Is this forum dying?

[lonleycreeper]

Don't forget the photobucket fiasco... that turned a lot of members away when that happened, and I havent seen this forum "active " since then.

[OutLore]

I agree that this forum is slowly dying, but to say that all forums in general are dying is simply not true. There are other RC forums that are still very alive, and while FB Groups seem like a valid replacement, because there are so many of them and there's no way to efficiently manage them or browse them - I.E. I have multiple groups across varying different themes, I can't select just "RC" and look at those, you have to select an individual group or all groups.

There are ways to improve the community that I've suggested in other threads before and got told to stop by a mod, so I guess the answer is to let it die and then try to rebuild.

What I really don't understand is why the "owners" wouldn't want to fix the ability for people to donate, so they don't want more revenue but won't sell either.

[1BadJeepBruiser]

Originally Posted by veewee25

Is there anything that we can do to help breathe life back into the forum? Anything we can do to help the mods? Can the owners be reached and talked with?

Originally Posted by veewee25

Im incredibly ignorant in this matter, Does anyone have any idea what it would take to own this forum, hosting fees, monthly outlay etc...???

Originally Posted by indybama

Good luck, the owners wont sell. Seems theyed rather let it die, than see it thrive, sadly

Sent from my SM-A516V using Tapatalk

I can't speak to details as it would be a violation of a verbal non-disclosure I had with both owners.

What I can say is, the forum was offered to ME and only me. I was to be the new "face" of RCC... however, the logistics behind it just wasn't favorable for me...mainly due to the cost of assuming the 49% share of the forum.

This place in its day did well...that's about all I can say... if you were around then I'm sure you know and understand that.

Now...with social media and everything else...not so much...

As I've said in other related posts, I do not want to see this place disappear. I've made life long personal friends from this place, many of these people who will be at my wedding in August. I have established myself in this hobby as an ambassador, a consultant for major manufacturers, have been published in magazines and other accolades which I am extremely proud of and I credit these things to RCC.

I will even go as far as saying that I had 2 investors willing to help me with the takeover...however, after crunching very simple numbers on a face value the cost which it would be was just not beneficial to myself or the investors and this was before I even had the opportunity to review the books.

I've since had other people ask about buying this place, everyone knows how to reach Jason...he's on Facebook... you can send him a message very easily. However, I don't see him just selling it to anyone...but that's just my opinion. He wanted me to take it over for many of reasons, those that know me know I've been here from damn near the beginning and one of the pioneers of "scale" rc crawling and if I had expendable funds to do it I would...but that's just not in the cards.

[veewee25]

Originally Posted by 1BadJeepBruiser

I can't speak to details as it would be a violation of a verbal non-disclosure I had with both owners.

What I can say is, the forum was offered to ME and only me. I was to be the new "face" of RCC... however, the logistics behind it just wasn't favorable for me...mainly due to the cost of assuming the 49% share of the forum.

This place in its day did well...that's about all I can say... if you were around then I'm sure you know and understand that.

Now...with social media and everything else...not so much...

As I've said in other related posts, I do not want to see this place disappear. I've made life long personal friends from this place, many of these people who will be at my wedding in August. I have established myself in this hobby as an ambassador, a consultant for major manufacturers, have been published in magazines and other accolades which I am extremely proud of and I credit these things to RCC.

I will even go as far as saying that I had 2 investors willing to help me with the takeover...however, after crunching very simple numbers on a face value the cost which it would be was just not beneficial to myself or the investors and this was before I even had the opportunity to review the books.

I've since had other people ask about buying this place, everyone knows how to reach Jason...he's on Facebook... you can send him a message very easily. However, I don't see him just selling it to anyone...but that's just my opinion. He wanted me to take it over for many of reasons, those that know me know I've been here from damn near the beginning and one of the pioneers of "scale" rc crawling and if I had expendable funds to do it I would...but that's just not in the cards.

Thank you for the insight. This has helped me get a bit of a grasp of the gravity of it.
I don't think a day has gone by that i haven't checked in here since I first signed on and it has become such a part of my life that I cant imagine a day without it.
I haven't been a huge contributor or have that many posts, I have always been more of student and reader of all the amazing builds and contributors no matter the amount of content. I have met many people in real life through the event and comp sections.

[OutLore]

Originally Posted by 1BadJeepBruiser

I can't speak to details as it would be a violation of a verbal non-disclosure I had with both owners.

