Folks Of Interest Social Forums & The Future

To be honest I never figured out how (or why) to use the social forums here but I would hate to think there is valuable information in jeopardy. Could posting in that area just be disabled for the time being to give people time to browse, save, relocate information that is worth keeping?

 

How would one find the Calendar Girl social forum if one was so inclined? Asking for a friend.

 

It’s truly a shame that there is so many scum buckets out there.
Sometimes you have to amputate to save the whole body.

I’ve never been a fan of social media platforms. However I recently joined the book of faces at the request of a fellow HAMBer in France. It works well for our communication because of the translator. At times I’m bombarded with Trash often times I think about dumping it, I will if it causes me any grief.
Ryan I would say if the social media program is contributing more than 2.3 percent to your grief level Dump it.
Dan

 

The Maryland Social Group has a long-running, multi-page thread called Maryland Hot Rod History that contains a ton of rich history both in stories and images that would be a terrible loss. There's also a long running thread, Technical Repository, Add Yours that contains countless advice driven input regarding all sorts of information that would be a tremendous loss. If any of these could be moved to the Off-Topic forum it would mean a lot to all who have contributed to them.

 

So are the forums being taken down?

 

Do what is best for the forum Ryan.

 

I say have a tech week quarterly and that type of stuff can be archived. I looked at it a lot as well, but those contributing folks are still active on the hamb.

 

I have no idea what you are talking about so you do what you have to do; and I will improvise, adapt, and overcome to whatever you decide.

 

Well if they operate like the rest if the message boards one can block them with all the info intact, no? Agree you cannot take the risk of perverts using them for their purposes, this can open the door to all manner of hassles.

 

Get rid of them, at 2.3% there's no argument to be made. Bye Bye

 

Once removed, possibly our main forum will have even more valuable content activity, with exposure to all.
Seems like it could end up being a positive thing.

 

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one.
We kind of knew this would come. I like the Maryland Hambers forum, but it doesn't seem worth it to the HAMB to keep.
Maybe the content can somehow be archived.

 

.....There's a lot that wouldn't have passed muster on the main forum. References to Malcolm Durham, local 1320 legend, who ran Chevelles and Camaros that would have been deleted. Countless other posts that would have held little interest to folks outside the D. C. / Maryland / Virginia area. Local hangouts and stories of late night street racing on roads that rang a bell only with locals. I understand that you have to do what's right for the site, it's just a shame to see it all get lost.

 

I will say, I have scraped an incredible amount of solid info and advice from old enthusiast forum posts, going back 20 or more years, some of those forum hosters are probably only hanging on by a thread, and others have probably been lost to time and all that good data and information went with it. The movement away from the old style forum format is really a tragedy, because Facebook and Instagram posts are not nearly as searchable and typically don't have "build threads" or a whole lot of Q&A type posts, they're just show-off picture posts.

I couldn't care less about the social forums themselves, but the data in them is valuable. Seems like the info in those social forums isn't Google-searchable either for some reason, which if it's good stuff, it'd be nice if it was easier to find. If that stuff can be saved, even as a searchable document that can't be added onto, that would still be better than just losing it all.

I can't count how many times some random post on some random old message board from 2008 has bailed me out and saved me countless hours or trouble trying to fix something, not even all old-car related. That's the main reason I post much here anymore, just in case someone in the future needs the info or solutions I figured out, even if that's a decade or more from now.

 

I will admit that likely the vast majority of social forums are dead, even many that I may have posted on in the past. I agree that if a forum hasn't been active for years, there's no reason to keep it around. It would be sad to toss out the baby with the bathwater though.

 

I started professionally with computers in 1965. Over the years I did a lot of things and ended up with my own successful company for over thirty years. From my point of view, you have created an unmanageable monster. The sooner you kill it the better.

 

Dear God not the German….

 

Not to be an ass but sounds like the baby wasn't supposed to be in the bath water in the first place. If they (all the social forums)were generally being used to circumvent the rules of this place one shouldn't expect Ryan to spend money and time saving them.

 

Jim, I'm sure you are referring to the old farts page, I was the moderator of the site and I policed the site, I stuck to the no nudity Ryan suggested and one member pushed the limit to see what I would do, I deleted it and told him that it was inappropriate and it would not be tolerated but admittedly there were some racy photo's posted.

There was more joking around than anything, tall tales and adventures were regular features.

I did here from a few guys saying that they avoided the main forum because they were sick of a lot of young guys tell them about how it use to be when the old farts were there doing the hot rods, customs, racing and running the salt flats back in the day.

I do hope ALL the Old guys that mainly hung out in the Old Farts social group will come back to the main board and participate, they have a ton of history and knowledge to share.

It's not the end of the world, better the social forums than the Hokey Ass Message Board. HRP

 

I used to be active on a few of the social forums and still frequent a couple of them. As much as I hate to lose them, I can't argue that it sounds like they are more hassle than they are worth. Thankful for the time you have allowed them to continue even beyond what likely should have been their fate. I am definitely thankful for some of the friendships that have come out of them as well. Both the HAMB Chapel and the Okie HAMBers have led me to some of my best friends in life because of the connections. Thanks for all you do here @Ryan!

 

Q: could a whole sub forum be "clip 'n' pasted into the main forum as if it were a new topic?

or am i missing the whole point? i'm like that sometimes.

sid

 

I think that was part of the problem, most people didn't know they existed. the fact that they are gone is probably why my one album has over 40,000 views I still miss the ones with all the old magazine articles.

 

...I see your point, but that was the whole point of using them. Nobody in Southern California cares to know about an upcoming cruise night in Edgewater, Maryland. As I mentioned earlier, sometimes the "Maryland Hot Rod History " thread may have ventured into local drag racers who raced well into the late '60's- early '70's. While the pictures of their cars would have been fine if they were from the '40's or '50's, they would have been deleted if they were much later. Likewise, nobody in Texas is going to care about a local guy's death since they would have never heard of him, but he may have dozens of friends who might attend a memorial service. It wasn't about circumventing the rules of the site. It was about honoring them and not posting off-topic stuff on the main forum.

 

But the the point still stands that the topics were never what this site was about. Ryan was gracious enough to allow you guys a spot to post stuff that didn't belong here. That stuff (or the way it was hosted) has caused nothing but headaches for Ryan by the sounds of it so to now expect him to spend time and money to save stuff that at no point was acceptable content on this board seems a stretch.

 

Nothing lasts forever.
Thank you for putting up with those of us in our little group for as long as you have.
Seriously. We sincerely appreciate the shit out of you, Ryan.
I understand that we had the most active of all the groups on here, and shit happens.
You are solely responsible for keeping a handful of us old coots going a little bit longer.

 

I thought they went away when the app did. I guess I wont miss em.

 

The HAMB had an app?

 

Is it gone? Where was it? Did I ever use it?
Oh well , late again!