Atlas Forum shutting down May 1st

You might recall I was a Moderator here for 10+ years and I am now working to help get things turned around at the Kalmbach forums (trains.com). Every site has it's "problem" members and there are some now finding the new RR Forum Cop does not take much guff from folks that think forum policies are something that can be ignored. It's sad to see any forum shutdown because the membership over ran it's moderators and/or the moderators did not have the time / experience to keep the site under control.

 

I remember joining the Atlas Forum in 2002 as a way to get some inspiration to do more in N scale than I had done over the past (back then) 20 yrs of being an N scaler. There was a lot of interesting stuff going on and there were a lot of 'characters' there which made it lively... but sometimes unfriendly. I joined Trainboard a few months after joining the Atlas Forum, but, at that time the 'traffic' on Trainboard was very slow... often called this the 'Train-Bored' site. I think what really helped Trainboard forum take-off was the few times that Atlas shut-down their site for extended periods of time. The administrators of Trainboard did a great job with moderating this site and improving it over the past 10 years... making it superior to the Atlas Forum. I found myself far more attracted to Trainboard and Rail Images as the years passed and over the past 4 years only visited the Atlas site occasionally (mostly during Sunday Photo-Fun threads). Hopefully the idea of the Sunday Photo-Fun thread will become a part of Trainboard. I will miss the Atlas Forum some because it was one of my first forays into bulletin boards of any kind.

 

It's too bad really. I went there a lot, and I really enjoyed Sunday Night Photo Fun... Now that the forum will be gone, I won't have a reason to visit the Atlas site anymore...

 

feel free to join my forum at www.cp-forum.net

same software as atlas uses. you should get familiar with it immediately.

 

I don't envy you the task. And I say that as a victim and occasionally an instigator.

Of course the flip side is that the trains forums see far far more action then our own railfan forums which makes it more difficult. I try as I can to pass on news I glean, but it rarely gets far round here.

 

I left the forum some years back because of the omni-presence of cyber bullying, which once was strictkly forbidden and then just ignored. That to me was the first sign of what is happening now.

As for me I joined in 2002 as well, made some terrific friends and they all know who they are on this forum, and even gained a bit of cheap notoriety which I really didn't deserve. It also represented a high degree of our clout and influcence to many manufacturers who lurked there. Many improvements were made to locos and rolling stock after the first round of production models came out, which lent itself to higher quality. Thus, the manufacturers also got the message and started making better models which performed much much to a higher degree.

I loved the photos, breaking news, quotes from manufacturer's representatives, how-to's and minor technical issues and history info. But after a while, some of the noted cyber bullies took over and by indifference of the moderators the end was inevitable. As more and more people with less than popular opinions were attacked, overall membership started to dwindle. I can remember the new quote from day one was mid page on page 2 the next day.

The need for forums is still present and a vital part of our sub-culture, but for me, the time I used to spend on forums is much better spent now on my trains and cars.

Last, as the final post by Steamguy (not Powersteamguy1790 - that was never me), I want to go out saying thank you to Atlas. It was a good run, and for many years a very joyful and satisfying part of my hobby. Now it seems to be populated with flamers and self appointed experts, when the real experts still there seem to ignore the wasteland around it. And Victor still doesn't have his Atlantic in full production yet.

Ken "Steamguy" Willaman

 

Ken,I can recall when one could actually learn something on the Atlas forum that's why I joined in 2002 and I agree it became a place of malcontent.The Atlas forum was shut down twice and I guess they finally had enough and decided to yank the plug come May 1st.

I will add the N Scale forum seem to be more civilized.

 

FloridaBoy, you got my attention about the Atlantic and I would like to know more such as this a complete loco as in mechanism and shell?

 

Most all of the active Atlas forum members are also members of this forum. If not - they soon will be.

 

I hope to see some people from there move to other forums such as this one but I always found the Atlas forum sort of unfriendly.
Sorry IMHO.
Mike

 

Just my 2 cents worth. I agree with Mike Fifer and others about the A forum. I also hope that our TB moderators are on their toes. I also hope the malcontents go to some other forum and do not attempt to bring their venom over to TB.

BTW we have a very good Weekend Photo thread by Russell Straw now ! !

Carl

 

May day MAYDAY...

 

I've debated about saying much over here...but about the only strength left on the Atlas forum was SNFF, and the excellent N content that was posted every weekend. If I had a particular shot on a focused thread over here I' cross-post it there too, if it was general interest.

