Personal opinions are just that - personal opinions. Many of us at TrainBoard are also active on the Atlas forums. Bashing the Atlas forum on TrainBoard is a no-no. Most Atlas users were confused and to various degrees upset by Atlas shutting down the forum with no notice, and therefore no opportunity to retrieve contact info or archived posts for the summer. I think enough of that has been vented for all of us to move on. What happened, happened. Atlas is a good company and the Atlas forum wouldn't be so popular if they didn't do some things right. So please, no more Atlas bashing or defending. We at TrainBoard are happy to welcome Atlas "refugees," whether for the summer or forever. Anybody and everybody will settle wherever they feel comfortable, whether it be here or wherever. We haven't moderated this forum or thread in any way yet. Please don't make us. Let's get on with supporting each other's modeling efforts.
As my conterpart just stated and I want to add to as well is that all are welcome here but the moderators here at TrainBoard are different and we will react to extreme postings.
Let's not have things get out of hand here gentlemen. I realize that this Atlas thing has given everyone something to think about and that the abrupt nature of their closing has left everyone to pretty much "assume" the reason. Regardless of the discussions here, we will not know the reasons that the forums were closed unless they offer a further explanation. Also, the conclusions drawn by many of you will not be in agreement so there is no point in arguing about why the forums closed, or their merits. Certainly the Atlas forums were some of the most popular model railroading forums on the Internet. They were also some of the most contentious but as well had loads of good information. We as well take some bad with the good. We try to filter out some of the bad stuff but you all know how that goes. We welcome all of the folks who frequented the Atlas forums and we hope that you enjoy TrainBoard just as much. Normally, we pour giant buckets of water on hot spots - so enjoy, but please think out posts. If anyone needs to discuss personal matters, e-mail me at support@trainboard.com. Disagreements, even lively ones, are fine - as long as they do not turn personal. Charlie
What is the big deal? The Atlas forum closed. It either will re-open or it won't. Life goes on. When you look at the big picture, the events happening in the world for example, this whole forum things seems really pedantic.
So the Atlas forum is down ... Its not the 1st time - the Atlas forum has gone through various iterations. I've been on several iterations. It'll be back. As pointed out above, life goes on . . .
Another piece of the puzzle has now been revealed. Paul Graf replied to an email on the NScale Yahoo groups and his signature now stated "Acting Chief Operating Officer". Things are a changin' at Atlas.
Sorry it took me a while to get here...was busy bailing the water out of the truck on the right with the only thing i had handy....a fork... and let me tell you, THAT was a long job! PW (alias John Kleperis)
The big deal, at least to some folks, is that teh Atlas forum was their main online "hangout" for N-Scale modeling. This is not a slight to Train Board/Railimages (A great pair of sites). Now, while you and others here may not understand or appreciate that fact, some of us do indeed miss the Atlas forum and hope that it will return as advertised. I make no apologies for the fact that Atlas Forum was MY main N-Scale hangout. Of course ALL of this is virtually meaningless in relation to world events. However, we don''t come here to discuss world events, or the politics behind them. We come here for N-Scale, right? [ 08. June 2004, 18:53: Message edited by: Virginia Atlantic RR ]
As I stated in an earlier post, this teporary shut down makes sense....especially if you combine the regular summer break on top of a system overhaul or upgrade. With just those two things, the August return date estimate, although conservative, is realistic. If there have been some promotions and/or some internal reorganizations now as well, August return seems totally appropriate now (as people need time to adjust to their new roles....someone else will probably run the forums now). I say, congrats to Paul if he was indeed promoted (if it's a promotion he wanted ) Russ
Since it says"Acting" I'm not sure that it is a promotion. The CEO may just be on vacation, or a business trip and Paul is filling it. I guess we will know all in August.
