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have not logged into the site for some time and all I see is web crawler robots being only ones active on the site.
Is the hobby gone or just that no one is building anything or wants to share their projects.
Perhaps its the content history as the forum was upgraded is gone and there is no reference to those older builds.
Anyones thoughts on this
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I revived my thread from mad mechanics. I know there are several views on it and I have tried to keep it updated but there is not much participation it seems. I don't think the hobby is dead, maybe they are using different platforms. I also am not sure how many that were on madmechanics that knew about the transition to this site.
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I think you hit the nail on the head. Since all of the history is gone no one has any reason to be coming in even as reference for ideas to their builds.
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It didn't help that they deleted years of history here and started over, I wonder if all of those threads were saved somewhere?
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Allow me to clarify,
I (Dan) did my best to secure the old site data for archiving but Ari (previous madmechanics owner) wasn't able to assist. It certainly wasn't for a lack of trying. The old site was riddled with issues, spam etc. I figured it was best to just try and developed this site to hopefully carry on the relationships and try to maintain some sort of connection for everyone from the last site. I am not Ari, or previous owner of mad mechanics.
I was however a previous Moderator of the old site (The Boss formerly Powerhouse) and created this to hopefully keep things going and rebuild any sort of information from this hobby. I reached out to previous moderators and members to try and maintain some feel of familiarity.
the site is only successful if the users participate. i have even tried to engage some manufacturers to try and build a catalogue of information in one central place.
the site is also paid for and maintained out of my own pocket at no charge to anyone. If trends are what they are, and nothing develops further then the inevitable happens. but i am trying to do and offer what i can.
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I am with Dan on this unfortunate eventuality. I agreed to moderate this site after Ari had to shut down Mad mechanics after so many wonderful years. Back in the late 90's, Ari started MadMechanics as a young man just starting university and has since carried on to a full life with career and family and just did not have the time to maintain the site. To Dan's comment, from the old site, there was no real way that we could find to save the data that was stored there or able to port into another readable format and probably Ari's time to do all this came into play. Sadly, on that note we lost many, many years of excellent info and discussion.
I applaud Dan's commitment to the hobby and trying to get this new site that he has graciously offered out to the hobby but with the introduction of facebook groups and youtube video creators, the world seems to be turning away from the community, knowledge sharing based forums that were so popular so many years ago. Many of us have all been in the replica hobby and industry for many (some may say too many) years and have seen the evolution.
There are ways to advertise the site in the FB groups but it always comes down to content and getting people to populate their builds. There are some really nice projects being documented here (I personally like the Vokaro rebuild thread) and if we start mentioning this forum on our other groups, perhaps we can get something going again.
I have since sold my 308 Ferrari replica to a fine young man in California and my Countach replica to a fine young man locally, and I am on to what was supposed to be a simple TR6 cleanup and on the road but looking at a replica again as a last run at the build life....
More thoughts on seeing about getting this going again???
Cheers
Don
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I joined the old site right before it shut down.
I was one of the first to the new site. I do not post a lot due to the low traffic/response.
I do have my current build on other VW specific sites
I do have my other car (not a kit) here in off topic
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07-18-2024, 10:27 AM
Don't think it's truly "dead"....but the numbers are definitely "dwindling" of those who are even interested, not to mention, up to "building a car".
The resources are better than ever before in the past, but there just doesn't seem to be many people (comparatively speaking) interested in getting their "hands dirty" these days.
I believe there is still a good number that are willing to dive in, and put together something on their own, and many of them are represented here, (or SHOULD be!).
With the advent of 3D printers, CAD programs, C&C mills, laser scanning, etc., just about anything needed can be acquired or made from home. Just doesn't seem to be the same number of people interested in spending their time putting something together, when they can just go "buy" essentially what they want, and would ideally end up with were they to delve into DIY projects.
Just a casual observation on my part...could be way off base, and put me down for one that will probably always try to do myself, even if it doesn't work the first 6 times! LOL I was a member of the "old site", and got inspiration from many projects posted by the folks who liked "DIY", and took the time to document their ideas and progress.
A shame if all those pics/posts are gone forever.
Let the building continue!
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