Is the VC Forum Useful?

[Erik]

The Vintage Computer Forum has been around for several months and it appears to have been well received. There are lots of posts, lots of registered members and a number of interesting discussions.

Why, then, am I asking if the forums are useful?

Perhaps it was just wishful thinking, but I had anticipated an upward trend in discussions on the boards. I assumed that as more people found the community that more potential topics for discussion would arise and that these discussions would take place.

I’m not sure if it’s just that we haven’t hit the “critical mass” we need to get more active discussions going or if the boards are too fragmented to support these discussions. It may even be that the board software isn’t conducive to the interchange I had hoped for or maybe that everyone is away on summer vacation.

In any case, I’m asking you for your opinion. Are these boards useful to the Vintage Computer community? If they are or if they aren’t, what would make them more useful?

Please feel free to reply via email or on the thread I created along with this email.

Thank you,

Erik

[CP/M User]

"Erik" wrote:

> The Vintage Computer Forum has been
> around for several months and it appears
> to have been well received. There are
> lots of posts, lots of registered members
> and a number of interesting discussions.

> Why, then, am I asking if the forums are
> useful?

> Perhaps it was just wishful thinking, but I
> had anticipated an upward trend in
> discussions on the boards. I assumed
> that as more people found the community
> that more potential topics for discussion
> would arise and that these discussions
> would take place.

> I’m not sure if it’s just that we haven’t hit
> the “critical mass” we need to get more
> active discussions going or if the boards
> are too fragmented to support these
> discussions. It may even be that the
> board software isn’t conducive to the
> interchange I had hoped for or maybe
> that everyone is away on summer
> vacation.

> In any case, I’m asking you for your
> opinion. Are these boards useful to the
> Vintage Computer community? If they
> are or if they aren’t, what would make
> them more useful?

> Please feel free to reply via email or on
> the thread I created along with this email.

Yes it is useful in a way, but mainly from a
broader spective sense. General
conversations about Vintage computers are
great, but when it gets down to the knitty
gritty to asking questions it means you have
to encourage others to follow you in here.

I can only offer what I know to a point (which
I've tried to do in the past) & if some queries
seem to be out of my knowledge sense, then
I can only rely on others (who might know)
what to say! :-)

Cheers.

[DoctorPepper]

Are these boards useful to the Vintage Computer community? If they are or if they aren’t, what would make them more useful?

Please feel free to reply via email or on the thread I created along with this email.

Thank you,

Erik

Erik,

I feel the VC forum is useful. I can't tell you why the forum hasn't reached critical mass, as I know there are thousands of vintage computer collectors out there.

A lot of questions that might be asked on this fourm are asked on the news groups, mainly because of the higher traffic they receive. I think it's kind of like the chicken and the egg syndrome. Until enough people find this forum, the membership won't grow that rapidly, but until the membership grows, the forum won't be as useful to other folks as it could be, and therefore they won't join.

Hang in there, it does take time for these things to grow. Until then, we'll still be here! :D

[ravuya]

I find this forum very useful, and have been trying to poke people into going to it left and right. Sooner or later you'll get more people here and there.

I'll try and call up some of my friends with Ataris and shove them onto here.

[Erik]

Sooner or later you'll get more people here and there.

I'll try and call up some of my friends with Ataris and shove them onto here.

I'm convinced that the value of this forum, as with any, is the people that frequent it. The more knowledgeable, helpful and enthusiastic people we have visiting and posting on a regular basis, the more we will get. I'm hopeful that we'll soon get to a point where questions and answers are only moments away from each other.

We keep growing and with each new member comes a new wealth of knowledge about some more aspects of vintage computing.

Thanks for sharing and thanks for spreading the word!

Erik

[fneck]

Yes, I think it was usefull, but you must be patient. For me, I don't post much because of the language, It is a little difficult for me :wink:

[CP/M User]

"fneck" wrote in message:

> Yes, I think it was useful, but you
> must be patient. For me, I don't
> post much because of the language,
> It is a little difficult for me ;)

Oh, I think you'll make it! :-)

Cheers.

[carlsson]

The non-activity issue is found on most wide-focused forums. I read today on Retrochat (www.retrochat.com) that the administrator was considering whether the forum plays an important role or not, given the few posts lately. To some extent, these two forums overlap, although Retrochat aims mainly at 8 and 16 bit gaming while this is more "serious".

I believe more narrow forums may be easier to attract the "believing" people to, but a narrow forum also theoretically attracts fewer people.

But I have no good suggestions how to get more activity. Most of the people interested in discussing and sharing their knowledge have found one or more (e.g. Usenet comp.* groups) forums, and the other lot are probably not interested or difficult to track down.

[bobstek]

I hardly have time to read all the discussions I want, but your site is well organized, so I do drop in at least weekly. Keep it up!

Bob Stek
SAver of Lost Sols

[CP/M User]

"carlsson" wrote in message:

> But I have no good suggestions how to
> get more activity. Most of the people
> interested in discussing and sharing
> their knowledge have found one or
> more (e.g. Usenet comp.* groups)
> forums, and the other lot are probably
> not interested or difficult to track down.

Yes, lots of people tend to stick with Usenet
groups generally because they get what they
need out of it. However, I'm unsure if there
are still groups of people out there who still
use their ol' computers for everyday use
& don't need things like the internet for stuff.

I started using the internet in 1996, but I
didn't need to get any until 1999! Now it's
2003 & computers as well as internet has
changed somewhat since I first started my
own account.

It actually didn't take me long to see that
people interested in ol' Amstrad computers
were generally using the internet as a source
of getting a group together.

Cheers.

[carlsson]

People who are not connected to Internet will most surely not take part of message boards like this anyway. :wink:

But as I said before, more narrow forums seem to get more activity (or maybe they've been around for longer). Check the Lemon64 forum or the AtariAge forum. Both use the very same phpBB code as this forum does, and to some extent have "off-topic" areas for discussing other platforms or subjects.

If it was possible to link or share forums of the same technology with eachother, it might be an option, but that sounds very much like Usenet Mk II. I've been involved in conferencing systems before, where multiple installations of the same software existed and questions were raised to what extent messages could be imported to different installations. Often it works rather poorly, unless you have one common user database.

Oh well, nothing really constructive out of this post neither (as Erik probably can't reprogram every instance of phpBB in the world to work as I suggested).

[Jorg]

I'm only visiting this forum since few weeks, I thought it was already around for a long time.
I'd certainly say its useful, because I found what I was looking for here, after a non-succesfull search on usenet.

[Old PC Man]

I think "The Vintage Computer Forum" is very useful. It has helped me on more than one occasion.

[vic user]

Hi;

This is the third forum I have joined, and I have noticed the same "problem" in all the three forums.

From my perspective, it's easy to have topics sprout up like wild fire in a forum, but difficult to keep up with them all. I tend to get lost in all the different topics in a forum setting, and I also find there can be quite a bit of overlap from one topic to the next, that could have been done within one topic.

Don't get me wrong... I love that this forum exists, I just find that the forum format has some interesting challenges, as opposed to a mailing group.

Chris, vic user in Ottawa

[Mike McElfresh]

Hi,

Sure it's useful. My former ISP yanked usenet access due to bandwidth and storage
requirements (that's what they said). And perhaps a lot of people new to the 'net may
not know how to use usenet or may prefer to use a browser to access information about
our beloved "boat anchors".

I suspect traffic may pick up in the fall and winter when all the yankees <g> are stuck inside
for months on end.

Hang in there, and thanks for all the work you put into this. Looks good and works well in Mozilla and Konqueror.

Regards,
Mike Mc