3 offshoot forums...time for a rethink?

urbanfatboy

I was just owndering if the folks at future publishing are reconsidering their deicision or timing of this forum. There were previously three separate but related forums which fostered asense of community and were very succesful and well liked. IT now seems that these communities have re-emerged, no longer under the auspices future publishing. They appear to be running succesfully and ceratinly seem to have enough support to keep going. Should future perhaps addmit that this version of BikeRadar should be shleved until a later date and re-open the old forums and at least try to get the old communites back under their umbrella?

Yorkshireman

I think that they have too much invested in Radar for them to go back. I`m hopeful that this place will be sorted out sooner rather than later, and then see how it goes .

urbanfatboy

I can see that point of view Yorkshierman, but that kind of pride driven decision making could have awful results. They could put their hands up and say "ok we got it wrong, here's your old fourms, we'll try again later" That way the would still 'own' us.

ddoogie

The problem that springs to mind when setting up a new off-shoot forum is that there will be no influx of new members. Since it is the members of a forum that keep it fresh and interesting I doubt that they will last. Once some new people start joining up to BR and we get to know their names etc, I'm sure it will regain a bit of community spirit.

TrekEx9

I love all these posts harking back to 'the good old days of snitz' - blinkin heck, i've never seen as many people whinge and moan as they do on here.

This forum isn't perfect yet, but they've said they're going to do something about it, which is cool.

By the looks of the main site, we're going to be getting loads of bike news and reviews - much more than the previous sites. You'd swear most people are forum-addicts rather than bike-addicts the way they go on.

I see other people have set up 'splinter' forums too, rebelling against this one. Wow, scary. I'm sure they're the kind of people that this new forum won't miss anyway - wheat from the chaff anyone...? 8)

Gavin Weeks

The problem we have when setting up something like this is (being a keen forum goer myself on various different subjects) especially within biking, there is a strong divide between the areas, i.e. Road, MTB etc. This as it seems to be causing some friction as some don't wish to mingle with the others. The other issue while combining such large and successful forums is that the list of forums are huge, we are working on ways to make this experience more convenient for the user so they are not required to scroll half a page to get to their desired forums.

I am personally doing the design work on the forums to make sure they do fully match the designs we produced before the build, the current look of the forums was the closest match I cold do in the time I had which wasn't more than a few hours. After spending a few days working on it and will probably spend another day or two I am able to adjust everything from spacing, colours, font leading, line heights etc to make sure it is easy to read, easy to use and of course looks great.

Just be patient with us and things will most certainly turn in your favour.

blacksun

A lot of time and planning has gone into this merger I assume (although if I were the powers that be, I'd have waited and ironed out most of the glitches first) and just to call it a day and go back to separate forums so soon would be a waste of time. Let the place get known and evolve, community spirit will will also evolve. Nothing good will come if things are rushed. As they say.. patience is a virtue, and most of you are probably retired anyway, so you've all the time in the world

From what I've read, it seems that it's mainly the C+ kids who are crying the most.

TrekEx9

I'm with you there Blacksun - i'm sure this forum will become a thriving hotbed for biking info and advice fairly soon, and those who've crawled off to other forums with 8 of their mates will come back here, under different pseudonyms no doubt, and use this one again.

whyamihere

It happened all the time on the old MBUK forum. Every few months, people would decide it was crap, and leave en masse.

They were back within a fortnight.

urbanfatboy

high rider wrote:

I'm with you there Blacksun - i'm sure this forum will become a thriving hotbed for biking info and advice fairly soon, and those who've crawled off to other forums with 8 of their mates will come back here, under different pseudonyms no doubt, and use this one again.

But it's not eight is it. it's hundreds. Anw whilst they will attract no new blood, they constitute quite a core of the forum users. I think they are a loss, there were some well informed folk amongst them. It's a shame to lose them from the Future camp.

I don't think their departure is trivial.

Big Red S

It's just a shame that they waited till /after/ the public release to do the testing. Really, that's the only mistake (though it is rather a big one).

But it's a bit late to complain about that now. So long as they manage to keep some guise of progression going this'll probably work out. We'll probably get most of the regulars back, if only because they don't want to have to join six or seven different forums in order to speak to the people they knew on the one.

ratty2k

high rider wrote:

I'm with you there Blacksun - i'm sure this forum will become a thriving hotbed for biking info and advice fairly soon, and those who've crawled off to other forums with 8 of their mates will come back here, under different pseudonyms no doubt, and use this one again.

Hmm a few more than 8! I'm staying registered to this forum as well, I see no wrong with going where your friendly with people.I'll keep coming back, whats the point in anything else? Now I'm a member of 2 MTB forums.... I do object the critisism being leveld at this place, BUT they really aren't helping themselves with some of the issues floating around

nirveous

urbanfatboy wrote:

high rider wrote:

I'm with you there Blacksun - i'm sure this forum will become a thriving hotbed for biking info and advice fairly soon, and those who've crawled off to other forums with 8 of their mates will come back here, under different pseudonyms no doubt, and use this one again.

But it's not eight is it. it's hundreds. Anw whilst they will attract no new blood, they constitute quite a core of the forum users. I think they are a loss, there were some well informed folk amongst them. It's a shame to lose them from the Future camp.

I don't think their departure is trivial.

Aye. I don't really mind this forum, it's more the fact that this was problematic, and full of people arguing (which I kinda contributed to, but meh), and so when a forum sprang up with lots of people from MBUK, I thought it would make sense to go there. If we can attract new members somehow, then the majority of us won't be using this as the main forum. However, that isn't going to happen, so yes, you are probably right, we may well start using this place again. However, the other place is a suitable replacement until it is all smoothed out on here. If this place never satisfies a lot of the people on that forum, then we will just stay in the other place, simple as.

WillGTJumper

kill it

Cab

Gavin_Weeks wrote:

The problem we have when setting up something like this is (being a keen forum goer myself on various different subjects) especially within biking, there is a strong divide between the areas, i.e. Road, MTB etc. This as it seems to be causing some friction as some don't wish to mingle with the others.

That isn't my issue at all. I've posted my problem (loss of my name and replacing it with a crap name instead) to the sticky thread at top. I'm waiting for a definitive answer.

That many people are complaining in a way that you see as being rather niggly (not wanting to mix, maybe being 'change averse' etc.) doesn't mean other complaints can be brushed aside under the same headings.