There’s no denying that the forums have undergone a significant change in the past few months. I will admit to not wandering outside the comfort zone of the Armor forum much so I don’t have any idea what’s been happening in other areas or with other users and have been blithely ignorant of the various controversies that seem to have sprung up as a result. Perhaps that’s a good thing judging by some of the comments that have been posted.
Ever since the forum format changed, there was a noticeable shift in the posting frequency and response rates but I chalked that up to the fact that the filters on the ‘read/unread’ posts wasn’t working correctly and once people figured that out things would return to a more normal flow. For whatever reason or combination of reasons, that hasn’t happened and the flow of the Armor forum has definitely dropped as a result.
Online communities are always evolving and changing and FSM has always been a special place since I first discovered it back in 2002. A lot of people have come and gone and returned and left again in that period of time, it’s part of the nature of the beast and is not necessarily a bad thing so long as a core of activity continues to happen and foster interaction. I fear that core is now in danger of falling apart but that’s not something that’s inevitable and is wholly dependent on the attitudes and levels of participation of the members here.
The ‘empty room’ syndrome mentioned is a serious problem in my view. When people don’t get the ‘personal’ reinforcement that comes form responses, discussion, and comments then they will just quietly slip away and go where they do receive that kind of confirmation that their posts/contributions have value.
I have always frequented other forums because diversity is a good thing and they all have their plus and minus qualities to them. I hope that the members here will continue to participate and use the ‘subscribe’ function to threads to keep up to date even if they aren’t around as much as before. I know there was a time when you could count on a steady stream of comments from the ‘regulars’ on any particular build that was running but that stream of ‘regulars’ has been diminishing. Perhaps our ‘lurker’ friends will step up and fill the void?
Personally I will continue to post and comment and show what’s happening on my bench where appropriate because FSM was my ‘first home’ on the internet…the first place that I wasn’t afraid to show my work, ask for comments, and get support vs. other places that were less than inviting at the time.
Any forum is only as good as the members who belong and participate! [B]
The format changes are a serious PITA! I wanted to quote a post in this thread,but how to do it?
I miss the OT section and despise mods sweeping in and locking/deleting topics because we weren’t discussing plastic.I just don’t enjoy it around here like I used to.
TD , click the “reply” button of the post you want to quote , then click the “enriched format” button ( why its called “enriched” gets me , reminds me of Wonder bread ) , now at the bottom of the other persons post there will be a “quote” in green , click that and their post will be there for you to type under . If you still cant figure it out just ask for clarification .[t$t] So many steps for so little …
I admit it has slowed down but it is still, by FAR, my favourite forum [Y]
I’ve learnt a lot on here and continue to do so and above all have made some EXCELLENT friends- keep it up everyone!
I’ve been spending ALL of my recent FSM time concentrating on the ‘Steel Cat’s’ GB run by Tigerman so I haven’t been on the main Armour section for a while - that’s all.
Well said, and as another of the armor forum regulars thanks for adding your comments.
Now Aaron & Tim,
if you go through the armor forum and look for the older regulars who post here…you will find Shell, Stick WBill, and myself and others. All of this discussion and this entire posting would not be happening if we all did not see a problem. As Bill and others have stated we have seen members come and go…we have seen changes. This time is different and there is some fundamental problems.
All of the regulars who have posted in this tread have the same basic loyalty to FSM. BUT be careful…if this continues or gets worse, even loyal friends will leave. I don’t want to see these forums become a Dodo bird.
I suggest rather than having a “company line” you may want to think about a limited survey to members with over a particular amount of posts and years on the site (PS one thing that I hate is the loss of that info…the stars are bovine scatology). Say 10 or so from each major forum area and get their ideas to fix the mess. What did we like from the past… what would we want to see in the future.
Most of the regulars here are like family and would be more than willing to help…its your house but it is our home. You family is telling your house we don’t want to find a new home. Also if we did not care, we would not go through the effort to post in this thread.
