I went this morning to check the latest on the Atlas Forum, only to discover they have shut it down for the next couple of months - for summer vacations,and to do another software upgrade and revamp to their website…so now what do I do? Are there any other Atlas Forum orphans out there? Can anybody point out some other ‘free’ discussion sites, I used to be a member of another RR site, catering to general topic and modeling, that was quite good and also busy, until it became a user pay site. I’d like to stay in touch with people, what with a lot of new items coming out and the NMRA Seattle convention taking place in July…anyone interested in chatting?
Thanks for listening…
Yeah, just saw that myself. I thought it was a bit sudden. I knew they shut down for summer vacation, but didn’t expect it this soon or for that long. Some other sites, (obviously in addition to this one) include: www.trainboard.com www.the-gauge.com www.railroadforum.com
I’m here too… It literally happened between one refresh and the next. I suspect that Rob and Paul are going to get soundly bawled out over the lack of warning when it does come back up.
I’ve only been online for just over a month, and had found the Atlas site and been lurking without registering, but generally following most of the postings and topics to pick up tips and get the general drift of other modeler’s concerns and expertise. I could almost swear I had checked out the Atlas site early this morning, and checked the latest postings, and had noted that no one had seemed to have posted anything more since I last checked it late last night (Jun 03). I have checked out other forum sites since getting on line, but found myself being drawn back, again and again, to Atlas forum. Having just picked up a copy of Model Railroader today, I noticed, in my perusal, that MR mentioned their forum, which I had not been aware of before, and so I signed on to see what up.
I’m just getting back into model railroading, after an almost fifteen- year hiatus, and boy has so much changed. So I’ll continue to monitor some of these forums as I begin, anew, to build my pike.
SteveO
Hi Lorne!
I am not really a Atlas forum orphan as such as this was the first forum I sign up on when I started to do forums.Atlas was my second…If you are interested in chatting on line then you can talk to some of the guys on the Gauge Chat room.We gather there in force around 9:45-10:00pm EDST nightly.
Now IMHO I believe the Atlas forum was also shut down early for “Time out” reasons as well.I am sure you recall the number of lock threads so far this year and the needless attacks and bashing of Horizon/Athearn and of course now UP… [:(] I can not blame Atlas for shutting down the forum early as things was getting out of hand-usually by the same hands at that even after repeated warnings by Paul Graf…[:(][:(!]
Now to my mind a forum should be a place to discuss a new product and any major errors that can not be readily fix by a detail part or a few minutes time and not a place for relentless attacks by those that may not like that given manufacturer be it Athearn or Kato.One man’s junk is another’s treasure or as I like to say their pride and joys.[:D] A forum should also be where questions can be answered without fear of being attacked because one may give another view from his/her own experience.
I wouldn’t doubt that there was a “time out” issue involved. But it would have been nice to have some warning - as well as something other than an error message when I try to access the HO forum directly.
Oh well. What is really annoying is that I really preferred the Atlas interface over most of the others out there.
I was in a middle of a search this afternoon when Atlas forum went down. I clicked on the thread I wanted to read, and poof, the dreaded error message. A little warning would be nice, but like some other have said, there seemed to be to much fur flying for their comfort / or to be useful to people with serious topics. I think it will be good for things to mellow out there.
I think it will give folks some time to get started on, or in my case re started on some projects.
As far as the software upgrade, I think it will probably ending up looking like the MR forum here, as MR is using a newer version of the forum software that Atlas was using.
Peter
I miss the Atlas Forum too.
I will miss the photos the most.
I wonder if this site could accept some photos on a similar basis? It won’t be the same SNFF or TNFF bot maybe we could have some MRPF?
Yep! Kinda closed it early this year. I think it had everything to do with the UP-Modeler suit thread. It was gettin’ a little out of hand [xx(] and was becoming annoying.