What's happened to this forum?

brian.paneurope7I7wolqz

I used to be a more active poster on this forum nearly ten years ago then for some reason stopped posting. I returned recently as I had a couple of questions around wheels and stuff.

. My memories, and I could be wrong, was that there were far more people posting back then. That it was more politically incorrect and generally more interesting. What's happened ? Or have I got the wrong impression??

oxoman

Some people got scared off for some reason, some individuals have taken umbrage and light hearted banter has gone OTT. Hopefully things will improve. A few changes with usability sometime ago didn't help things. Welcome back hopefully you'll stick around.

shortfall

It's a bit like the Oscars. The people who are still taking part think it's wonderful but they haven't noticed that everyone else has switched off.

kingstongraham

It's a forum, which is quite old fashioned now. The world has moved on in the last decade, really.

MattFalle

there was a hoo-ha a few years ago and loads of people got banned for no real reason.

the communters went on a PC mission and ruined morale.

BB was set up for laughs, cake stop turned into woke meets bland.

people started to believe marketing hype.

thats about it tbh.

DeVlaeminck

Yes I think it's mainly just that - a lot of forums are dead or dying. I don't know about the content - I used to stick pretty much to the cycling related stuff.

kingstongraham

Whatsapp happened and people get memes from their nan.

The race threads still cut the mustard though.

TheBigBean

kingstongraham said:

It's a forum, which is quite old fashioned now. The world has moved on in the last decade, really.

I know this is true, but it is a shame and I'm not sure I understand why. The area I used to live had a forum which worked really well. My new area doesn't and there is no possibility that one will be created as it is considered that other forms of social media have it covered, but I really don't think they do.

rick_chasey

TheBigBean said:

kingstongraham said:

It's a forum, which is quite old fashioned now. The world has moved on in the last decade, really.

I know this is true, but it is a shame and I'm not sure I understand why. The area I used to live had a forum which worked really well. My new area doesn't and there is no possibility that one will be created as it is considered that other forms of social media have it covered, but I really don't think they do.

Have you tried nextdoor? (the app)

TheBigBean

rick_chasey said:

TheBigBean said:

kingstongraham said:

It's a forum, which is quite old fashioned now. The world has moved on in the last decade, really.

I know this is true, but it is a shame and I'm not sure I understand why. The area I used to live had a forum which worked really well. My new area doesn't and there is no possibility that one will be created as it is considered that other forms of social media have it covered, but I really don't think they do.

Have you tried nextdoor?

No. It's not anonymous and just struck me as a company trying to own data.

N0bodyOfTheGoat

The forum was "modernised" in a way that made it very user-infriendly ~2/3 years ago, many left and others posted less often when things were slightly improved, after months of some moaning about the state of the new technology.

rick_chasey

TheBigBean said:

rick_chasey said:

TheBigBean said:

kingstongraham said:

It's a forum, which is quite old fashioned now. The world has moved on in the last decade, really.

I know this is true, but it is a shame and I'm not sure I understand why. The area I used to live had a forum which worked really well. My new area doesn't and there is no possibility that one will be created as it is considered that other forms of social media have it covered, but I really don't think they do.

Have you tried nextdoor?

No. It's not anonymous and just struck me as a company trying to own data.

It operates very much like a local forum, though round here it's dominated by a lot of angry local businesses who are upset about the traffic calming measures.

TheBigBean

rick_chasey said:

TheBigBean said:

rick_chasey said:

TheBigBean said:

kingstongraham said:

It's a forum, which is quite old fashioned now. The world has moved on in the last decade, really.

I know this is true, but it is a shame and I'm not sure I understand why. The area I used to live had a forum which worked really well. My new area doesn't and there is no possibility that one will be created as it is considered that other forms of social media have it covered, but I really don't think they do.

Have you tried nextdoor?

No. It's not anonymous and just struck me as a company trying to own data.

It operates very much like a local forum, though round here it's dominated by a lot of angry local businesses who are upset about the traffic calming measures.