Among all the things about this place that have managed to discourage me and drive me away over the last two years, the knowledge that all of the above intelligent and heartfelt posts will be gone by this time tomorrow is the most frustrating.
It has happened before all over this place, it will happen here as well.
It will be like none of you said anything and the wheel will turn. Very sad.
Army guy - I would say that most of us who have ventured elsewhere still have an affinity for this place, just not for what it has become/where it’s at right now. It’s kind of like Jaguar in the 80s and 90s. Nobody I’ve ever met has ever hated Jaguar (the way some people hate BMW or Lexus or whatnot), but the sense of disappointment during those years was profound. I can’t speak for others, but I don’t plan on leaving, hard stop. I have, however, found my activity here and my following of threads greatly diminished. This forum used to be my only stop. Now it’s like my third or fourth.
As for modeling being in a recession…I disagree. The local hobby shop is being hammered, but honestly so are most physical retailers that sell things you don’t have to feel or try on. But the hobby is positively booming online. I’ve been back at this a little over two years now, and the stuff that’s come out even since I’ve been back is mind boggling. Peter Jackson owns a modeling company! Someone made a 1/32 B-25! Revell and Airfix are becoming respected names again with each new tooling they release.
Honestly I feel like we’re in a golden age right now.
We just need to get back to the benches and work on our builds and share them. I know I would like to do more of that, but again, my schedule has been brutal of late.
From my experience here, good ones will leave and good ones will eventually take their place.
Before I started building armour models I was a dead keen rifle shooter (and still am) so I used to frequent a lot of the shooting sites.
The ‘main’ sites like ‘airgunbbs’ started to lose members and threads like this started to appear. Like this site they were funded by magazine money etc and it was onbvious the mods would poo their pants as soon as something likely to be taken the wrong way by site sponsors was posted and LOTS of people got banned as a result. The mods banned them but, imo and others, it was not because they wanted to but simply to ‘placate’ the sponsors (i.e. to keep them happy).
I hope this is just a blip - this site is too good to go South. We need to get things in order as I’d be lost without FSM. Sure, I’m a member of other forums i.e. MilMod because I personally know a lot of the guys on there as it’s obviously a British site and the MSC (Modellers Social Club). The MSC seems very slow and this place moves faster and is more user friendly (imo) than MilMod.
Regardless… if you want it to be Heard! Heard! you have to go over There! There! somewhere the people Are! Are!
If a post falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it get banned?
Those that know me know that I post in this type of thread so rarley it’s just easier to say I odn’t. But above, since I was mentioned… well here I am.
The internet did not exist in my previous modelling life. FSM was my 1st forum when I came back to modelling. I did a search for the 2 mags I read a long ago. FSM and Scale Modeler. The latter was gone so here I am. The 7 years have been great. If there weren’t I would not in the top 10, (or at least I was) posters. Fun was had, info was shared both ways and my modeling improved drastically. And that all happened even with the occasional flair up of tempers, the use of a bad word or what someone else deems to be an inappropriate photo. And you know what kind I mean. Because it is obviously not a rendition of a weapon whose sole purpose to to turn folks and he other side of your line into a pink mist. A nude photo, weapons and death, censorship. “Offensive” is a broad brush. Be that as it may, as said, it’s FSM’s site and they can do what they want. Now let me digress a little. Since my grammar, or parsing or sentence structure stuff that I learnbed so long ago I don’t remember any more… I have no idea where to start a new paragraph…
So I kinda want to do one now[:P] i am sorry to have offended anyone, I was having a bit of sarcastic fun. But, now I have decided I really don’t have anything else to say. Maybe due to the empty room syndrome.
Hello? (tap, tap, tap) Is this mic on?
Oh one last thought. If I post a photo of the a bomber or fighter (weapon=OK) that has the nude figure on the fuselage (nude =bad)… does that cause the logic loop, like the one in “WarGanes” that made the WOPR go off it’s nut, cause forum to implode creating a black hole in Wisconsin?
