• Can't post after logging to the forum for the first time... Try Again - If you can't post in the forum, sign out of both the membership site and the forum and log in again. Make sure your COG membership is active and your browser allow cookies. If you still can't post, contact the COG IT guy at IT@Concours.org.
  • IF YOU GET 404 ERROR: This may be due to using a link in a post from prior to the web migration. Content was brought over from the old forum as is, but the links may be in error. If the link contains "cog-online.org" it is an old link and will not work.

Why online motorcycle forums are dying . . . so claims this article

COG-528

COG-528

Member
Member
Not sure if this is the correct place to post this but I'm sure the moderators will move this post if it should be someplace else.

I just recently reactivated my membership in COG after purchasing C-10 #4. Specifically so I could mine the information in the forum more efficiently. As I age, information that used to be at my fingertips now needs to be looked up. The suggestion that forums are dying is very disturbing since nothing else exists to provide the same depth of information. I'm sure as COG forum users you all will have strong opinions about this matter.

Here is One Persons Opinion.
 
Last edited:
I keep coming back to forums as they tend to be more community and better info (search function) whether the subject is basketball, Drum Corps or motorcycles. I have met many people from forums and know them by their screen names and not their given names. I am a member of many pages on FB but in reality the level of discourse is usually toxic and the info is more opinion and knee jerk than in the forums.
I am sure they are dying but I still come here whether it is on the phone, tablet or laptop.
 
Social media (i.e. Facebook) is not an adequate replacement for web forums. Social media is ok as a stream of consciousness... folks posting about the moment. Posts and comments have a fairly short lifespan in view before being pushed down in the feed and out of sight. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to search for desired information. There is no easy way to link to a topic/thread for future reference.

Modern forum software, like the one COG uses here, uses adaptive webpage design that allows it to provide a good user experience on a desktop or different sized mobile devices. Posting photos is also easier using this modern forum software than some of the more antiquated ones.

Many popular "free" web services disappear, along with the content - as was mentioned in the Photobucket example. When will Facebook go the way of MySpace and others? Organization owned forums allow the organization to own and control the content. Thanks to the effort of the COG IIT volunteers all content from the old forum was kept and migrated with minimal issues when the new software was stood up.

I feel motorcycling itself as a sport/hobby is in more jeopardy. The largest generation of riders is aging out, and hanging up their helmets. The churn rate of those exiting riding is much higher than those taking it up. Younger people are not "joiners" whether a forum or a club.

These trends started years ago and continue. I've seen new forum/FB belittled and chased off. Club officers and moderators ridiculed. The question should be, what are we going to do to help breath life into the beast to have it survive and sustain?
 
A lot of these points are on peoples minds and usually come up in conversations around the table and campfire. But it is an uphill battle with younglings. Sitting in a dark room playing video games/watching facebook seems to be the opium of the masses. We are in trouble.
 
Everyone has a credit card now, they just charge EVERYTHING. They already concede the fact that they will have a credit card bill for the rest of their lives, what's another $5 month on a debt they will NEVER pay off. The simple truth is, they can't afford it, but no one has ever showed them this and if they have, they have ignored it, as with all things now, no accountability, no payoff required, no penalty for non-payment.

This is learned behavior as I think humans are born naturally fiscally conservative. I had to prove over and over that I had zero credit card debt when I applied for a house loan 30 years ago, they wanted to give me $300,000 when I could only afford $800/month.

What an idiot I've been to live within my means, pay off my debts, own a few toys, live in a smaller house, work on my own stuff, have my own tools.
 
One wouldn't know forums are dying if they looked at the Adventure Rider forum. Seems to be going strong.

Strawboss said:
People not doing anything isn't limited to just bike repair, it now applies to virtually every facet of life as we know it.
Click to expand...
Yes it is sad. I see people today here in this country that toss and replace their $500 self emptying robot vacuum cleaner because the battery won't charge rather than order a $20 replacement battery and break out a Phillips screwdriver.

Then I watch a YouTube video of people in a third world country squatting around in sandals and dirt, casting and turning truck brake drums in primitive conditions.

How does this exist in the same world? :unsure:
 
Last edited:
Strawboss said:
Everyone has a credit card now, they just charge EVERYTHING. They already concede the fact that they will have a credit card bill for the rest of their lives, what's another $5 month on a debt they will NEVER pay off. The simple truth is, they can't afford it, but no one has ever showed them this and if they have, they have ignored it, as with all things now, no accountability, no payoff required, no penalty for non-payment.

