My last post on Eurobricks

[Tube Map Central]

Sorry folks, but traffic on this forum has declined so much that it really isn't worth posting any more, and I can't see any evidence that there is any likelihood that attempts will be made to try and bring people back. I have seen so many talented intelligent people fade away in the last year and I guess that the rot will continue until the posts-per-day on EB drop into single digits, then the site will shut down for good. Thanks for the positive comments to my previous posts, and please don't reply to this topic or message me on this site because I genuinely won't be reading it. If you want to contact me, there are enough clues in what I have written elsewhere for you to find me directly.

 

All the best for future MOCing

 

Max

[Feuer Zug]

@Tube Map Central We're definitely going to miss your input and creations, especially your work on the Botanical Gardens station. Hopefully you'll still lurk around the forums on occasion and maybe even post a few updates to your works or add new ones. Best in all your MOCs - FZ

[XG BC]

can only second this. have fun in your life.

[JopieK]

Sorry to see you leave, but understandable. Thanks for your contributions! Always welcome of course.

[Toastie]

21 hours ago, Tube Map Central said:

and please don't reply to this topic or message me on this site because I genuinely won't be reading it.

So - I don't.

I do reply in this thread to those who are not looking at numbers. At exposure. At "worth". I do reply to those who still wish you well @JopieK, @Feuer Zug, @XG BC and those who still value the reply of just one member - or the feeling that someone may actually read my post. That's all there is.

You know, when I lecture really tough stuff in a masters class - let's call it "Molecular reaction dynamics" - there are sometimes less than 5 students enrolled. Because they don't have to suffer through that one - they can elect other classes as well; and apparently these are less ... time-consuming. But you know, I have SOE, and I could let people know, that due to lacking enrollment, I cancel this class. No one would complain. I am saying this: As long as one student is enrolled, I'll teach this class. And I can even do that in my office.

So, to all the folks making EB great: Here is to you

I have a different take in my life - even when an entire planet is going downhill: " Wenn ich wüsste, dass morgen die Welt unterginge, würde ich heute noch ein Apfelbäumchen pflanzen".

Yes sure, dreamer. What is wrong with dreaming? Should this site go down, it goes down, as many things go down. But leaving? No. Not for me.

So ... time to finish my video on a turntable turning a BR89 - I suck at doing videos. Even knowing that no one will watch it

All the best - and folks - rock on.

Thorsten

 

[Hod Carrier]

Max,

Sorry you feel that way, and I wish you well for the future. But I do feel you're being a bit harsh and unrealistic about the forum.

Folk come and go all the time, and for whatever reasons. Some go back into a "dark age" or develop other interests that take them elsewhere, while others may have personal reasons for curtailing their involvement in the hobby. To balance that new members will come fresh to the forum as their interests bring them into our orbit and they, like you, I and everyone else here, are always welcome to stay for as long as they wish. 

There is also the fact that a railway MOC, whether it's a loco, rolling stock, building or other structure, is often a very large and complex project. I've been stuck working on something for several months and, as a consequence, haven't had anything to share for quite some time, and I'm sure others will be in the same boat. When others post up their projects it's frequently based on a prototype that I'm unfamiliar with, and so I feel unqualified to pass feedback. However, that doesn't mean that I don't visit the forum regularly to check on the latest topics.

When you understand that LEGO trains is a niche within a niche you see that there are not vast numbers of people following this hobby, and I feel the forum reflects that. I'm sorry that you feel the forum is in decline but, taking the long view, really it's just going through one of it's quieter periods. If you feel that it is right for you to move on then I wish you well in your endeavours, but if the issue is that you feel the forum is getting quieter because people are leaving then I'm not sure how you leaving helps to address that concern. Wouldn't it be better to stay and help drive the forum forward?

Best Wishes.

[Phil B]

User joined not even 1.5 years ago, but says that this forum (and eurobricks) is dying. I think he was hoping to gain an audience here for his other presences (youtube/instagram/facebook/snapchat/twitch you name it) and didn't feel it was worth the investment due to low returns. But I don't understand the salty farewell note - I would vote to just remove the thread altogether @JopieK

 

[Andy Glascott]

It’s been interesting following this topic. I typically log on every day to see what’s new or has been updated. Some threads take off, some don’t. I’ve started threads that get traction and others that sink without trace. Right now things do seem to be quiet, but the collective knowledge that has been shared here over the years is priceless, I’ve bookmarked many topics, and while I don’t post as much as others I hope what I do post helps/entertains/informs or whatever. Farewell Max, but you did say you wouldn’t be reading replies… I echo @Phil B, how about we just remove the topic @JopieK?