What I can say is, the forum was offered to ME and only me. I was to be the new "face" of RCC... however, the logistics behind it just wasn't favorable for me...mainly due to the cost of assuming the 49% share of the forum.

This place in its day did well...that's about all I can say... if you were around then I'm sure you know and understand that.

Now...with social media and everything else...not so much...

As I've said in other related posts, I do not want to see this place disappear. I've made life long personal friends from this place, many of these people who will be at my wedding in August. I have established myself in this hobby as an ambassador, a consultant for major manufacturers, have been published in magazines and other accolades which I am extremely proud of and I credit these things to RCC.

I will even go as far as saying that I had 2 investors willing to help me with the takeover...however, after crunching very simple numbers on a face value the cost which it would be was just not beneficial to myself or the investors and this was before I even had the opportunity to review the books.

I've since had other people ask about buying this place, everyone knows how to reach Jason...he's on Facebook... you can send him a message very easily. However, I don't see him just selling it to anyone...but that's just my opinion. He wanted me to take it over for many of reasons, those that know me know I've been here from damn near the beginning and one of the pioneers of "scale" rc crawling and if I had expendable funds to do it I would...but that's just not in the cards.

So is the option for funding to be provided, with you at the helm still open? If he would only sell to you, why would he care where the funding came from?

Is this something that the previous amount of paid subs would cover moving forward?

Could a gofundme or other crowdfunding solution be used for the initial buy, then paid subs and advertisements cover the ongoing costs?

Social media definitely takes the lions share of users these days but as said there really isn't a good way to use them, and they are designed for profit making businesses to promote themselves to increase the advertisement revenue for FB... having said that FB/Instagram etc. could be useful recruitment tools for the forum, and information can be shared across all the platforms.

Just food for thought.

[diezel666]

Previous Forum owner (Not of RCC of course), however a previous forum owner none the less.
With Hobby fields, people come and go. A lot of people will peak in a hobby, and then the shiny wears off. That's just how it is. As stated prior, many of the long running older forums have all seen the hit that Social Media delivered.

Originally Posted by veewee25

What can we do to breathe life back into things?

Without the blessing of the owner(s)?
We'll all you really can do is:

• Pop a link in your social media (if used).
• Print up a T-shirt with a photo of your a crawler on the back of it, with the web address written below it.
• Print up some stickers to toss on your crawler or gear with the web address.

aka: tell your friends.

Hosting a site, is never really a money return, unless you have a massive audience and annoying ads all over the place. The time and money investment alone, almost never get returned - Especially if you're not in the IT world and can do 99% of all of the behind the scenes on your own. This is why I ran a forum for a decade off of nothing more than a $75 per month hosting and bandwidth investment. All of the hosting duties were on me, and when I say all of them, I mean all of them - With the exception of Hardware. Software updates, system patching, security, SEO ranking, database maintenance, system backups and restorations, graphics, layout, etc, etc all on me. Mind you, this was way prior to Wordpress, and other "template" formats aside from basic html/dhtml and CSS providers.

Now, there is some good news to some of this. Many folks like myself have abandoned social media, as the topics last as long as a goldfish' attention span, and far too many people just want to crap on one another, and/or grab their 10min of fame and followers so they can claim to be an "influencer".
So, back to the forums many of us have gone. Sadly, it's no where near the levels that were seen prior to Social Media. Lets hope that the fact some of the forums are searchable via web engines, and can bring people to them when looking for info (which is how I found RCC actually!).

Basically, I tip my hat to the forum owner(s), and moderators here and give a hearty thank you for all you have done and will do to provide this platform for as long as you decide to.

Just my humble $.02

[JimrC]

Another member here that has relied on this place for it's wealth of information. Would be sad to see this place disappear to be honest, has helped this newbie to the hobby a lot. I don't do social media so have kind of relied on this place.

[1BadJeepBruiser]

Originally Posted by OutLore

So is the option for funding to be provided, with you at the helm still open? If he would only sell to you, why would he care where the funding came from?

Is this something that the previous amount of paid subs would cover moving forward?

Could a gofundme or other crowdfunding solution be used for the initial buy, then paid subs and advertisements cover the ongoing costs?

Social media definitely takes the lions share of users these days but as said there really isn't a good way to use them, and they are designed for profit making businesses to promote themselves to increase the advertisement revenue for FB... having said that FB/Instagram etc. could be useful recruitment tools for the forum, and information can be shared across all the platforms.