This is learned behavior as I think humans are born naturally fiscally conservative. I had to prove over and over that I had zero credit card debt when I applied for a house loan 30 years ago, they wanted to give me $300,000 when I could only afford $800/month.

What an idiot I've been to live within my means, pay off my debts, own a few toys, live in a smaller house, work on my own stuff, have my own tools.
Click to expand...
I feel you my friend, went to build my first house bank said my credit was poor - 550. My response was - “How can this be? I have zero credit card debt, pay everything cash up front, no loans, no late utility; phone; car insurance; medical bills - etc. should I not be an example of foundational stability?”

End of the day had 1 credit card taken out and a personal loan. Maintained snall balance of CC and paid loan, 3 months later score was sky-rocketing. Total joke IMO, no reward to be responsible.

Now you got me all spun up - LOL!

Wayne
 
Marty, that is a question for another lengthy thread I'm sure. We don't know how very good and unique a country we have here. We won't know what we got till it's gone......

Most other forums I've visited are not anything like this one, we are unique here in that, like Steve said, idiot behavior isn't tolerated here. Most of the other forums feature infantile postings that would get your nose flattened if you were face to face. While I defend and support free speech for all on all subjects, some limits are needed for a place like this. That hostile behavior keeps me and many others away from a platform like that, I work at a firehouse, I got all the hostility and politics I can handle.:)

So, we are unique with our forum here.
 
Strawboss said:
…. I work at a firehouse, I got all the hostility and politics I can handle.:) …

So, we are unique with our forum here.
Click to expand...
Hats off and Thank you for your contribution to protecting all without hesitation or mental reservation!

Wayne, Carol & Blue
 
2andblue said:
I feel you my friend, went to build my first house bank said my credit was poor - 550. My response was - “How can this be? I have zero credit card debt, pay everything cash up front, no loans, no late utility; phone; car insurance; medical bills - etc. should I not be an example of foundational stability?”

End of the day had 1 credit card taken out and a personal loan. Maintained snall balance of CC and paid loan, 3 months later score was sky-rocketing. Total joke IMO, no reward to be responsible.

Now you got me all spun up - LOL!

Wayne
Click to expand...
My kids had the same problem and the suction was the same.
 
fartymarty said:
One wouldn't know forums are dying if they looked at the Adventure Rider forum. Seems to be going strong.


Yes it is sad. I see people today here in this country that toss and replace their $500 self emptying robot vacuum cleaner because the battery won't charge rather than order a $20 replacement battery and break out a Phillips screwdriver.

Then I watch a YouTube video of people in a third world country squatting around in sandals and dirt, casting and turning truck brake drums in primitive conditions.

How does this exist in the same world? :unsure:
Click to expand...
Good call on the ADV forum. I spend time over there in several threads a day. equipment is always interesting. the Pictures fourm Postal thread is fun as guys post their bike in front of Post OFfices. so my wife looks at it with me. Ride Reports are excellent.....one of my buddies always checks out the wives and girlfriends photo thread...something for everyone over there. They are not dying.
 
Facebook Twitter Instagram and TikTok are junk food. Forums are sustenance. YouTube is heavily waited with instructional videos by experts in their field, occasionally sprinkled with liars posers and fakers. One's industrious side will gravitate to YouTube instructional videos and forums. Forums foster a relationship. Facebook Twitter Instagram and TikTok will burn one down.

We're also seeing a gender disparity on these platforms. YouTube is dominated by men whereas Facebook Instagram and TikTok are dominated by women. Will this result in a long-term disparity of knowledge and industry? Do social morays prevent you from answering this question?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Bud
Interesting questions, but you may want to check your assumptions. I buy media on these sites and am familiar with the demographics, and the numbers are actually a bit different. While Twitter skews heavily male (71.2%), most of the others are close to evenly split. Here’s the data I‘m seeing:
Instagram: 51.6% male
Facebook: 56% male
YouTube: 53.9% male
Tiktok is the outlier, with 43% male users, but it’s pretty much the mirror of Facebook and no where near as lopsided as Twitter.

