The Great Merge 2016

[PTRACER]

Well, The Great Purge started in Russia 80 years ago, but 2016 is the year of the Great Merge.

I have signed up to some other very, VERY small forums (with perhaps barely half a dozen active members) and I'm going to see if they will join us.

So far I have only been able to sign up and post on TWO of the seven forums. One forum required me to sign up in two different places, then I had to give a reason why I signed up, then I have to wait for admin approval. I haven't heard anything yet. On the other four, I have signed up okay, only to be told I can't post until an admin either approves my account, or approves my posts. This is precisely why their forums are dying, they're completely inaccessible.

Anyway, I doubt this will work out like the Farzad merge did, but does anyone mind?

[Cheeveer]

I don't mind. But maybe there are other reasons why those forums are so small. They might like it that way. A group of friends chatting, not a community per se.

[MonteCristo]

FMB had a similar rule at one stage, which, come to think of it, was a massive reason why the forum started to die off. Admin had to approve.

It was done because there were so many spam bots signing up at one stage, but it killed new arrivals.

[PTRACER]

We were like that as well for a bit. We made people post 25 times before they could view our videos sections. So we had so many spam posts that just said "Thx ". And then of course we started banning people for spamming...It was all such a mess. We might have been huge if we hadn't done stuff like that.

Anyway, one of the moderators from F1onboard.com has approved my Merge idea thread, then PM'd me to say he'd moved it into Moderator Discussion for them to talk about. Apparently they have less than 10 active users, which probably makes it worth their while. Annoyingly I can't respond to the moderator's PM because you need to have THREE approved posts to send PMs and the other two haven't been approved yet

[MonteCristo]

Looking at their forum, it looks like a pretty sad state of affairs. Barely over 20 threads in their F1 sub-forum since November... I feel for them.

Edit: Just saw that their F1 sub-forum has almost three times as many posts as this place. They used to be huge at some time! I fondly remember their videos from the early-to-mid 2000s.

[PTRACER]

Edit: Just saw that their F1 sub-forum has almost three times as many posts as this place. They used to be huge at some time! I fondly remember their videos from the early-to-mid 2000s.

Perhaps in the F1 discussion section, but they started 18 months before us and were famous right away for putting onboard videos on the internet through their site: https://web.archive.org/web/20030320094 ... board.com/

I also noticed that overall, they have 257233 posts across their whole board compared to our 279609

[Puhis]

I've told my simracing friends about this place, if they want somewhere more intelligent than iR forums to discuss current affairs. Nobody has signed up yet to my knowledge, but I haven't been exactly pressing it either.

[PTRACER]

I've told my simracing friends about this place, if they want somewhere more intelligent than iR forums to discuss current affairs. Nobody has signed up yet to my knowledge, but I haven't been exactly pressing it either.

Thanks for trying Joonas! Do you have any room in your iRacing forum signature for a link to this forum?

[erwin greven]

Good idea Paul!!! Will put www.the-fastlane.co.uk in my signature at simracing boards.

[PTRACER]

Good idea Paul!!! Will put http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk in my signature at simracing boards.

Thanks! Btw, I designed some images for use in signatures. Honestly don't know if they're any good, but if you want to use them: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=14116#p289674

[MonteCristo]

Out of interest, does anyone know what the biggest active motorsport forum would be? Biggest I know of would be TenTenths. Right now they have 130 members online.

[John]

Out of interest, does anyone know what the biggest active motorsport forum would be? Biggest I know of would be TenTenths. Right now they have 130 members online.

Is Atlas F1 still around? They had a huge message board back in the day.

[pob_]

Autosport absorbed atlas f1 in 2005.

[caneparo]

Well, The Great Purge started in Russia 80 years ago, but 2016 is the year of the Great Merge.

I have signed up to some other very, VERY small forums (with perhaps barely half a dozen active members) and I'm going to see if they will join us.

So far I have only been able to sign up and post on TWO of the seven forums. One forum required me to sign up in two different places, then I had to give a reason why I signed up, then I have to wait for admin approval. I haven't heard anything yet. On the other four, I have signed up okay, only to be told I can't post until an admin either approves my account, or approves my posts. This is precisely why their forums are dying, they're completely inaccessible.

Anyway, I doubt this will work out like the Farzad merge did, but does anyone mind?

When I joined tbk forum about 15 years ago looking for Gilles Villenuve stuff for my collection, things were very very different. It was very difficult (at least for me) to find material and that rarity was cause by technology/hardware divide and the cost of hosting space. At the time those kind of websites attracted a big amount of persons interested in motor racing.
Today things are changed, you can find videos on youtube and images on google (most of them originally posted in this and other similiar forum/website). Other means of communicating like social media and escpecially twitter have given huge resonance to some topic of discussions but have reduced the quality of interactions; what I mean is that on twitter I could have a discussion about F1 at any time by barely posting my valuable opinion, but I do not know if someone will read or answer mem, how much competent the counterpart would be, and if I'll ever interact with him again. The new social media format has increased the availability of the material but indeed it has created a diaspora among the fanbase. Once a topic goes off trend, then it fades away in a forgotten space.
The value added of a forum like the fastlane is indeed the quality of interaction and the competence of the people who participate, because who discusses is always competent and interested. This is why people should join this forum, and also the reason why the merger with the FMB has definitely been a success: the interactions created in the discussion feed themselves in a virtuosistic circle and increase the interest and expectation for next topic to be opened. The bigger we are the better it will be.

[PTRACER]

That's a well-written tribute to our forum, and others like it Toni, thank you I totally agree with what MonteCristo said some days/weeks ago - using Facebook and twitter is like shouting into an abyss. It's only one step away from being live chat. Forums are a much more permanent record and whatever discussions you have are therefore more meaningful.

----------------

Well, I'm very sad to announce that F1onboard and F1world have rejected our suggestion for a merge.

Despite only having literally two active members besides myself, the admin of F1onboard has decided to keep his board alive for what it is. The decision is silly in my view. There's almost nothing to merge with, but I have to respect his decision.

F1world rejected on the grounds that the 5 or 6 people there are close friends who like things the way they are, which is what I expected.

Meanwhile, the remaining members of Forumula1.com are reluctant to even discuss it and so far only one moderator has given his opinion ("If this forum closes I'll just chat on Facebook instead"). And multiple posts/threads on The-Pit-Lane.co.uk have been totally ignored by everyone - admins, members, whatever. No one gives a shit about that forum clearly.

So it's back to Plan A - attracting people through YouTube and existing social media, and promoting The Fastlane on whatever forums you also use. Gaming forums especially. I think the CPdB will also help attract new members eventually.