Just food for thought.

He didn't care where the funding came from to my knowledge. I was told a price, for discussion sake we will call that X, and it was way more then I could afford... I've also had a lot people ask me what's going on with this place, and explain what I could to them without violating the entrusted conversations I had with Jason and John. One of the peoples runs a successful national event, the other is a small manufacturer for scale RC parts. When I told them what I would need to do it they both agreed it was not a wise buisness choice for myself or us as a whole... Considering since these conversations have occrued this place has only gotten quieter I dont believe that to be on the table.

Social media sucks for build threads and finding information...its great if you want post photos and see the same thing asked 500x, however the majority of the population has their smart phone with IG and FB at the tip of their fingers and thats what they tend to use. Myself included these days...

Originally Posted by diezel666

Previous Forum owner (Not of RCC of course), however a previous forum owner none the less.
With Hobby fields, people come and go. A lot of people will peak in a hobby, and then the shiny wears off. That's just how it is. As stated prior, many of the long running older forums have all seen the hit that Social Media delivered.


Without the blessing of the owner(s)?
We'll all you really can do is:

• Pop a link in your social media (if used).
• Print up a T-shirt with a photo of your a crawler on the back of it, with the web address written below it.
• Print up some stickers to toss on your crawler or gear with the web address.

aka: tell your friends.

Hosting a site, is never really a money return, unless you have a massive audience and annoying ads all over the place. The time and money investment alone, almost never get returned - Especially if you're not in the IT world and can do 99% of all of the behind the scenes on your own. This is why I ran a forum for a decade off of nothing more than a $75 per month hosting and bandwidth investment. All of the hosting duties were on me, and when I say all of them, I mean all of them - With the exception of Hardware. Software updates, system patching, security, SEO ranking, database maintenance, system backups and restorations, graphics, layout, etc, etc all on me. Mind you, this was way prior to Wordpress, and other "template" formats aside from basic html/dhtml and CSS providers.

Now, there is some good news to some of this. Many folks like myself have abandoned social media, as the topics last as long as a goldfish' attention span, and far too many people just want to crap on one another, and/or grab their 10min of fame and followers so they can claim to be an "influencer".
So, back to the forums many of us have gone. Sadly, it's no where near the levels that were seen prior to Social Media. Lets hope that the fact some of the forums are searchable via web engines, and can bring people to them when looking for info (which is how I found RCC actually!).

Basically, I tip my hat to the forum owner(s), and moderators here and give a hearty thank you for all you have done and will do to provide this platform for as long as you decide to.

Just my humble $.02

I can assure you this place wasn't your typical forum in its day....it was 1000% a very prosperous business and shaped this Rc crawling community into what it is today...manufactures made things to the specs based off the owners here... based off of the influence from the population here. It was a truly wild and engaging time. I am fortunate to have watched it grow into what it is...

Like you said though, in the 30 years ive been involved in this hobby ive watched countless people come and go...some amazing and talented builders too.

[ferp420]

Originally Posted by 1BadJeepBruiser

What I can say is, the forum was offered to ME and only me. I was to be the new "face" of RCC... however, the logistics behind it just wasn't favorable for me...mainly due to the cost of assuming the 49% share of the forum.

someone should start a go fund me thaing

[TooOldForThis]

For what it's worth, a lot of these sorts of threads pop up but this one paints the best picture of what's happening with this forum that I've seen. It's not a pretty picture but it's nice to know what's going on.

So in summary we're up against a changing technological tide with indifferent/absent management at the helm of our boat. It's the end of an era. None of us seem to prefer the social media alternatives, but someday those will go into decline like forums did, and maybe whatever replaces them will suit our purposes better.

[durok]

Another one of those SPAM posts was JUST posted - user shows as currently logged in as of right now...

[crunky]

I'm still here, Facebook makes us all lazy.
Where is Jason or Badger ?
What happened to stunt spray, live streams and giveaways ?
This forum used to rock, and it made someone a little money along the way I'm sure.

Sent from my SM-S908U using Tapatalk

[JatoTheRipper]

The spammers are sure trying to keep it alive.

[Gula]

Hacked account

[Col_Sanders]

How long ago was that conversation? As it has gotten quieter could the price have dropped? I have no idea how much this site makes off the barrage of advertisements, but paid memberships sure have dropped so I'd ASSume it is not generating near the income it was even just a couple years ago.