Lamenting The Loss Of Good Car Forums

As many of you are well aware, I've got a 1979 Pontiac Trans Am in my fleet of derelict project vehicles. I've had this car for nearly 23 years at this point, and while I know quite a bit about the 1970-81 Pontiac-flavored GM F-Bodies, every once in a while, an issue with the car will stump me. It's also important to note that I've actually forgotten some info about the car over the years, as 23 years with a never-ending project car is a long time. I found myself in this situation over the weekend: I was trying to get the HVAC working (at least the heater, anyway) and I was banging my head against the wall with why it wasn't doing the thing. Everything checked out, but nothing was working. Having a point of reference or a repository of info and ownership experiences outside of what's in the service manual is invaluable, so it was off to the forums.

Or so I thought.

Back in the early days of ownership, I participated in model-specific forums, specifically Trans Am Country and 78TA, both of which are not really useful anymore in their current forms. I found out quickly that getting the answers this way weren't happening. Trans Am Country's forum crashed at least twice over the years, wiping out years of information, andwhat's still there is essentially dead now. Similarly, the forums on 78TA are gone as well, as is much of the tech info on the site. And I'm not alone here: there have been so many useful forums that have been around for decades that have gone by the wayside in the past 5-10 years for all sorts of hobbies and subjects. 

Some of them transitioned to Facebook Groups, while others just died out. While I have joined some Groups on the Trans Am, they are all but useless with no really good info on there. Searching is awful, and they are all full of fools and scammers and/or people trying to force their politics into everything. It's tiring.

It all got me thinking: what caused things to get like this? It seems like a lot of things:
-People getting old and aging out of the hobby (or dying off, in some cases, which is awful and sobering)
-Losing interest in maintaining a forum
-The emergence of social media

...And more, I assume. 

All of the above makes me happy that the GRM Forums exist; this really is a gathering place for all the old forum refugees that have been displaced from those early days of the internet. But sometimes, you need that one-make or model expertise. We really had it all, until we didn't. 

It's not just cars.

Cessna Pilot's Association had very active/useful forums in the mid-2000s during my prior aircraft ownership experience.

Rejoined in the last year with recent aircraft purchase-- it's a shadow of it's former self.  I've seen prompts on the site for access to the legacy forums information, but I've not tried them.

People don't just sit in front of a desktop much anymore unless it's work. IMHO, from a phone, forums are atrocious.

I will always like forums better than social media/facebook groups though.

In reply to Karacticus :

There are some video game forums I used to belong to that are long gone as well. They all kinda consolidated to the AtariAge Forums, which is excellent and sorta like the "GRM Forums" of what's still out there, but lots of info is just gone.

Speaking of which... AtariAge used to be a magazine at one point too, and the new Atari company that exists today (Atari has had many owners since the old days) recently brought it back into the corporate fold, so it's not going anywhere. They even hired the guy who owned the forum as a corporate historian, which is great for the hobby. 

In reply to iansane :

That's a really great point.  

I'm with you. Forums have essentially died and FB groups are intolerable. I'm not sure where that leaves us. 

I'm dating myself here, but I miss being able to go to the local little auto parts store and talk tech. 

The great thing about forums is that they become an archive of info which one can go back in time and mine needed answers.  The Book of Faces option is only good real time.  Hard to go back in time and look up an important piece of info.

Yeah this is the only forum that I use that I don't think is trash these days.  I used to frequent the B-body forum, it got sold and turned to E36 M3. Same happened to the jeep forum I was on when I had an XJ. 6x6 world was cool but just not enough people to stay active. The Cadillac forum is meh, there are 2 guys on it that keep the Escalade portion worth reading but it should literally be a text string between them. They do help when asked though. 

I just hope this forum stays as is, when there is unrest it worries me because it is 100% the best forum I have seen in 25+ years of forum use.

Thanks to the owners and the mods for having one place that is a productive body of knowledge. This was proven again last week with the ABS issue on a freinds van, 2 solutions in 24 hours for an issue that had the dude go buy another car while the van sat in storage.

I have been needing the 190rev forum lately. But when you type in 190rev.net it goes directly to FB. The whole forum is gone and so are its archives of massive information for w201 Mercedes. How useless.

