Facebook and forums

[Mudderoy]

In my opinion Facebook, and other social media services, have been the death of forums.

I never visit other forums unless I'm doing a search and the results take me there. Even then I don't log in and never post on the forum. I'm just there for the information and then gone once I have that information. Often I find the information I need is incomplete or wrong, so the nature is to quickly move along until I do find the answer. I know I'm part of the problem.

To stop xjtalk.com from being used in this manner I turned off access to anyone that wasn't logged in. Doesn't mean their going to post, probably won't, but still it makes me feel better.

With A.I. getting better and better we were getting scores of new users on the site only to have posts for either nefarious posts to infect or to improve the SEO of another site. Blame Google formulas for this. So then I turned off the ability for people to create an account. Now they have to send the webmaster an email, and receive information on how to fill out a form. Once the form is filled out I manually create the account and send them the information.

As you can imagine we don't get a lot of requests due to the inconvenience.

I do think that forums could have survived and competed with social media if the folks that programmed the forum software had embraced the social media trend years ago, and modified their software to fit better what people wanted.

Ever try to search social media for information? You can't that's why people still go to forums for information, but they post fixes on facebook, or do a youtube video for it. Hell youtube will even pay you.

[Pookapotamus]

I also don’t use social media of any kind, and it’s very sad to see this forum so quiet.


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[4.3LXJ]

I don't use social media either. Too much cancel culture there

[denverd1]

personally, I like seeing what a forum is all about before I go through the registration process. Not sure why you would want to stop someone from seeing the value in the forum, but I haven't understood a lot of what goes on around here.

Tony, as you point out, researching a topic is where a forum can really shine. But the information has be solid and somewhat organized.

Additionally, i've come here quite a few times over the last year and my browser timed out on loading the page. Took 3 tries to get this reply posted.

I am curious how you would integrate a forum and social media....

[4.3LXJ]

Yes, it takes a long time to do anything. I never did get my last photos of my axle project uploaded. It never gives me a complete window to do it. I always have to try several times. Kind of frustrating

[702XJCruiser]

I haven't been here in a while and I'm still trying to figure out what to do with the XJ I picked up in 2010.

[4.3LXJ]

Why don't you start your own thread for your project? We will respond

[prerunner1982]

Have had loading issues with the forum as well.

[prerunner1982]

If I didn't sit in front of a computer all day for work I probably wouldn't visit forums much. There are only a handful or so of forums that I am on fairly regularly.