• The Roadster Factory Recovery Fund - Friends, as you may have heard, The Roadster Factory, a respected British Car Parts business in PA, suffered a total loss in a fire on Christmas Day. Read about it, discuss or ask questions >> HERE. The Triumph Register of America is sponsoring a fund raiser to help TRF get back on their feet. If you can help, vist >> their GoFundMe page.
  • Hey there Guest!
    If you enjoy BCF and find our forum a useful resource, if you appreciate not having ads pop up all over the place and you want to ensure we can stay online - Please consider supporting with an "optional" low-cost annual subscription.
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this UGLY banner)
Tips
Tips

The Disappearing Online Forum

Steve

Moderator
Staff member
Platinum
Country flag
Offline
In my latest issue of Practical Classics magazine (we get it on the shelves weeks after it comes out in the UK) columnist John Simister is bemoaning the demise of the online forum. Seen as a fountain of knowledge for enthusiasts of classic cars, the forums are seen to be dying off due to the instnt gratification and extended reach of social media, notably Facebook. The problem with Facebook is that there can be no threading of posts and that any post quickly becomes buried and out of view, usually never to be seen again.

Online forums are more permanent, discussions are threaded and expanded upon, and can be searched more readily.

I'll look up John's contact info through the magazine, maybe if enough of us e-mail him and/or the magazine itself, we can gain a little publicity and, thereby, an endorsement for the BCF. There is as yet no link to his article that I can find online.
 

Gliderman8

Great Pumpkin
Country flag
Offline
Count me in Steve. Let us know if come up with his contact info.
 

NutmegCT

Great Pumpkin
Gold
Online
"Online forums are more permanent, discussions are threaded and expanded upon, and can be searched more readily."

Amen to that!

Back in the ancient days, when people actually talked to each other, an archive of knowledge was held in high esteem. Now that people just flock to social media to leave "comments" on other people's "comments", often trying to be clever if nothing more - and don't actually share a real-time face-to-face interaction - knowledge is becoming whatever pops up at the top of the Google search. And worse, many of the Google users don't realize it!

grumble grumble

Interesting (and depressing?) article:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/
 

AngliaGT

Great Pumpkin
Country flag
Offline
Tom - X2.

I have a whole collection of Practical Classics.I quit subscribing
when the annual rate went to $100/year.The only way we can get it here,
other than buying it at the book store,is via Air Mail.
 

waltesefalcon

Yoda
Silver
Country flag
Offline
I belong to an IH group on facebook and it is amazing how quickly things get lost and a bunch of new people cannot find any information. On the other hand I belong to a couple of gun groups on there and the admins for those groups make posts with important information pinned, so that they can be searched when need be.
 

NutmegCT

Great Pumpkin
Gold
Online
Walt - you're fortunate that there's some management of your gun group FB sites. The FB pages I've seen are nearly endless streams of posts and photos. Scroll to the bottom of the page, and the page just gets longer. Try to find something and - fuhgeddaboudit.

I'm also a member of a classic car group which uses email only. Good grief. Talk about frustrating. No one wants to search their old emails for previous research, so the same subjects keep coming up over and over - with fewer and fewer participants. The "old timers" won't move to a more modern platform, so newer members give up in despair and stop participating.

Seems the cause is that most folks today have their smartphones on 24/7, read their messages immediately, and reply quickly. But most web forums aren't smartphone friendly. We're trading usefulness for convenience. Not always a good thing.

grumble grumble
 

Basil

Administrator
Staff member
Boss
Offline
I'm also a member of a classic car group which uses email only. Good grief. Talk about frustrating.

grumble grumble


Tom, that is precisely one of the main reason I started BCF in the first place. I had belonged to a couple of different email lists and found it a very inefficient way to communicate. AT the same time I belonged to a Corvette forum and realized that was a much more practical way to interact about a specific car type; hence, I decided to start BCF nearly 17 years ago!
 

NutmegCT

Great Pumpkin
Gold
Online
"hence, I decided to start BCF nearly 17 years ago!"

And there are thousands of people who are very thankful you did!

