/index.php?topic=6278.0

[MartyO]

When the site disappeared I was sad that one of my forums for self expression had disappeared. After a while I did not miss posting builds as there was nothing to build.

On the other hand all builds have very many same steps and it can get boring. Plus, life often gets in the way of modelling, so the focus on posting gets challenging, at least for me.

Others sites are a constant borage of "buy me" ads and are very distracting and trust becomes an issue. I have no need or desire to have Facebook, etc as they are designed to be addictive and a general time waster, which we don't have to spare.

Would I miss this site if it when away, for a while. If ads came, I would be disappointed, but would put up with it, for a while.

But it good news, the honey do list is now shorter, vacations planned, chauffeuring planned, got new glasses, lost a few pounds, old friends have disappeared and the weather is going it's thing.

[Vietnam Seabee]

Dang...I wrote a lengthy reply, thought I hit Post but it's not here...maybe it's bouncing around the 'cloud' and will appear
Terry

[Keep It Rusty]

Dang...I wrote a lengthy reply, thought I hit Post but it's not here...maybe it's bouncing around the 'cloud' and will appear
Terry

It's somewhat common for folks to hit "Preview" by mistake and think it's posted. If you navigate away from that page, the draft will be gone (but not posted, unfortunately).

[Vietnam Seabee]

Just a comment about volume of traffic here...I've been offering my excess kits for sale both here snd on the competition forum....I've had a fair amount of inquiries from this forum and zippo from the other site.
Regardless, I'm going to start offering them on eBay merely because of the traffic generated there
Terry

[deemery]

There are many potholes on the journey to success for a forum. And this one has hit a fair few in its time.
Unfortunately for forums, in recent years, Facebook has become more and more ubiquitous for folks to share their modeling progress and showcase the results. To be honest, it is a neater way of interacting with people who follow one's work. That said, there's no greater platform for posterity than a forum... it just seems as though that's not the highest priority anymore.

As I mentioned in my email, I think it would be a great shame to pull the plug here given everything. I think there's life/potential in the old girl yet.

Jeff -- for some months now a guide has existed here on the forum detailing the two methods of posting an image. It can be found in the top-most board, "The Yard" and also on the landing page. It surprises me this still seems to miss some people by, so I will look into making it more prominent.

https://modelersforum.com/index.php?topic=6278.0

Well, there's a non-trivial number of people who won't go anywhere near Facebook.  I have all of Facebook's domains blocked at my firewall, to prevent their surveillance.  So Facebook can be a great place, but it's also a place that limits your exposure.  

dave

[Zephyrus52246]

It would be a shame to lose this site again.  I have no problem with ads if that's what is needed, or even monetary support.  I have posted some builds and layout updates, but as I'm still working, I don't spend a lot of time modeling, so they are sparse.  

The old site had many members, but how many were truly active?  More than we have posting now, however. 

The picture posting here is the easiest of any forum I've been on, I don't think that's an issue. 

Wish I had some more ideas to generate traffic for you, hope you can keep things going here. 

Jeff

[ACL1504]

This is my second attempt to post. I hit the POST and not the Preview and it never came up. FYI.

Jim,

I'm not sure I have the answers to what going on but I admit I'm part of what you are referring.

When I first learned about the forum back in 2008 or 2009 I became very active as you can tell from my post count. However, that isn't the point. My point being that I was one of the most active members in posting very detailed build threads in including over 1,000 pages of the A&S RR build thread. I was also much younger.

When Jimmy D. shut us down and brought us back, we were happy. Then a few months later, as you know, he shut us down again for the last time. We were all very happy to have the forum back thanks to you and Craig. We never did get many of the old forum members back.

We do the build threads to share ideas with others. We also feed off the responses from thread followers. As Marty said, after a while, it becomes boring with same info being repeated after each build thread.

Myself and a few others took pride in our very detailed build threads. Responses let us know the information and tips were appreciated and worth the effort of posting.

I'll use my REA build thread as an example. I started it on November 12, 2023. Today I have just over 2,000 views. In years past, I would get over 2,000  views in two months.   Members outside of the SBG posted 9 comments. The SBG guys posted 23 comments which includes two of yours. 31 comments of the 2,000 views is 1.5% or less.

Over the past several months, I've found myself seriously lacking any real enthusiasm for railroad modeling. I have no interest in building kits or working on the railroad.

For the past several months, I've been very involved in writing a book about my life and experiences growing up in Central Florida in the late 1940's to present.

In my old age, call it lazy or lack of interest, I just don't have the fire I once did. Will it return? Maybe, I have no idea.

So yes, I follow the forum but do I post as a regular member, no.  Do I want the forum to shut down? NO!

I'm only speaking for myself and not others, For me, like Dave, I'll never go to FACEBOOK. to follow anyone, don't car how good they are.

[GPdemayo]

Morning all.....I can't say I'm surprised by this thread and i wish I had some magic solution to our problem.

As Jeff, I'm still working and don't have all the time to spend on our hobby and I haven't done a thing since I ran into a brick wall with all the detail castings on the garage build I posted here. My layout has also been at a standstill for many years and I'm not sure what direction it will take in future.

I missed the stories and adventures of all the members of our club when JimmyD closed it down and was thrilled when Jim and Rusty got it going again. I plead guilty to being a minimal contributor in the daily post, but as an excuse, I will confess that I absolutely hate this keyboard and have since I began working on computers in 1984. I have hardly improved my typing speed in all these years and it would take to much time each morning for me to type a normal post the way y'all do each morning.

I visit the forum and review all the activity each day and hope that I will be able to in the future.

[Keep It Rusty]

This is my second attempt to post. I hit the POST and not the Preview and it never came up. FYI.

I'll continue to look into this.

For the record, I'm not going anywhere and I don't plan for the forum to either! 

[MartyO]

I am glad the forum is staying around.

What I have been trying to do when I am posting is not explain how to build a model, the manufacturer does that (sometime poorly), but the thought process of the model, how it fits into the layout/diorama and the troubles it presents. The modelling is more than gluing sticks together, but how it represents itself in an environment.

The added value posts bring to the table are the tricks to get the "look" and how they expand the "kit" to make it truly unique. We have many cleaver people on the forum with so much to add and this needs to be exploited.

For the record, I really don't like model railways they are a pain to get to any level of perfection and represent a source of discomfort. I can't talk about the XYZ rail company and how they run, I just don't care. What I care about is creating a scene/model that is beautiful, a work of art, that gives me the sense of accomplishment, even if it does actually operate; at least the train can run once in a while, maybe.

I love this forum because it satisfies this need and was unquestionably the social environment that has the same thoughts, for the most part.

Heh, who kicked me off the "Soap box"

BTW: I always select "Cntrl A, Cntrl C" the whole message before I send it incase of glitches.

[tom.boyd.125]

 Morning,
Saw Jim's comment and wanted to respond. I found this forum years ago after Bob aka South River Model Works sent out an email to members on his mailing list about a Tucker & Cook build by Jaime Zepeda. Looked like a great group of social friends so we got active. Even meet at least 6 or 7 members in person from this group at the NNGC in 2018 in Minneapolis. For me, the candy store took over much free time. Loss of several old RR friends from the Chicago area and hearing about Andy Kramer's loss all took it's toll too. Just started to go back to an old thread and did see slow responses but will stay active with this group as long as we have our health. Keep the torch lite please ! Did receive a free error messages in the last month trying to log in....
 Tommy

[Vietnam Seabee]

Nice pic Tommy...that kit is special to me as my first adventure into kit building in the early 70s
Terry