[zephyr1934]

13 hours ago, Phil B said:

I would vote to just remove the thread altogether

I don't know, it does seem to have generated a lot of discussion. It is too bad for us that TubeMap is disappearing, he made some neat builds. But since he did say that was his last post, it also seems pointless to address anything to him personally.

Photo/video hosting, social media, and message boards do very different things. Youtube/flickr provide the potential for a long term archive of imagery, but not much discussion. Social media discussion is usually shallow ("like button"), sometimes can be in depth, but after a few days it is usually gone.

Message boards allow back and forth discussion over a longer period, they provide an easily searchable history, and they also provide a forum for people to ask questions about things that they do not know the answer to.

Eurobricks is one of the few open, online forums that is not swamped with spam or overrun by extreme views. We can all come here and talk about our common interest- Lego

Heh heh, I still remember Lugnet. Now that makes EB look like rocket science.

 

[Toastie]

4 minutes ago, zephyr1934 said:

Eurobricks is one of the few open, online forums that is not swamped with spam or overrun by extreme views. We can all come here and talk about our common interest- Lego

I do 100% agree!

Also, Google has apparently very nicely indexed the entire EB content. Searching on EB for EB content is really tough (at least for me) - but searching for EB content using Google is working very well.

Best,
Thorsten

[Legownz]

1 hour ago, Toastie said:

Searching on EB for EB content is really tough (at least for me) - but searching for EB content using Google is working very well.

Thanks for the tip! The search function on this site has been driving me crazy! 

I do agree with others thought that message does feel a little harsh. We are a niche of a niche and it's hard to grasp sometimes that we really are this small of a community. However, I will say that small as the Lego train community may be, I've seen some amazing work come out of it and the people in it are incredibly hardworking and dedicated. I'm not really sure where else you would post Lego train builds though. Most other platforms don't seem to have a large following for that sort of thing. I guess there had been a bit of traction on YouTube recently, but this still feels like the ideal place to post.

[Sunil766]

Ironic how this one-directional farewell post sparked such fruitful interaction. 

You guys summarised the benefits of forums in general and this lego train forum in particular very well. 

As a "90s kid" I grew up with forums and this lego forum is funnily one of the first and only ones I like reading since about 12 years. Social media does not entail true interaction from my point of view, as it's mostly "presenting to the large audience, but not specifically to and within a certain topic". Forums and quoting support true and sophisticated conversations back and forth, independent from time and location. 

EB helped me a lot when my dark ages ended 2 years ago with the pandemic. Mostly reading but the occasional post as well. Your feedback and reactions were always appreciated. Reminds me that my introductory post is still pending. 

The two videos I made (capturing two out of the three sophisticated layouts I built) suddenly exploded from 40 views to 18k views now, showing me that lego trains (and 9v) are far from dead or 'uninteresting for unrelated people'. (and that the Youtube algorithm supports a lot once clicks, views and likes drop in). 

This EB forum for me is THE place to exchange, like no other (literally for me), even though I rarely post but read a lot. 

All this comes from a complete non-MOCer. I just try to build a wagon properly holding my GoPro each time when I build a layout and fail miserably repeatedly. Maybe I should start a thread about that...? 

[Q3671]

I wish you well and thank you.

[Toastie]

3 hours ago, Legownz said:

I'm not really sure where else you would post Lego train builds though.

Very well said. I completely agree.

 

2 hours ago, Sunil766 said:

EB helped me a lot

Me too - I am out of my dark ages a little longer but EB helped me a lot, helps me a lot and is my "single point internet interaction interface" for interacting with all you brilliant and fantastic folks!

For me there is YouTube as video storage facility and there is Brickshelf for pictures and other stuff like LDraw files. I know that Brickshelf is from yesterday, but so am I. And it has served me very well from the day I joined - some 10++ years ago.

2 hours ago, Sunil766 said:

Maybe I should start a thread about that...?

Oh yes, why not, it will be fun.

All the best,
Thorsten 

18 hours ago, Andy Glascott said:

but the collective knowledge that has been shared here over the years is priceless

Oh yes, and this one. For sure!!!

[XG BC]

On 6/3/2022 at 5:06 PM, Toastie said:

I do 100% agree!

Also, Google has apparently very nicely indexed the entire EB content. Searching on EB for EB content is really tough (at least for me) - but searching for EB content using Google is working very well.