I blame, at least partially, how computer illiterate most are these days.

The age group most commonly represented on here is the age group that went from DOS to Win95 and up.  Messing with the guts of the computer programming was somewhat second nature, even if you weren't a computer nerd.  Too old and you didn't get in that window, too young and the UI does everything for you

As an example, even though posting a picture on a forum hasn't functionally changed in 20-30 years you still get people asking how to post a picture here on GRM.

The above combined with the rise of FB and how easy it is to post on FB, unfortunately it just makes sense that forums would start to die off

In reply to Mr_Asa :

This is another great point. FB and social media is the path of least resistance with the least amount of effort. Without having that background of having to do things "the hard way" with old PCs, this is what you end up with. 

Purple Frog said:

The great thing about forums is that they become an archive of info which one can go back in time and mine needed answers.  The Book of Faces option is only good real time.  Hard to go back in time and look up an important piece of info.

That's the big loss. A huge amount of information has withered away. I see it in the Miata groups, people trying to discover things that we've known for 20 years - and when they do, it's swept aside a day later because FB is all  about the new. Why would you want to know how someone solved a problem a decade ago? Look over here, something new that's designed to get you emotionally engaged instead!

In reply to Purple Frog :

If you're lucky and the forum hasnt been deleted.

I used to put semi-important URLs on the Wayback Machine.  I should start doing that again

Motojunky said:

I'm with you. Forums have essentially died and FB groups are intolerable. I'm not sure where that leaves us. 

I'm dating myself here, but I miss being able to go to the local little auto parts store and talk tech. 

Reddit?

Also not great imo

Also I gotta say, musical gear forums have seen the same downturn.

And it's sad

In reply to Antihero :

Reddit can be ok. On the e36 side, there are a couple of knowledgeable people. On the bad side, most of the threads are "what do I look for first car/drift car" and the search is lackluster. Plus, it lacks legacy info that sites like Bimmerforum has (pics hit and miss). 

I used to browse CarolinaHondas and rx7club before I could drive. Other than the toxicity on CH, it was great. Still dream about owning an FC. 

There was point in time when the vast majority of people on the net were "nerds". They were smart enough to understand computers, the internet, and really specific subject matter. There was a good chance that you might talk to a true subject matter expert on a given topic.
 

Today, almost everyone has an internet connection. Add to that, hosting sites that have gone by the wayside, remember the Photo-bucket E36 M3 show, people losing interest, age, death, etc... it's a downward spiral. 

EchoTreeSix said:

In reply to Antihero :

Reddit can be ok. On the e36 side, there are a couple of knowledgeable people. On the bad side, most of the threads are "what do I look for first car/drift car" and the search is lackluster. Plus, it lacks legacy info that sites like Bimmerforum has (pics hit and miss). 

I used to browse CarolinaHondas and rx7club before I could drive. Other than the toxicity on CH, it was great. Still dream about owning an FC. 

It's kinda echo chambery though is the biggest deal. There's not a lot of overlap from group to group since there's 4 billion reddits, so they get very rigid. Great I guess if that exactly what you want but for stuff like we talk about on this forum? Not so great

And search is terrible 

I also lament the loss/decline of forums. 

There is so much info there. I think in just the BRZ groups on Facebook I've seen at least 18 different posts about which is the best intake. And they have all been shown, with independent testing to MAYBE make 2hp, but to me that is statistical noise. 

You'll a company "we developed this awesome new intake that makes an additional 12 whp! Then someone tests it and makes 1.5 more than stock. 

There have also been a few shady tuners through the years that are the same guys, but they change the name because of all their previous bad results/publicity. 

Yup, I think its a bummer also.  I see the 3 main reasons as these (most already mentioned)

1) yeah, Maintaining old forums is a pain, but there was so much good info. 

2) Reddit, FB, etc. present info in a way that maximizes engagement and conversation, not necessarily in a way to maximize knowledge, information, etc.

3) Good point made earlier - now anyone is on the forums, whereas previously it was generally only the most interested and likely motivated, technically adept, maybe even intelligent as well.

I like this forum a lot, but in many ways its as close to Reddit as it is to legacy info-filled forums.