Yes, but I mentioned the reasons it is very different to a typical forum.

elbowloh

N0bodyOfTheGoat said:

The forum was "modernised" in a way that made it very user-infriendly ~2/3 years ago, many left and others posted less often when things were slightly improved, after months of some moaning about the state of the new technology.

Yeah, the change was not universally loved!

The only way i use the forum is looking at the top level page, from which I can see all threads that have been updated across all boards, i don't go searching in individual boards anymore.

Bottom bracket and cakestop seem to be the most active areas!

Jezyboy

Honestly I feel that cake stop is more balenced than, say, reddit's political areas and less nutty than either fringe of twitter.

I do find it amusing that the resident lib dem here is seen as an utter pinko though.

TheBigBean

elbowloh said:

N0bodyOfTheGoat said:

The forum was "modernised" in a way that made it very user-infriendly ~2/3 years ago, many left and others posted less often when things were slightly improved, after months of some moaning about the state of the new technology.

Yeah, the change was not universally loved!

The only way i use the forum is looking at the top level page, from which I can see all threads that have been updated across all boards, i don't go searching in individual boards anymore.

Bottom bracket and cakestop seem to be the most active areas!

You can choose to follow the sub groups, so that when you look at the top level page you only see those groups. It actually works quite well which is surprising.

rick_chasey

TheBigBean said:

rick_chasey said:

TheBigBean said:

rick_chasey said:

TheBigBean said:

kingstongraham said:

It's a forum, which is quite old fashioned now. The world has moved on in the last decade, really.

I know this is true, but it is a shame and I'm not sure I understand why. The area I used to live had a forum which worked really well. My new area doesn't and there is no possibility that one will be created as it is considered that other forms of social media have it covered, but I really don't think they do.

Have you tried nextdoor?

No. It's not anonymous and just struck me as a company trying to own data.

It operates very much like a local forum, though round here it's dominated by a lot of angry local businesses who are upset about the traffic calming measures.

Yes, but I mentioned the reasons it is very different to a typical forum.

Sure, I think the internet world is moving on from anonymity.

ddraver

As discussed elsewhere, Cake Stop is also a bunch of mostly late to middle aged middle class blokes.

We ain't exactly gonna be repping poggers dank memes innit

(I've no real idea what I wrote there)

rick_chasey

ddraver said:

As discussed elsewhere, Cake Stop is also a bunch of mostly late to middle aged middle class blokes.

We ain't exactly gonna be repping poggers dank memes innit

(I've no real idea what I wrote there)

In fairness, most of the memes that do end up on here get no traction.

vincesummerskRoxcBTr

I joined recently mainly for bike issues , so don't really go in for the general chat, it does seem a forum with just a few members who regularly post.

Pross

I found most of the forums I joined when they were the height of social media back around the turn of the century died off when other, more modern, social media (mainly Facebook with its group pages) came along. The main thing that keeps me coming back here is that Cake Stop covers quite a lot of discussion areas although it has become bogged down in mainly political discussion over the last couple of years. I like that there are people with a wide range of knowledge on here. I also like hearing alternative views on the whole although I find the more obvious trolling and some of the more extreme views a bit much at times. It's a shame that some interesting posters ocassionally feel no-one is listening to and / or understanding the points they raise though. Also, amongst the bickering at times, people are generally happy to provide genuinely helpful advice on their area or expertise.

surrey_commuter

Pross said:

I found most of the forums I joined when they were the height of social media back around the turn of the century died off when other, more modern, social media (mainly Facebook with its group pages) came along. The main thing that keeps me coming back here is that Cake Stop covers quite a lot of discussion areas although it has become bogged down in mainly political discussion over the last couple of years. I like that there are people with a wide range of knowledge on here. I also like hearing alternative views on the whole although I find the more obvious trolling and some of the more extreme views a bit much at times. It's a shame that some interesting posters ocassionally feel no-one is listening to and / or understanding the points they raise though. Also, amongst the bickering at times, people are generally happy to provide genuinely helpful advice on their area or expertise.

