I participate in a few other model railroading forums around the world and they all have migrated to different platforms over the time, keeping the history accessible via an archive. However, they had a much more detailed structure, allowing to “weed out” topics and threads to general or unspecific to be worth keeping.
Again I will respectfully repeat, the tractor forum I belong to, a very big user owned forum, had no problems moving to a different vendor platform and keeping all its history.
Sheldon
It’s not a slap in the face, it just decreases the signal to noise ratio.
I’m here to enjoy model railroading with my forum friends and trade information, learn new techniques and knowledge, admire others’ workmanship and skills, ask questions and help others. Reading a post where someone advises a forum member who hasn’t posted in 10 years what gauge bus wire to use fails all those measures. No one learns anything from that thread.
There is a 4 year old thread on yard scenicking that was resurrected yesterday. The new question was whether to use roadbed in the yard and expands the discussion of yard scenicking in a logical way. I don’t have a problem with that kind of old thread. OTOH taking that discussion and asking what kind of yard switchers should be used in a 1980’s Conrail operation, is not the best way to seek information. Some questions deserve their own thread and a future search might be more successful with a proper title to the new thread.
I don’t have a problem with newbies who ask should I go HO or N scale, DC or DCC, cork roadbed or homosote? They are the fleas that go with the dog. Even though we see those posts every other week, the at least the newbie is learning.
We haven’t seen any of those inflammatory threads in quite a while. The ones with the title DCC Plus is killing DCC or Loksound stinks. It’s the newbie’s first and last post ever but there are 4 pages of replies. Those offend me, because as soon as I read one, I can usually tell they are je
I’m with Henry on this one. Start a new thread. Or, include a link to the old thread. But, do not add your reply to a thread that has been dormant for 5 or 10 years or longer.
Rich
Well, I guess I agree regarding the newby who does a search and posts something in a 10 year old thread that really makes no sense.
I just ignore them unless it does seem to make sense to answer.
So if someone did a search for info on Bachmann locos and came up with my thread about the improvements I made, is that not better than posting a new question? They may find what they need right away, rather than waiting for people to read and respond.
Actually, I do have all that info available for copy and paste, and would happily answer additional questions. But if they add those questions to the existing thread, it builds a chain of related info.
Sheldon
I don;t have much problem with necro threads either. IF we are talking about adding new information, or asking for clarification on something that was part of the original thread. If you start a new thread on the same topic, pretty soon the new one looks just like the old one as everyone who is still around posts the same reply they posted 3 years ago when the questionw as last asked. Why bother? The existing thread already has all those answers. A better and working search would reveal this.
THe other forum I am on (not railroad related) which has what I do think is vastly superior software to this, is also very picky about necro threads - but they do have one thing going for them - if you attempt to post a reply to a thread that has had no activity for a significant amount of time, it pops up a notice that says so and urges you to reconsider starting a new thread. It also notifies you if, while you were composing your reply, someone else has posted a reply to the same thread and gives you the opportunity to go back and read the new reply(ies) before posting yours.
I would guess this sort of thing is outsourced, and as I mentioened it seems liek there is a lot of integration with the pay extras and the video content serving, so there may not be many other options available. ANd especially in a specific vertical - bith the client and the integrator tend to get a little tunnel vision with regards to the available products when they primarily serve only one or two verticals, especially if they are similar. So while others in the publishing field may use this same software, there may be something else out there that’s not specifically designed for the publishing field yet could meet all the requirements.
–Randy
There you go, now you’re talking. I like that approach a lot.
Rich
In case it hasn’t been mentioned, the best way to google search this specific site is to start your google search with: “site:cs.trains.com/mrr/f” and then your search terms.
Thanks for that reminder, Onewolf.
I was able to use that link to find the thread eulogizing my beloved Thumper, a Bachmann steamer that suffered the same fate as Jimmy Hoffa, returned to Bachmann for repairs never to be seen again.
[:(]
Rich
As mentioned, search your topic followed by cs.trains on Google
ex) static grass cs.trains
I have found that using site:cs.trains.com after your keywords will bring the best results.
https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433?hl=en
For example,
Cheers, Ed
The boating forum software I mentioned previously also gives that notice on older threads.
There is a major upgrade to the Trains.com group of websites in the works, which we hope will include the Forum software. In the meantime, because of the work being done on this project, no resources will be allocated to fixing the old Forum software. Therefore, there’s no point in continuing to point out all the things about the Forum that are broken. Trust me, we are already too aware of them. So this thread is being locked.