I liked SNFF, bluntly, because it was the 'N scale guys'. I have nothing against HO, but when it comes to photography, getting decent N shots is a 'whole nuther level' from HO, simply due to problems with camera height, depth of field, etc. HO shots, and a preponderance of them, tends to drive a lot of N posters out - particularly new ones with incomplete N layouts and projects, and that's not what needs to happen. I'd prefer to see the 'Inspection Pit' series be split by scale, maybe that's not realistic. I'm not going to dig my heels in on it, just making an observation on why Atlas actually lasted as long as it did.

On the other hand - three Atlas policies that drove me crazy are handled much better over here....

1) On construction and ongoing threads - ruthless archiving of them - isn't a problem over here. Zombie threads welcome. Things don't dissapear as bad. My favorite zombie has become the U30CG construction and modification thread, man that came from 2004!
2) Locking down of manufacturer's announcement threads. Yeah, nobody wants trashing, but people do have questions, real questions, about products, and its nice to get that feedback from subsequent questions. It takes moderation sometimes, and I appreciate that.
3) Posting of links to products. That's a real killer for me, because if I have a suggestion (or particularly a photo link to a product) to solve a particular problem for somebody in a 'where can I find?' or 'how do you fix?' thread, that isn't a plug for a manufacturer, just tryin' to help. That eventually became a mortal sin there, and after than I moved all construction and technique threads over here because of it. That was the 'only a manufacturer can post a link to a manufacturer product' rule. Combine that with the necessary copyright link rules, and nobody can answer the 'does anybody make an N scale football players in 1940's helmets??' question by posting a link or photo link.

They had some serious situations over there with thread insertions from spammers. The old software was showing the strain. It was draining resources. I do hope it's not indicative of a deeper business issue, nobody wants that. I'll admit I'd trade the Atlas forum for two more diesels a year from them, if that was the deal. N is really suffering from lack of product introduction during the recession.

 

It is what it is.

I've enjoyed and made good friends over on the A board. I will miss them most.

There will always be those who trash anyone and anything just because they can. So, let's get busy and...grin...this board. Kidding of course.

Incidentally, those who trashed TB (back when it was down) were from those who had been terminated from this forum. Just lashing out in anger...for the most part.

For me it's all about having some fun without hurting anyone or getting anyone's goat. As long as we can rattle each other's cage, say what's on our mind without the fear of recrimination or reprisal. If so, we should be good to go.

The only negative observation I will make is, it was seldom about Atlas products and more about the other brands. I could see where this may have worked against the forum.

The A board will be missed.

 

I've always understood the ebay links issue, as it can smack of shameless self-promotion and cause a lot of clutter.

But the reality of it was that typically the auctions were being held up for public ridicule and entertainment value. Over on RYPN they've been beating some poor woman unmercifully for listing what appears to be either a two-foot tall potato gun or a pasturizing condenser body as an "1860's locomotive bell" for $2000. Got so bad she changed the description in the auction to complain about people poking fun at her on the forum. That's like throwing bread at pidgeons to scare them away.

 

Randy:

Your comments above can also be applied to manufacturers announcements and using the Forum to promote their product that is in compeition to products produed by Atlas. That's why Atlas allowed announcements only. One manufacturer mastered the art of posting late on Friday so their post would not be locked until Monday.
Of course there was also "shameless self promotion" by several dealers in violation of the spirit of the rule against selling on that forum.

 

Guys-

I will not say anything negative about another board.
I will state, however, that there are people on every board out there, who have their own personal agendae (axes to grind) and will use any and all available forums to make their statements. They have them at the Atlas board and we have them here. They have their rules and we have ours. The rules that we have here are enforced to keep the peace. For example, no bashing of retailers is permitted since that sort of thread always leads to name calling. Some boards are more lax in enforcing its rules than others. Here, we try to enforce our rules uniformly and fairly. This will not satisfy everyone, but it keeps the peace and is ok with the vast majority of posters.

Nobody knows what goes on behind the door at Atlas and we need to take what the board owner stated as the reason for the shutdown at face value. It is interesting, though, that there were reasons other than costs were mentioned. I will tell you that it is real pain in the rear, as a volunteering moderator, to help ensure things run as smoothly as possible here. If and when a problem does arise, it takes a lot more man hours than you would believe to decide on a course of action, if warranted. It might have gotten out of hand there. I am pretty sure they do not have the volunteer staff that we have here to deal with issues as they arise.