I would agree with the above and like the diverse range of knowledge despite it being a self selecting group of people who have jobs that allow them to censored around on here.

morstar

When it’s good it’s great.
Lots of insight and great contribution without the endless bile of social media platforms.

I am under no illusions it is a doomed format though and the departure of Trump and completion of Brexit seems to have highlighted that a tipping point is being reached. Without a topic of major interest the volume of posters to support the forum is no longer really there.

I’ll miss it when it’s gone but I extracted myself from Twitter years ago and have no plan to go back.

I think the lack of an app probably doesn’t help. Especially with the demographic.

MattFalle

I personally treat it as a pub.

Pop in. Chat to people you like. Finish your drink, head off.

seanoconn

Pross said:

I found most of the forums I joined when they were the height of social media back around the turn of the century died off when other, more modern, social media (mainly Facebook with its group pages) came along. The main thing that keeps me coming back here is that Cake Stop covers quite a lot of discussion areas although it has become bogged down in mainly political discussion over the last couple of years. I like that there are people with a wide range of knowledge on here. I also like hearing alternative views on the whole although I find the more obvious trolling and some of the more extreme views a bit much at times. It's a shame that some interesting posters ocassionally feel no-one is listening to and / or understanding the points they raise though. Also, amongst the bickering at times, people are generally happy to provide genuinely helpful advice on their area or expertise.

Thanks 👍

elbowloh

MattFalle said:

I personally treat it as a pub.

Pop in. Chat to people you like. Finish your drink, head off.

This is what I said to the wife. It's Covid, we can't go to the pub and chat shoite, so I'm doing it here.

seanoconn

elbowloh said:

MattFalle said:

I personally treat it as a pub.

Pop in. Chat to people you like. Finish your drink, head off.

This is what I said to the wife. It's Covid, we can't go to the pub and chat shoite, so I'm doing it here.

You have two kids under the age of 2. You’ll still be here when the pubs open 😂

elbowloh

seanoconn said:

elbowloh said:

MattFalle said:

I personally treat it as a pub.

Pop in. Chat to people you like. Finish your drink, head off.

This is what I said to the wife. It's Covid, we can't go to the pub and chat shoite, so I'm doing it here.

You have two kids under the age of 2. You’ll still be here when the pubs open 😂

Tis true.

the in-laws did offer to baby-sit just this morning...

Got my brother's wedding coming up in July too.

Onegear

It's a good point about social media. I used to frequent two other big forums with 10k+ daily users logging on about a decade ago: Roadbikereview (when i lived on the other side of the pond), and xtratime.org (football discussions with fans all across the world). Those were great days. These days it seems like subforums are dead for months if not years. Really sad given what they used to be.

I'd argue that perhaps middle aged folk back then have since retired, social media is more readily accessible (as mentioned), or company IT policies have gotten a lot stricter about forums access.

elbowloh

High point of forums for me was about 17 years ago on the old 606 football forums.

It was epic.

Used to be a proper forum, thousands of members across dozens of boards with loads of banter between boards and clubs and competitions. Posters from all over the world.

We had regular meetups with people to go and watch matches (in the pub and at the grounds).

Not me obviously, but there was even hookups of a sexual nature between posters that started with flirting on the boards.

Then the beeb fecked it over, got rid of all the boards, made it dull as censored and you could only comment individual approved articles or posts.

Some of us went away and built our own board to try and continue the fun, which morphed 3 or 4 times into new boards (like Dr Who) as the people owned the boards came and went. We paid for the hosting and web addresses ourselves. This went on for probably another 8 years?

ugo.santalucia

A few points

1) in general fora are less popular... they tend to be hostile places for disgruntled middle aged folks and the newer generations are not keen on online bullying, of which we do get a lot.

2) The forum upgrade a couple of years back made is less user friendly, as said earlier

3) A few knowledgeable individuals have left... you always have to balance the time you spend on here Vs the time spent doing something else and when you realise you could spend the same time doing something better, then you leave.

4) On the plus side, a few obnoxious individuals have been kicked out, which has recently made the place a bit more bearable, but obviously decreased traffic further