Just wondering if there is an n scale forum out there somewhere that has a little more action going on?
What kind of action are you looking for? I think any N Scale forum will be slow this week with the N Scale convention going on this week.
Well, I am a member of several other forums (non train related) and they are busy with 100s of posts a day. Just wondering if there is an N scale forum that has more than 3-5 posts a day or is that all the traffic there is for something like n scale?
I have been on here for several years, and this n scale forum is usually pretty active. I would say just the time of year, people on vacations, the convention, has slowed the posting down.
It was a bit slow today, but OTOH, our N scale forum has one heck of lot more than 3-5 posts per day. There have been at least fifteen active N topics today, with about 65-70 messages. One way to see more activity is to cultivate some. Be proactive. Start a topic, respond to others. Don't sit and wait for something to happen, jump in and make it happen. I am a member of numerous forums and groups- Model RR, RR history and completely non-RR. A lot seem to be slower right now, than at this time a year ago. Except summertime activities such as sports. As already noted, RR related conventions are ongoing. The MRHA is this weekend, followed quickly by GNRHS then NPRHA. Many others are also meeting. And then there are model RR, excursions and the fact people do other things this time of year. Then, anyone actually modeling doesn't get a lot done sitting here at the keyboard. If anyone has a "referral", please PM Bigstatik directly.
Yeah, this is one of the more popular n scale places. But as was said, its summer, there's a convention going on and there were still what 65-70 posts. To say nothing of the prototype posts, the general hobby posts, etc.
This is one of the more decent forums that I've seen. And not to sound trite or dog-pile on...I'd be willing to bet that there are a couple of hundred guys who like me "check in" a few times each week, but aren't neccessarily motivated to post each time they're to the site. I like to see what others are doing and this is a great forum for doing just that. Unfortunately, time in the evenings is somewhat premium time and after my wife and child head off to sleep there are a few hours each with which to model or post. More times than not modeling is going to win out, even in 107 degree temperatures.
I don't know. I never looked. To paraphrase an old saying: "If it ain't here I probably don't need it." Beyond that the quality of the postings, family friendly atmosphere, the adroit actions of the moderators, and well, a whole bunch more reasons for me to never look beyond these here borders. That said, ya, I agree with Boxcab. You will only get out of Trainboard what you put into it.
All of the forums took a hit with the economy and the situation in China. One sure way to generate trffic on a forum was to bring out a new engine then let people critique it to death. But very few new realeases have been made in the last 2+ years. That carries over into other product lines. As companies move their production to other locations [if they can] or retool [if they can] I would expect the situation to improve. Actually I found the current situation to be a blessing as I was spending a lot of time cruising the forums.
The N scale forum on Railwire seems like it's a little busier than this one. Although neither forum seems to be as busy as the old Atlas forum (IMHO). Cheers, -Mark
With Atlas gone, you have Trainboard, Railwire, and then a couple of N Scale specific sites. That's it, and I agree that with many folks in Medford and on vacation, we're just slow.
I expected both the Railwire and the Trainboard to pick up more activity since Atlas went down. While both have probably increased, it not nearly been enough to make up for the loss of Atlas, which was busier than both combined. It seems losing Atlas has dampened N scale discussions more than I thought it would.
Couple of things to ponder. Some of the most active threads are the "What's on your work bench" A few layout progress threads and a weekly Friday and Monday Weekend modeling plans/accomplishment thread. These threads show we have an active modeling bunch but we are active in the work shop, not always the keyboard. It's summer. Kids are home from school, looking for things to do. Summer holidays, vacations and trips. Most railroad guys like myself will spend more time in my Jeep with a scanner and a camera track side then stuck indoors posting on any thread. Posting activity goes up when it is to wet or cold to do railroad activities outside. Most of my activity here since Monday has been during the early morning hours before work, uploading my railfan pictures on Railimages and doing the required research, none of which has to do with modeling per say. As said before, get out what you put in. Fortunately for the most part, Trainboard is not a forum where we discuss petty problems, but more discussions on real modeling. In just the last week in N scale, we have seen a good mini how to and discussion on crossing gates and signals, some great N scale custom paint and detailed locomotives and some discussion on e-Bay. Quality of quantity. Want a new discussion? Start one. We are lucky enough to have some very knowledgeable modelers here, many being published in books and magazines. All of this is said as an explanation, not to call you out and start a flame war, we try not to do that here. Respectfully, I would like to see what you are up to. Post something about your layout, maybe what your working on. Lets see what you have, you may have an idea we all could use so as they say in New England, "belly up to the bar."
Daryl- I agree....and really miss the Atlas Forum. While to some degree Trainboard mirrored the Atlas Forum it seems like its demise put a damper on the entire community. I hope that once the announcements and activities at Medford and the NMRA in Lansing have happened we'll see some increase in traffic. I would prefer not to have to log on to ten different sites to survey what is going on and wish that everyone would migrate here so we could rebuild the critical mass that the Atlas Forum seemed to have..... Charlie Vlk
Let's see how do I go about saying something controversial and yet has more to do with problem identification. Upside is there are websites including the new Atlas forum started by Kodiak. He said if things get out of hand Dee would throw a bunch of banana peels out there. LOL :teeth: TrainBoard is still the busiest by far and Railwire, tags in behind it. Most websites are just slow and I mean slow. I thought I was going to have to get out the death certificates and fill them out. Downside is there are a number of us that enjoy a good discussion, pro's and con's, with some friendly bantering about and sharing a laugh or two. The problem identified is: To many of the moderators get fidgety, twitchy, nervous and their control issues start to surface ending up with them using their lock down key, a bit to freely. Do I dare say censorship in over drive? One such example was a discussion on another website, it was locked down and moved to another non-model railroad topic area. Despite the fact the discussion was about model rails as compared to the Rails. A source of frustration for many of us that participate and support with our finances certain of these boards. I don't know how to solve this and what happens is that many of us end up walking around on egg shells in hopes we don't offend the conservative, moderates or liberals on board. I mean how do you do that? Now, I hope this doesn't start a flame war...as well...and lock this thread down. Just putting it out there as food for thought.
Well said Jim! It's summer time, more to do outside than inside for most folks. I'm taking a break from the layout per'se but fixing up the basement to make it look more presentable. If your looking for more traffic and threads to read, I echo Jim's words "Post something about your layout, maybe what your working on. Lets see what you have, you may have an idea we all could use so as they say in New England, "belly up to the bar." Not everyone can go to the convention, there are still a bunch of us that reads the threads everyday... Allen...
Start a flame war? Nah, we just take you out back and rough you up a bit. After you submit to our superior opinions we allow you to come back. Seeing as how I have few opinions, that makes it easy. Call it what you will, censorship or whatever, we only really get fired up when someone is deliberately rude or is obviously trolling. It is usually very easy to spot friendly bantering.
There's some forum-specific dampeners in here though. At home, with my wireless 2MB x 1MB connection, it seems to just take forever to get through the opening page, the forum page, and get into N scale forum. It takes so long for the ads, and the photos, and the 'stuff'...often I just close the window and come back later. It also performs relatively poorly now on 800x600 res, and I need a bigger monitor at home to not get eyestrain. In the office, with a much faster connection and a nice 22" monitor, it significantly helps and I don't find myself bailing out due to lack of response time. The 'tweaking', plus the ads, features, everything... has made this a much slower forum. Definitely reduces my participation.
