If you have to ask, or if it seems odd.....

Everything is affected by "politics". Everything, especially hobbies and activities which are not 100% PC.

Maybe you don't want to wade into the mud puddle, but you should be aware of what is going on, as it is going to affect you at some point. When all of a sudden you can't get tags for your old car, don't let it be a surprise.

Where else are they going to put Doc Fiberglass? They refuse to flat-out ban him regardless of what he says, and probably because there are one or two members that find him cute and funny.

Most of the sites I read have had similar issues. Facebook groups have taken a ton of traffic from forums, and forums splitting into subgenres have certainly hurt places like this too. This has spawned A/B/C/E bodies only, as an example. Or Yellowbullet, tuning into Turbobullet/Phantombullet, etc.

Like many of you have mentioned, the Facebook groups have more activity on them but the signal to noise ratio is much worse than a place like this.

It also doesn't help that this hobby specifically is mostly an older crowd and people are getting out of it for various reasons.

I follow a dirtbike forum as well and that's about the only one I haven't seen lose traffic over the last decade or so.

Well you certainly seem to enjoy it! Looks like nearly 1/2 of your post's have been in that forum. As far as the mods posting there? Why not? I post there. Tom posts there and Mike posts there. Don't look at it if you don't approve of the forum.....

This is off topic BUT ... How does bank transfer work in the U.S. ???

Here in Canada to do a bank transfer we get the email address of the person we're sending money to.
From our bank account we "e-transfer" the funds to the email address. We also provide a security word that they have to enter for the transaction to complete.
If the person's email is bogus or we type it in wrong then the transfer doesn't happen.
If the transfer is successful we get an automatic reply from the bank.
The receiver can have their account set for automatic deposit OR they have two days to enter the security word and receive the money.
At no time does either party need any of the other's banking info.
These transfers, regardless of the dollar amount, cost the sender $1.50. No charge top the receiver.

I love a good political give and take debate. And the political forum started out like that. But now it has degenerated from "you are wrong, no, you are wrong" to "you are a jerk, no, you are a bigger jerk" to "you are an a-hole, no, you are a bigger a-hole" to "eat poop and die, yeah, you too"...... Where is the debate? It has descended into personal insults rather than debate on topics. It is sad to see as there is a legitimate purpose for it IMHO.

The problem with Facebook is you don't know the source of the (often wrong) advice. At least with the forums you can get a feel over time for who knows what they are talking about and who doesn't. [/quote]

Agree!! I mess with RC stuff and folks are always posting/asking questions about part description/availability when the manufacture has EVERY bit of that info on their website!! Frustrating!

I check in everyday. The car forums first then the politcal forum.

You don't really know Eric. He's a normal guy.

And without the no holds barred forum the site would have very limited traffic.
No traffic dead site.

Forum owners see the reduced traffic and some either don't comment or dismiss it as being untrue. It reminds me of how officials in California won't talk about the many productive citizens that are leaving the state.
When I joined this site 12 years ago, it was the 800 lb gorilla. Since then, it seems that very few young, new members join while the older crowd posts less and less. FBBO and FABO seem to be either holding steady or gaining ground. Why is that?
It used to be that this site had heavy handed Moderators but it seems that they have backed off from their extreme actions. I used to get banned frequently for making political comments but since the Current Event forum came online, I haven't had a problem. I have mellowed out a lot though. I'm not as quick tempered and impulsive so I am probably not on the radar like before.
I see young, middle and "seasoned" enthusiasts joining in at FBBO almost daily. FABO probably does as well, I don't know since I am far more active at FBBO.
The Infolinks garbage has chased many away. I don't know if Tom is compliant to it or held hostage by it. I am not an expert on computers and internet politics. Maybe Google has his hands tied to where he is contractually obligated to push what they want. If that is the case, oh boy......That is a velvet noose for sure.

The amount of horrible advice and bad information that gets thrown around every time someone asks a question on a FB page is crazy. I've always felt like most of the info given out here is good, or at least somewhat helpful. There are one or two FB pages that aren't bad, but the majority...

Same routine here, my interest are E bodies, Wingcars, paint, and fabrication/bodywork, if I can add anything to the Q&A, resto forum, or General, I do....then off to watch the banter in the "political" forum....

That's a more than fair answer. I was sort of joking in my reply, but I do get it. Anyone who has ever been to Carlisle knows it's a sleepy little town. Pretty much all of the car people know each other or there's only one degree of separation and being followed isn't really an issue - but even around here I watch for that kind of stuff. Also, I don't think I have anything worth going to that much effort to steal but who knows??

I do like the actual names on Facebook and in my job, it's really helpful.

Until recently, I thought most of the Mopar groups on Facebook were great. You quickly learned who really knew their stuff and almost everyone in all of the groups was at least RELATIVELY knowledgeable on Mopars. In the last couple of months, it seems like almost every Mopar group has really gone downhill. I'm NOT criticizing people for not being Mopar experts - I'm NO expert and am always learning. But it seemed like for the longest time, those who didn't know a lot were fairly quiet when it came to answering questions and/or commenting. Lately, however, I see so many people who clearly know very little about Mopars arguing over things that are pretty basic. I've also been seeing for sale ads with pretty solid '70-'71 E-Bodies for $12-$15,000 and people are commenting calling the seller crazy and saying they have one too many zeros in the price. But again, you quickly learn who knows their stuff and who doesn't.

Ed

Isn't the unmoderated forum on here just a bit like new cars at car shows? A necessary evil. As us old guys and our dinosaurs fade away, those distractions help to keep it all going?

And then there is the fact that no one is forced to open that particular forum, let alone be forced to read the posts in there.

Facebook has been in a traffic nosedive for years now and forums are coming back, except this time registering has to be 2 clicks and very simple. No capcha's, no checking e-mails for links, no waiting for mod approvals etc. A lot are using discord but thats not the silver bullet either.

A facebook car group is no different than having a car show at the entrance to a walmart, because its the same people showing up, offering "advice" and asking questions.

The wire transfers I have done you go through the banks. The seller provides the buyer with their account number, and bank routing, or wire routing numbers.
Then the buyer provides those numbers to his bank, his bank then transfers funds to the sellers account. Then the seller gets a confirmation call, or message from his bank when the transfer has competed.

It seems to (in my own thinking) to work much like an ACH check transfer, only instead of being mostly automated, humans are used to verify the transaction at the time it happens.

I've seen enough of his posts and gotten enough PM's to know the only thing he is interested in is being the biggest antagonist possible.

Absolutely correct. I'd rate him directly under infostinks for running people off. One of the mods posted sometime ago he was the number one most ignored user here.

Why can't Tom offer a paid membership with no Infolinks?