TM

 

waltesefalcon

Yoda
Silver
Country flag
Offline
Tom, For whatever reason, I think it is because the are afraid FB will ban them the gun groups are by far the best organized ones I belong to on there. All the car ones I belong to are just long threads of photos, questions, and comments. The two best groups I belong to are both forums, this one and the old IHC forum.
 

NutmegCT

Great Pumpkin
Gold
Online
Walt - were any of the IH pickups or delivery vans designed by Loewy? I've heard about his connection with the Farmalls, but I know zilch about the pickups.

As an aside, our only family connection with IHC was the refrigerator we had back in the 1950s. Similar to this:

frige2.jpg

I'll bet ours is still working fine somewhere.
 

waltesefalcon

Yoda
Silver
Country flag
Offline
Loewy designed the IH logo that replaced the triple diamond logo. I don't know that he designed any vehicles beyond the A-M series tractors.
 

DrEntropy

Great Pumpkin
Platinum
Country flag
Offline
The forum format suits the need for info retention MUCH better than FB. In the early days of the 'net, I was a denizen of the newsgroups, now those are something in the dustbin of the 'net. I thought them better for info trading and retaining than FB can ever be.

Tom said:
We're trading usefulness for convenience. Not always a good thing.


That has been the subject of many discussions with clients, particularly where it comes to data storage and security.
 

GregW

Yoda
Platinum
Country flag
Offline

Interesting (and depressing?) article:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/
I don't know if I buy into that article. The charts show a trend before the iPhone introduction. Or several years after (I'd buy that more due to saturation). It may be social media on the home computer that started the trends, but I'm not a researcher. Ultimately, the responsibility rests with the parents. I see their preoccupation with cell phones all the time around here while they push the baby strollers around. Minimal interaction with the children. Obviously, I'm only getting a snapshot into their lives.
 

NutmegCT

Great Pumpkin
Gold
Online
"Ultimately, the responsibility rests with the parents."

Amen to that! But these days, too many parents thinking being a parent means buying the kids more toys.

Face it - before the 'net, would you give your kids unlimited access to outgoing and incoming telephone calls to and from anyone in the world?

yeesh

 

Basil

Administrator
Staff member
Boss
Offline
"Ultimately, the responsibility rests with the parents."

Amen to that! But these days, too many parents thinking being a parent means buying the kids more toys.

Face it - before the 'net, would you give your kids unlimited access to outgoing and incoming telephone calls to and from anyone in the world?

yeesh


Fortunately my kids both grew up before the internet was really a "thing". However, they both did play a lot of computer games, especially my oldest, who used to live on the computer playing MicroSoft Flight Simulator. Of course today he's a pilot in the AF Reserves, so maybe there can be an upside.
 

waltesefalcon

Yoda
Silver
Country flag
Offline
I firmly believe that computers and cell phones are way over utilized by most Americans, including myself. It's bad enough to see adults using cellphones all the time but I hate seeing kids with them. I see no reason to give a child a phone until they start driving and by then hopefully they will have developed enough to have some responsibility regarding it. I feel lucky that my daughter, who is eight, has never asked for a phone even while half of her friends have them.
 
Country flag
Online
My 16yo niece didn't get her first phone until a year or so ago, and still doesn't text much. She just isn't interested in it, would rather retreat to a corner with an actual book.

I personally have yet to go the smartphone route, I have no interest in accessing the web or playing game or watching tv/movies on the phone. I just need to be able to make and receive calls.
 

LarryK

Yoda
Gold
Country flag
Offline
I haven't got a smart phone yet, either. But, I did get the package, in case I hit a wrong button. That could be $10 each wrong button. Really don't know why parents hand the phones out like candy. Sure, it might be a safety thing, but, by the time they call, they could be gone. Wenall survived without them and most times still do.
 

Popeye

Darth Vader
Silver
Country flag
Offline
While I agree kids should not have phones, try finding a payphone! When I was a kid and got in "trouble" (not really, just wanted a ride) I would pop a dime in a phone and call home. Sometimes it was a worthwhile investment and I got a ride, most times I still had to walk / bus home. Point being, should I ever have been in real trouble I could get a hold of my parents. Today... you'd have to borrow someone's cell phone. Would you let a stranger use your phone? I say I would, but if said stranger looked "funny", I might not - however I define funny.
 
Top