But I agree with you on the trends for solid, informative content on YouTube and Forum, compared to junk food on the other social media. I also think YouTube’s search algorithms are cleaner and less subject to click bait garbage, so the results you get seem to be more on target. Facebook algos and results seem to be the poster child of click bait.
 
Santa..

Wonder what the stats are on males following smoking hot females on any platform on any subject? ,, " you mean there was content in that??"



Murph..
 
santacruzrider said:
Interesting questions, but you may want to check your assumptions. I buy media on these sites and am familiar with the demographics, and the numbers are actually a bit different. While Twitter skews heavily male (71.2%), most of the others are close to evenly split. Here’s the data I‘m seeing:
Instagram: 51.6% male
Facebook: 56% male
YouTube: 53.9% male
Tiktok is the outlier, with 43% male users, but it’s pretty much the mirror of Facebook and no where near as lopsided as Twitter.

But I agree with you on the trends for solid, informative content on YouTube and Forum, compared to junk food on the other social media. I also think YouTube’s search algorithms are cleaner and less subject to click bait garbage, so the results you get seem to be more on target. Facebook algos and results seem to be the poster child of click bait.
Click to expand...
I have several sources that are all reporting that the predominance of users on Facebook and Instagram is overwhelmingly women. Here's two of the sources https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_social_network_service_use#:~:text=Many studies have found that,women used social networking sites.

99firms.com

YouTube Demographics to be Aware of in 2023 - 99firms.com

Discover the latest YouTube demographics that will surely help you understand your target audience better and strategize accordingly.
99firms.com 99firms.com


Can you share your source so that I can see if the source is biased on my side or on your side
 
Instagram 0% me
Twitter 0% me
TikTok 0% me
Facebook 0% me

I don't care what percentage of anything else they are, so long as it's zero of me.

:)

Guess there's always YouTube. I'll probably go extinct along with all those forums. I still have stacks of magazines and still re-read them every few years. Occasionally I finally buy something I saw in some issue 20 years ago like my '95 C-10.

Funny things show up on YouTube. Was watching some guy with a New York accent talk about Mopars. Saw the channel name "Uncle Tony's Garage' Lights went off in my head... oh s**t, that's Tony DeFeo! Yes, in those stacks of magazines are some of Tony's articles from the 90s.
 
Douglasjre said:
I have several sources that are all reporting that the predominance of users on Facebook and Instagram is overwhelmingly women. Here's two of the sources https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_social_network_service_use#:~:text=Many studies have found that,women used social networking sites.

99firms.com

YouTube Demographics to be Aware of in 2023 - 99firms.com

Discover the latest YouTube demographics that will surely help you understand your target audience better and strategize accordingly.
99firms.com 99firms.com


Can you share your source so that I can see if the source is biased on my side or on your side
Click to expand...
My source is third party data that we use for large media buys and it’s off of both self professed user gender and secondary comparison to data from logged in sources. It’s not a website - we pay for the data.
As for Wikipedia- I love the site and have myself written entries for it. But it crowd sourced.
 
santacruzrider said:
My source is third party data that we use for large media buys and it’s off of both self professed user gender and secondary comparison to data from logged in sources. It’s not a website - we pay for the data.
As for Wikipedia- I love the site and have myself written entries for it. But it crowd sourced.
Click to expand...
(Sorry, camping with spotty cell) - meant to point out that the article is crowd sourced and based on 7 and 15 year old data. I personally don’t see it as valid.
 
santacruzrider said:
My source is third party data that we use for large media buys and it’s off of both self professed user gender and secondary comparison to data from logged in sources. It’s not a website - we pay for the data.
As for Wikipedia- I love the site and have myself written entries for it. But it crowd sourced.
Click to expand...
Which source is your company paying money to for said data?
 
Strawboss said:
Is all of this info data collected from the internet? Just sayin....
Click to expand...
Depends on what you mean. When I worked for Yahoo, the data on our users was inherently data collected from the internet, because the users were internet users. And the data we sat on was deep and touched many aspects of the user base beyond simple demographics. But if you mean: was the data pulled from an open site on the internet — then the answer for my source is no.
I know a lot of companies are using media analysts to get data from multiple sources and paint a unified picture. There are some big ones like Gartner, Forrester, and others. Most of their reports are paid for and provided to specific companies, and the terms often state that the information shouldn’t be republished outside the company. So people with that data might want to be careful about over sharing too much or stating which report and which company it came from. I know that can be frustrating.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top