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vwinnovator
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 8:37 am    Post subject: Samba daily online users declining Reply with quote

Been noticing that the daily online user number has been on the decline for a little while now..

Is it a sign that the vw community is on the decline as well..?

is our beloved hobby slowly heading to an end?
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Bob Loblaw
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 9:13 am    Post subject: Re: Samba daily online users declining Reply with quote

I believe it signifies the beginning of the end of the "forum era". All of my local VW forums have gotten very quiet. This one is still the busiest for sure. (Duh)
Here's a link to the local water cooled (mostly) forum from Vancouver discussing the same thing.
http://dubberz.com/forum/the-wet-coast/did-facebook-groups-kill-the-internet-forum/

It's the new future, I'm afraid. But no FB for me, thanks.
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René R.
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 9:28 am    Post subject: Re: Samba daily online users declining Reply with quote

Forums of all types seem to be in decline as people migrate to Facebook. The problem I have with FB (well, one of the problems....) is that there are so damn many groups for every interest. It's difficult to set up and run a forum, but ridiculously easy to start a FB group. I can't be bothered looking at 15 or 20 (or more), and even if I do there are a lot of people who post the same thing on every one of them. It gets really tiresome.

The biggest problem, in my view, is that FB posts appear in chronological order, as comments are made. There's no rhyme or reason to their presentation and trying to find specific information in a specific subcategory is pretty much impossible.

Forums are fantastic resources of information that can be readily searched. No Facebook page can take the place of TheSamba.
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 9:49 am    Post subject: Re: Samba daily online users declining Reply with quote

I agree. The participation on forums may be declining, but the popularity of VW's is not diminishing, it's just all the yuppies are more interested in facebook. The Samba will never die as long as the classified stay active.

Now that I am a member of a few local Facebook VW groups I no longer look at any of the other VW forum pages. No point is reading the same post in 3-4 places.

I am a member of a facebook group specifically for VW racing and the administrators of the group are very serious about only talking about racing. They are very quick to delete some guy asking about his 34 PIC carb or his Rusty RatRod.
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TDCTDI
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 10:58 am    Post subject: Re: Samba daily online users declining Reply with quote

I think the declining numbers also has to do with the fact that as the cars get older & gain value as antiques, they are being priced out not only enthusiast's hands but also those that would enter the hobby. The only reason most of us started tinkering with VWs was that they were inexpensive to buy AND to work on, and we bought them for basic transportation. Now, it's rare to find a complete car for less than $1,500-$2,000, much less one that doesn't require lots of rust & mechanical repair. Who, in their right mind, is going to spend $5,000 for an entry level hobbyist vehicle for a daily driver when they can buy 2006 BMW for the same money? As the cars get priced out of the market for people, so does the interest in them.
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 11:15 am    Post subject: Re: Samba daily online users declining Reply with quote

TDCTDI wrote:
I think the declining numbers also has to do with the fact that as the cars get older & gain value as antiques, they are being priced out not only enthusiast's hands but also those that would enter the hobby. The only reason most of us started tinkering with VWs was that they were inexpensive to buy AND to work on, and we bought them for basic transportation. Now, it's rare to find a complete car for less than $1,500-$2,000, much less one that doesn't require lots of rust & mechanical repair. Who, in their right mind, is going to spend $5,000 for an entry level hobbyist vehicle for a daily driver when they can buy 2006 BMW for the same money? As the cars get priced out of the market for people, so does the interest in them.
So true. One aspect of the VW hobby that many may never "enjoy" was the freedom and feeling you had driving them way back in the day. Yes, even then they would get stolen, but now you have a LOT invested in them making me leary to drive it and leave it sitting anywhere.
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 11:40 am    Post subject: Re: Samba daily online users declining Reply with quote

I think it also is to do with my generation... we don't really want to do anything Laughing obviously not me, I love this stuff, but most people my age would rather have it easy. If they want it easy, they obviously aren't going to want to actually fix things, so they won't come to the forum. I think it really boils down to laziness. For example, I recently asked 2 friends if they preferred manual or automatic transmissions. One said manual because he had to know when to shift and it was a skill.... he also wants an 80s Porsche to fix. The other one said auto because it was easier and didn't want to be bothered learning manual.
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 11:54 am    Post subject: Re: Samba daily online users declining Reply with quote

I figured it was the winter. Everyone is hibernating.
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 1:55 pm    Post subject: Re: Samba daily online users declining Reply with quote

Bingo it slows down around this time every year
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adam78
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 4:22 pm    Post subject: Re: Samba daily online users declining Reply with quote

kawfee wrote:
I figured it was the winter. Everyone is hibernating.