Best,
Thorsten

true that. most if the times my train mocs are so nice that even a generic search eventually leads to my mocs.

[Paperinik77pk]

Maybe I'm a bit late on the first post here, but I wanted to say that as a decision I respect it. I feel it was a bit "rough", written in those big fonts...but ok. Good luck on other forums and platforms! 

I do not feel EuroBricks as "dying", there are periods in which there are really a lot of posts (as an example, during OctTrainber contest), and there are always interesting things to see, at least here in trains section. 

As already and correctly said , some posts are more prone to be read and keep interest (as an example, look at the topic of the CRS track and monorails, it's a great one, and introduces a LOT of work and research!), others die quite young, some others are revived after years. It's normal lifecycle of posts inside the forums.

From my side, I'd say I was happy to join EB in the past, and even if I have periods in which I am more active I'm still happy to be part of the forum, where I found a lot of nice, helpful people - and, sincerely, I still see them around posting.

My personal opinion is to keep the thread open - It won't make people to come back - but it's a good way to show that some members still consider EB a nice place to post their ideas, opinions and creations (simple or complex, small or big...whatever they are).

Ciao to all!

Davide 

 

 

 

[Vilhelm22]

I’ll miss Tube Map Central, particularly as a Brit like myself who clearly must live fairly close by some stuff he’s posted.

Leaving with a salty reply as said above is definitely not the way to go though, and definitely doesn’t help his ‘dying forum’ hypothesis.

Unfortunately a similar message was posted in the general forum over a like button idea, and there have appeared to be several other rather salty posts by him recently, so that aspect I won’t miss him for, however he’s a great MOCer and this community is really there for this purpose.  However if you can’t be nice about it then you shouldn’t stay.

 I vaguely see what he means but on the other hand those people have appeared and disappeared.  I joined nearly 5 years ago having stalked as a guest user for a year and it’s  been up and down - I personally haven’t noticed any particular lull/death.  I rather think of it as levels of normal and high activity rather than normal and low, though I try to be a glass half full type person when I can. 
 

I wholeheartedly agree with the positive replies on here, however, and as a great community I hope we won’t be losing any of the rest of you anytime soon.  My activity is nearly all in the Train Tech, so losing you guys would be a sad day for many of us.

Edited June 5, 2022 by Vilhelm22

[Toastie]

36 minutes ago, XG BC said:

most if the times my train mocs are so nice that even a generic search eventually leads to my mocs

No Sir: Your train mocs are so nice. Generic search results or not: They are. And most of the time far more than just "nice".

Best,
Thorsten

[XG BC]

i actually did a typo. i ment to write niche instead of nice and of instead of if. i am not the type to flex with my own work but that somehow works too. thanks for the compliment.

Edited June 5, 2022 by XG BC

[Toastie]

24 minutes ago, Paperinik77pk said:

I'm still happy to be part of the forum, where I found a lot of nice, helpful people - and, sincerely, I still see them around posting.

Davide, this.

Absolutely the same here: A lot of nice, helpful people - I may add: Encouraging (that is the most important thing to me) and "valuing", even if they are not interested in what was posted. Or play in a totally different league. See, I am a terrible MOCer. All I can accomplish is MODding. Which is so different: The entire idea, the core of the matter - the model - has been shown or laid out. Twisting things here or changing things there is a totally different world: It needs much fewer skills or knowledge about parts, their possible/envisioned usage etc.

And I'd like to say this as well: A like button means not much to me. A comment (and allow me to cite @zephyr1934, just as an example) "Okay, so on the technical side that is pretty amazing. On the action side, what about punching it up a little more?" Followed by a paragraph of ideas. What more can you possibly get? Someone takes the time to voice ideas. And here in TrainTech these are almost every time "valuable" - I have seen it so often.

Yes, they are all here. And here is to feeling good about that:

Best,
Thorsten

5 minutes ago, XG BC said:

thanks for the compliment.

You deserve it, typo or not.

Best,
Thorsten

[XG BC]

the thing with comments in your reply sums it up pretty well. take my latest moc for example: i would have never thought about making the middle window bigger. it really encourages you to make your models better if someone else with an entirely different view is looking at them and commenting on what they think. i personally find modding existing models other people have built even harder than just building a model from scratch yourself. it just takes different skills. if you look at it the other way: we as mocers also only mod 99% of the time just that our prototypes where we base our models off of havent been built in bricks yet.

Edited June 5, 2022 by XG BC
missing word