Not that Active Anymore?

DavidR1

DavidR1

New member
Is it just me or is this forum not as active as it once was?

Seems like there would be dozens of responses to every question within an hour or so when I was more active here a year or so ago. I guess all the answers are out there at this point, or the knowledgebase has moved on??

Just an observation from my perspective.
 
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it appears to me to ebb and flow. some subforums are more active and consistently so.

about 3 years or so ago, i bought something from a long-time member and moderator. met up with him in person. we chatted a bit about the forum (i was more lurking at that point) and he said the forum has definitely changed over the years. a lot of the active members when he joined were gone, but in their place were a whole crop of "newer" active members (which at that point were old veterans on the board already), and he can see the board's personality changing some more due to an influx of even newer members and the slow disappearance of some of the older members.

plus the board sees the coming and going of all the fads, which is interesting. i'm sure when there is a hot fad going around (read: overlanding), the board picks up some steam.
 
Almost every car forum I've been a part of is running on fumes these days. T4R is the most active one in my anecdotal experience relative to all the other ones I've been on since the early-mid 2000's.

Unfortunately, Facebook syphoned off a lot of the new blood of car enthusiasts and I believe there may be a general trend of less car enthusiasts in general. Then, a large portion of us move away from working on cars as we age because we can afford to buy nicer ones from the factory or it just feels like too much of a physical burden/time-sink/money-sink as we age. And it seems that there is not a lot of new enthusiasts to take our place.

The downfall also seemed to coincide with Photobucket completely ****ing over literally millions of photographs used in technical sections of forums across the internet. So much useful information just vaporized in the blink of an eye because of that. I believe that single incident probably drove away a lot of people looking for technical information and towards Facebook where, although the interface is pretty much garbage, the content is consistent (I personally hate Facebook groups as they're full of unfettered, obnoxious trolls and just generally people that don't know what the **** they're talking about).

Also, a lot of large corporate companies have bought out the smaller forums and have completely ****ed them by trying to modernize them which scares away a lot of the old timers who are resistant to change. Autoguide has been destroying forums across the internet and it's driven tons of people away from once flourishing forums that would produce entire new threads every hour.

It sucks, but it's just the way it goes I suppose. But yeah, T4R, especially the 5th Gen section is way more active than any other forum I'm a part of.
 
I think its because the forum itself kind of sucks. It's plagued with issues, vendors spamming all over, spam bots get out of hand, there's very little platform support (in terms of the site not the vehicles). When the site got hacked not along it handled pretty poorly, the people running the forum were alarming quiet about it. This forum is basically unusable from mobile devices because of pop ups that redirect you. Until recently the software and security was very very very out of date, but now the damage is done. I feel like a lot of people have moved on to other platforms, and/or other forums and facebook groups.

This forum is great in terms of knowledge and info, its a very good resource, but unfortunately they damn near let it become obsolete.
 
Agent_Outside said:
I think its because the forum itself kind of sucks. It's plagued with issues, vendors spamming all over, spam bots get out of hand, there's very little platform support (in terms of the site not the vehicles). When the site got hacked not along it handled pretty poorly, the people running the forum were alarming quiet about it. This forum is basically unusable from mobile devices because of pop ups that redirect you. Until recently the software and security was very very very out of date, but now the damage is done. I feel like a lot of people have moved on to other platforms, and/or other forums and facebook groups.

This forum is great in terms of knowledge and info, its a very good resource, but unfortunately they damn near let it become obsolete.
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Sorry but I go to the "other" forums as well. And if you think this one is dead/sucks you are mistaken.
 
Keep in mind that most of us are not doing a whole lot to our 4R's because of the weather.
Wait till Spring when everyone is back outside tinkering with their babies.
-
 
Been on here 15 years (except for a short stint when Thai banned me rotflol) and there has always been an ebb and flow but I guarantee you that social media has driven numbers down.

There are so many new Yota owners who really know nothing of forums and ask all the same question that can be found on the forums, but in a unsearchable structure.

I've written on this elsewhere but I believe it's a real shame. Social media is not well suited to getting true facts and advice. Social media is great for organizing group runs and showing the latest bronze Method Racing wheels lol. Forums is where you can go to research and be sure to get mostly good information.

The other issue that is created out of social media is the "now generation". People want answers immediately. Use to be that you post on a forum and wait for someone (hopefully with experience) come forward within a week or so, and post some useful response. Now, people want instant answers and want instant attention. Build threads on forums were exciting and useful. Often full of narrative and how to...

Social media doesn't have that - the insta (gram) world.

Then again, what do I know. I'm a 57 year old kid building a solid axle 4th gen on 40's for crawling and daily driving.
 
brtnstrns said:
Unfortunately, Facebook syphoned off a lot of the new blood of car enthusiasts and I believe there may be a general trend of less car enthusiasts in general.
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It sucks, but forums do seem to be losing ground to Facebook. MTBR's forums are still reasonably popular, but my regional subsection is nearly dead. All the action is in Facebook groups, which are absolutely horrid substitutes for dedicated forums.
 
So I joined shortly after purchasing my 4Runner, looking back I wish I had joined a month or two before. When I first joined I would log in pretty much everyday, trying to figure things out and learn more about the community. I bought my rig in November (17) and for maybe six months I was really into it. I don't participate in social media, no facebook, no twitter, no instagram or snap whatever. I have LinkedIn, but that's a very different animal. Because of this I don't spend much personal time online, I sit in front of a computer at work, last thing I want to do when I get home. Once spring hit and the days got long I was out doing stuff, often in my 4Runner and couldn't be bothered to log into T4R anymore. Back in Feb. I had a question and logged back in, winter up here is pretty boring, particularly weekday nights. Someone earlier mentioned that once spring comes it will be more active because people will be using their trucks more. I guess we're all different, once spring comes I'll be on here less... because I'll be using my truck more. I would hate to see it totally disappear though, too much good info.
 
In my 13 years frequenting the forum, I've seen participation levels rise and fall many times. It seems to be a natural, but undefined cycle. Maybe we're in a low spot right now...?

I do agree that forum management has been a bit poor over the past few years and that has effected my activity. The moderators list needs to be regularly reviewed. There are some members listed as mods and they haven't logged in in nearly a decade.
 
techno said:
In my 13 years frequenting the forum, I've seen participation levels rise and fall many times. It seems to be a natural, but undefined cycle. Maybe we're in a low spot right now...?

I do agree that forum management has been a bit poor over the past few years and that has effected my activity. The moderators list needs to be regularly reviewed. There are some members listed as mods and they haven't logged in in nearly a decade.
Click to expand...

Hey old-timer!
 
So I came from TheXterra.org and thought this place was all messed up after being on there for years. It seems that nothing is organized here, and it a really hard to find threads about topics because they are in multiple sections. I suggested separate sections for separate things like how the newx does it. It makes the site easier to navigate instead of going to the off road section then the 5th gen section then the general section and then find it in the engine, suspension section. I have a ton of questions about a bunch of stuff but have no clue where to post it so I actually get answers. It wouldn't take much to clean the forums up but it would be some work to enforce it to stay that way. I am interested in helping update the design and helping create sub forums and get everything organized if it matters to anyone.
 
The 5th generation has been around long enough that many questions have been answered. The other generations will fade slowly too.
Also, the quality of the 4Runner is stellar compared to the BOF competition. So that slows down threads.
Go to the JL forum. That forum is plagued with people posting their issues. The dealerships are clueless and dont care. The quality control at the factory seems non existent at times too.
 
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