witness a forum implosion

[nostatic]

Ducatimonster.org was bought by Vertical Space. They did a redesign and changed policies. The mods all quit and the community is jumping like flies:

http://www.ducatimonster.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=&f=130

Very interesting case study.

[the]

That's too bad. That was a great site, I used to go there years ago when I had my Duc. It was a really, really cool community, with a lot of helpful and generous people.

[nostatic]

Yup. Another one bites the dust. A number of new/fragmented sites are popping up but the critical mass will be lost.

[Rick Lee]

And I just got my renewal notice for Rennlist. What to do?

[KaptKaos]

We should use this as a reminder about how good it is here.

Thanks Wayne.

[nostatic]

Wayne has a very different model. The forums are part of his business strategy, and unless he sold PP I can't see why he'd sell the BBS, as he'd lose control over them.

Most of the sites being bought up started as "fan" sites that caught on. Many were supported by donations and "membership" with minimal ads. Moderators were unpaid and dedicated enthusiasts in the particular content area. Once the corporate deal goes through, people don't want to give their free time to make money for some corporation.

It is interesting because of the gray areas. At what point does a fan site become profitable? At what point does it move to "corporate", and what are the drivers that cause mods to quit and users to flee?

I need to write a paper on this one. Not that I have any experience in BBS land

[greglepore]

Same thing happened at ducati.ms. The real issue was page load time, with banners and ads etc, but this could all be killed by paid subscription. Regulars *****ed and left, but now, 2 months later, all is back to normal less a few guys that mattered.

[Rick Lee]

We've discussed this a lot among the inner circle of our local Dorkiphus BBS. It started out with about eight of us and is now around 1000 with some excellent tech info. We decided to go with donations so we could continue to speak freely about vendors and shops who would otherwise be sponsors, something the local PCA BBS cannot do. Whenever the pot runs low, we put the word out that we need to pass the hat and the money comes streaming in.

[nostatic]

Rick, I'd like to sit down with you guys and talk about Dorkiphus as a case study if you're interested. I've been meaning to sit down and write on various social software issues (I've given talks on it), and now is as good a time as any.

[KaptKaos]

The schism at 914club.com is very similar to all of that. The breakup was rather interesting and now 914club.com and 914world.com both exist and serve a similar space. You should search the archives on that one.

[Rick Lee]

I'm far from the expert there. Jazzbass and Cstylianos, both Pelican posters, are the site admin. bosses over there. I think my Carrera clutch job in 2002 was the first gathering of the original Dorkiphus gang. We're very big on DIY and tech stuff and some of those guys are every bit as hall-of-fame worthy as anyone on Pelican. Oh, and political stuff is not allowed there. Lots of hazing and locker room banter, but no politics.

[m21sniper]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

And I just got my renewal notice for Rennlist. What to do?

Flush it down the toilet.

[Rick Lee]

Rennlist really is the go-to place for 993 tech info. I don't use it for anything else, but I have a 993 and she ain't getting any younger.

[Noah930]

Yowsa. When did that happen (to the DML)? I was just there this past weekend?!

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by Wayne at Pelican Parts

I'm thinking that will change in the near future as the cars get older and more people migrate to Pelican. Plus, I'll probably end up writing a book on them one day too.

-Wayne

If/when you do that and/or Pelican gets as serious a 993 tech board as Rennlist has, that will be the end of Rennlist.

[cl8ton]

Originally Posted by Wayne at Pelican Parts

As it is, I don't like the ads that we put on the bottom of the site, but they are *only* there because that forces Google to index them and place the pages in their search engine.

While the unspoken law with Google is “Given 2 index hits, we will give the highest SERP ranking to the website with Google AdSense adverts over the websites that do not have them”

I am puzzled why more forums do not support Google/MSN/Yahoo’s sitemap protocol? https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/docs/en/protocol.html
This is the perfect chance to have every post in any forum indexed and thus be present in the SE and available for search queries.

And ultimately, more traffic for the forum.

[Scuba Steve]

Originally Posted by Wayne at Pelican Parts

This is one of the reasons why I don't let people post big avatars, and pictures in their signature. Just not more important than a quick-loading site. Text ads and messages are okay, but big images, and stuff, are no good. As it is, I don't like the ads that we put on the bottom of the site, but they are *only* there because that forces Google to index them and place the pages in their search engine. That's why they are out of the way at the bottom...

-Wayne

Thanks! It has the added benefit of attracting fewer prying eyes to the computer screen at work.

[johndglynn]

That's a shame about the Monster list, I am registered there and have taken some good tips for my Monster from that board. Looks a right state now.

I agree with Wayne about big avatars and pics in sigs, OTT on a bulletin board.

[VaSteve]

Wow. That's terrible. Especially the ads in the posts. I like how it replaces all the URLs with *******. Yikes.

[nostatic]

Originally Posted by VaSteve

Wow. That's terrible. Especially the ads in the posts. I like how it replaces all the URLs with *******. Yikes.

what happened was that people were posting links to alternative sites. The admin disabled urls. So of course people just added spaces, etc.

It'll likely calm down at some point, but it will be interesting to see how robust the community is afterwards. Looks like there will be a significant number of defections.