I didn't miss the fact at all. I would go to the Atlas forum several times a day to read posts - I miss it too. My point is that its closed now. When things change you can either make the best of it and move on, or you can bemoan the fact that its gone. At least in this situation, there are several other alternatives that can be taken advantage of. The big deal, at least to some folks, is that teh Atlas forum was their main online "hangout" for N-Scale modeling. This is not a slight to Train Board/Railimages (A great pair of sites). Now, while you and others here may not understand or appreciate that fact, some of us do indeed miss the Atlas forum and hope that it will return as advertised. I make no apologies for the fact that Atlas Forum was MY main N-Scale hangout. </font>[/QUOTE]
True enough...it could be a temporary vacation fill. Whatever it is, we should probably keep in mind that, in the grand scheme of things, the discussion forums are probably not....gulp....one of the highest priorities of Atlas (not to say that it's not important...just not among the highest priorities). If Paul is filling in as a bigger boss for now, he probably has a full plate and cannot be distracted by running the forums or bringing someone else up to speed on it right now. Lets just hope he is needing to stay focused on some really great upcoming products and some upcoming announcements! Russ
I wouldn't make book on that... Now if (IF) this were an AOL RR board, yes, but not here. But, what you saw would almost pass for IMing (best place to take flames, BTW)
everybody misses the dynamism, knowledge and interchange of the Atlas forum. I would just hope all of those people (and I have been one for years) could find another place to hang out and have the same type of experience without some of the problems or restrictions. perhaps the biggest problem I have with the Atlas forum is a technical one of the lack of a long term knowledge base: I have been unsuccessful in being able to find or access previous years posts in a timely manner. my local solution has been to subscribe to the n_scale Yahoo group and store ALL of the messages on my computer where I can easily search them (the search on Yahoo is awful, too). I currently have almost 20,000 messages saved going back more than 2 years. however, I know that I am missing a lot of the items on the Atlas forum that I would like to be able to refer to, such as coupler conversions. I would like to find a forum with Atlas level activity that allows a search of past discussions. Michael BTW: looking at the post in n_scale, it appears that Paul may be the COO of Atlas O, LLC. Are they all one company, or two entities?
Michael, Our software is pretty neat, Thanks! Sure makes it easier when you have a project waiting, and you need advice! [ 08. June 2004, 23:41: Message edited by: HemiAdda2d ]
This forum has a good method of searching for content although I need to rebuild the search index. Some of the results will not point to the right spot. The problem being that it takes about 2 hours to do that and the board has to be down during that time. Charlie
"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity." - R.A.Heinlein I don't attribute the Atlas forum shutdown to stupidity, but use the above quote to illustrate that malice should likely be the last resort explanation for things. It sounds to me like there has been a confluence of demands Atlas personnel at a time when management is apparently in transition. When you combine that with their traditional summer holiday break, the fact that the forum software was really outdated, and (educated guess, here) the likelihood that they've gotten an opinion from their legal counsel regarding how they should handle their affairs with regard to the UP lawsuit, they probably decided that there was simply no way to moderate the strong opinions posted in the forums in a way that would comply with management directives and that it was better to pull the plug for a couple months and not only let emotions wind down, but give the modest number of people at Atlas a chance to meet their primary and secondary duties as well. When people think of companies like Atlas, I'm certain that they imagine them much larger and better staffed than they actually are. If they have more than fifty full-time employees at their headquarters I would be surprised. I personally feel that they just needed a breather to get some real work done and to let some hot topics cool down a bit. I'm sure it could've been handled better, but it all smacks of one of those "crisis" decisions where the necessity to act simply crystalizes suddenly like a supersaturated solition.
E-8: I agree - the search is pretty impressive! I didn't follow all of the result links, so I didn't encounter the problem you mentioned. I did find results going all the way back to 2000, which is what I was hoping..... now we just have to build up the topics until they equal what the Atlas forum had.... Michael P.S. I NEVER flame anyone - better to just ignore such posts. but the fact that the software pushed a new page was real interesting