I think what Reddit and FB have going for them is you don't need to create an account for every. damn. forum. - which, lets face it, is a lot of accounts when you acquire cars at that rate most GRM forum members do.  

I think the interesting middle ground would be something like Reddit/FB/even google authentication/any single-account combined with a VBulletin style forum, with sub-forums which could be turned on/off.  Probably too late, but if someone had made that and just made old forums a standing offer to aggregate into the forum borg, it may have had success.

Unfortunately several of the forums I used to frequent got bought out. I didn't think this would make a difference at the time, but over the years, things ended up behind paywalls, ads started cluttering the interfaces, links went dead, and people kind of stopped showing up. One of the biggest single events that killed things was Photobucket imploding, wiping out all kinds of useful information. I had tons of info out there in the E30 world that relied on photos, and I just don't have the time or will to rehost everything when it could just all fall apart again. 

There was also a general shift away from "quality users" towards "I want to build a car/bike/whatever, please give me the build list and how to do everything". That attitude wore me out, especially when those individuals proceeded to get annoyed when no one wanted to do everything for them. I know that's painting with a broad brush, but it doesn't take a lot of those people to wear me out, and I don't want to sift through 20 of those threads for every one or two interesting ones. FB seems to often be the same way, but part of that might just be how crappy the search capability is. 

Fortunately, GRM prevails. 

Surch, noob!

I also lament the loss of forums.  As GenX Nerd, I started into motorcycles and cars on old UseNet groups.  Forums were a natural extension of that.  Many hours on Maxima.org, Miata.net. BadWeatherBikers.com, and ADVRider.com.  

I strongly dislike video content - I can happily scan a forum post / blog post / white paper between meetings at work; consuming video content on the sly is much harder.  Add on so many "Smash like/share/subscribe!" and extranious BS...  and hot cuts on  The One Hard Part I'm Watching For.  Sigh, I understand that's where social media is driving people but man, it sure isn't applicable or usable or consumable for what I want to do.

However, I do think many of us are reflecting on forums with rose colored glasses.  For all the forums I mentioned, it took dedication, time, and independent research to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff postings.  So much group think.  M.Net is awful for basics like alignment - "You need so-and-so greybeard forum member alignment".  So, why?   What's the use case?  Practically, your "1.5* negative camber" simply isn't enough for autoX/Track Day/backroad fun.  "But but but you'll ruin your tires" - demonstrably false.  Lots of BS "tribal knowledge" you, as a beginner, need to invest time and effort / research in just to filter out who you should listen to.  Andy Hollis posting on M.net?  Likely worthwhile - but I know of Andy from here, and his body of work.    MrSmartGuyMiata420-69?  Genuflecting for some generic two-piece coil overs?  On my first few reads, why not should I buy some MaxPeeingRods?

We're spoiled here at GRM forums, almost all of us "get it" and those who are in left field quickly get reality checked.  That's why this is my favorite bar on the interwebs.  Thank you all!

gearheadE30 said:

Unfortunately several of the forums I used to frequent got bought out. I didn't think this would make a difference at the time, but over the years, things ended up behind paywalls, ads started cluttering the interfaces, links went dead, and people kind of stopped showing up. One of the biggest single events that killed things was Photobucket imploding, wiping out all kinds of useful information. I had tons of info out there in the E30 world that relied on photos, and I just don't have the time or will to rehost everything when it could just all fall apart again. 

There was also a general shift away from "quality users" towards "I want to build a car/bike/whatever, please give me the build list and how to do everything". That attitude wore me out, especially when those individuals proceeded to get annoyed when no one wanted to do everything for them. I know that's painting with a broad brush, but it doesn't take a lot of those people to wear me out, and I don't want to sift through 20 of those threads for every one or two interesting ones. FB seems to often be the same way, but part of that might just be how crappy the search capability is. 

Fortunately, GRM prevails. 

This is probably my biggest gripe. I probably researched OBD-I S52 swaps on R3V and E30 Tech for 12-18 months before I started mine. Which then took another 8 months because I have a bad habit of "while I'm there," ie, Scope Creep. 

Also companies that only take contact through FB or IG.............dude, just set up a free Gmail account at "thisismybusinessname@gmail.com" 

I don't have much to add except to add my voice. Losing forums sucks, and FB groups are a very poor substitute.