They're gone. Management decided to dump them. EDIT: I looked at the thread K13 linked to and it appears we had two days of notice. I didn't come across that thread until a day ago and I'd imagine an overwhelming majority never saw it. Hardly enough time/warning to grab any info you wanted to keep. Especially with no stated date for when the social forums would be deleted.
Sucks big time, but we all knew it was eventually coming. I enjoyed hanging out on the Maryland Hamb.
Ryan has struggled with the issues related to social forums for a long time. Yes alot of information will be lost. But if those forums never existed then we’d be reading them on the main forum. Calendar girls, dirty jokes are on thing but the technical info is another. Ryan mention trying to save that info and place it in the main forum groups.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed that some choice content will be salvaged and added to one of the existing forums. I’m not a computer guy so I don’t understand what would be so difficult about plucking a few dozen threads. Time consuming, yes, but there’s a very simple solution. Announce a one week drop dead date, offer an opportunity for users to bump any thread that has added value to the community. Those bumped threads could be transferred to an existing forum. I’m sure Ryan is inundated with inquiries about this topic in addition to his typical workload so I’ll only comment here in this little corner of the world.
Not going to happen people having access to the social forums is what is causing all the issues. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/social-forums-the-future.1340197/
It was costing the boss time, angst (trying to maintain security to the rest of the platform) and $ ($10k in the last year) to keep them going/available for the comparatively limited few that were using them.
The info on Ford 52-59 was transferred to another site.. I joined but found it not for me so I’m trying to get out of it. Most have an avenue for it. I’ll just not open it I guess. I’ll miss it here tho.
Not trying to stir up shit but I don't get why all this great information was being squirreled away off the main board where 90% of the members here didn't know it existed. Seems the antithesis of what this place is supposed to be about.
Guys I think there is some confusion about what people (like myself) are requesting. Nobody is lobbying to restore the social forums. That’s a done deal, understood. I was only brainstorming when I suggested giving a timeframe for members to bump threads of interest. Myself and many others are merely requesting that some of the CONTENT be salvaged. Ryan has already made clear that he will look into it, no guarantees. Again, understood. As jimmy six has mentioned, another user has already salvaged some content, albeit to a different website. This is solid proof that it can be done. If I had the skill I would contribute more than just my .02¢, which I agree does not amount to much. There was a ton of valuable history and technical information. People didn’t know about it because of the way the social forums were structured, they were kind of hidden. That in itself does not invalidate the content. Again, the boss has already made clear he will look into it, no guarantees, understood. Nothing wrong with showing some support for the boss.
Pretty sure no one has ever complained about useful info being posted on the main board causing too much traffic.
You could be right! You might be entitled to a prize! It was the boss’s decision to create them, with the best of intentions, and unfortunately it didn’t work out as intended.
I've been a member here for 6 years and I'm still unsure of what the social forums even are/ were? I thought the whole thing was a social forum.
I don't know or recall what the original stated purpose for the social groups was, but I personally administered one for my state and one for my club. We had things like personal contact info, OT things for sale locally, and local events stored there. They were pretty useful on a smaller scale. You wouldn't want to have to sift through local central Virginia car show listings on the main board would you?
I would assume that's the kind of thing they were started for. Much different than a forum full of technical information for on topic cars that some of them seemed to be.
....If they didn't know about them, it's nobody's fault but their own. Many of us have been active on them for years.
I've been a member for almost 20 years. The social groups were added (and promoted) somewhere in my first 5 years. Those of us using them have been here a while. Perhaps the reason the social group activity was "down according to the numbers" is that they weren't continually promoted as they were in the early days.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I tried to access my regular social group before that thread was posted (& during the two days) and couldn’t. So I don’t think there was any notice before they went away. I understand why they did, but it’s going to be a moderator’s nightmare if the people who hung out in social groups re-create in main board threads what they had in their groups. I’m not talking about calendar girls and crude jokes, which are clearly out of bounds, but inside jokes taken out of context and mildly OT projects that we’ve been following for months or even years.
It still amazes me that the majority of whiners about losing something when they don't even care enough about the HAMB and @Ryan endeavors to bother supporting it...BY BECOMING AN ALLIANCE MEMBER
I bought a membership once and never received my t-shirt or plaque or sticker etc but I will likely subscribe again soon. There’s a difference between whining and providing feedback. You, sir, are whining.
I'm not the one trying to coax more FREE services from @Ryan when you have chosen not to support him or the HAMB with a simple Alliance Membership...this place is not without operating costs.
I felt the benefit was that each forum (at least the tech ones I followed) was related to a specific thing and you could look at various related posts in one place vs spread out over many many pages on the main page. Kinda like the old tech archives that were lost in the past. Don't know why more people didn't know about them; seemed pretty easy to access and join. Not like they were a big secret or anything. As Ryan explained it made sense to kill them due to the ongoing security risk along with the misuse he described and the time was right since they were broken.
The Jalopy Journal