My participation in this site and most forums ebs and flows. I work on my car more in the summer since I dont have a garage and it is DAMN COLD this time of year. If I am not doing repairs, I dont have questions to ask. If I dont have questions to ask, I am not on the forum as much. But this is by far my favorite car forum, and I belong to many lol
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 5:04 pm    Post subject: Re: Samba daily online users declining Reply with quote

Or maybe it is stupid bickering about how a super beetle with a flat windshield isn't really flat when a poster is trying to id year with a vin, which was done 6 posts ago.
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Glenn Premium Member
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 5:17 pm    Post subject: Re: Samba daily online users declining Reply with quote

Wait till school ends in June.
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nelson845
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 7:08 pm    Post subject: Re: Samba daily online users declining Reply with quote

I've mentioned ''the samba'' on a few fb groups and many didn't know what it was. So I guess there are new air-cooled enthusiast coming into the hobby. I for one have been in n out of the hobby 3 0r 4 times since the late 70's.....and havent been a samba member long enough to notice the decline.
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Rodmullet
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 7:25 pm    Post subject: Re: Samba daily online users declining Reply with quote

Probably a combination of all of the above...and it doesn't help when long time/grumpy old SAMBA people aren't the most understanding of new people to the hobby, or even to people who have been around, but maybe don't have the amazing skills/fancy workshop/decades of experience/unlimited funds that apparently we all need to have in order to be allowed to own one of these vehicles.

I frequent a different foreign car forum, and I believe the average age skews a bit older than the SAMBA, but there is very little of the nastiness that goes on here....

Just my opinion.

Rod
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 7:44 pm    Post subject: Re: Samba daily online users declining Reply with quote

Rodmullet wrote:
Probably a combination of all of the above...and it doesn't help when long time/grumpy old SAMBA people aren't the most understanding of new people to the hobby, or even to people who have been around, but maybe don't have the amazing skills/fancy workshop/decades of experience/unlimited funds that apparently we all need to have in order to be allowed to own one of these vehicles.

I frequent a different foreign car forum, and I believe the average age skews a bit older than the SAMBA, but there is very little of the nastiness that goes on here....

Just my opinion.

Rod


Not trying to skew too far off topic but does anyone know the approx average age of the population on the samba? I’m mostly in the 58-67 forum and would venture a guess somewhere in the early to mid 40’s there. Strictly an unsupported wild ass hairy guess.

On topic I prefer forums over FB pages. As mentioned FB groups are hard to use as a reference and honestly, worthless except for buying/selling and the most simple of technical questions. At least the groups I’m in, I’ve found the answers to range from wildly uninformed to barely accurate or correct in a lot of situations. It’s pretty scary some of the advise I’ve seen disseminated. It’s so bad in some cases that I wonder if a lot of the people that are run off of forums for not having a clue aren’t the main supporters of FB groups.
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Karly
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 30, 2017 3:57 am    Post subject: Re: Samba daily online users declining Reply with quote

Facebook is killing a lot of forums.. the samba is lucky it is one of the more active ones! Try loading forums on your phone? Many people I know don't even have access to a laptop or computer but just use their phone - they are going to use facebook instead!

Much prefer forums myself - easier to look up questions or just browse.

Also ... these cars are becoming more weekend (if that) cruisers than daily drivers ...perhaps that accounts for less activity too? That said numbers at the shows I've been too only seem to be increasing.
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 30, 2017 4:20 am    Post subject: Re: Samba daily online users declining Reply with quote

Karly wrote:
Facebook is killing a lot of forums.. the samba is lucky it is one of the more active ones! Try loading forums on your phone? Many people I know don't even have access to a laptop or computer but just use their phone - they are going to use facebook instead!
.


I'm on my phone the vast majority of the time I'm on this forum. No issues at all. Right now I probably have several pages running in the background.
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 30, 2017 9:16 am    Post subject: Re: Samba daily online users declining Reply with quote

TDCTDI wrote:
I think the declining numbers also has to do with the fact that as the cars get older & gain value as antiques, they are being priced out not only enthusiast's hands but also those that would enter the hobby. The only reason most of us started tinkering with VWs was that they were inexpensive to buy AND to work on, and we bought them for basic transportation. Now, it's rare to find a complete car for less than $1,500-$2,000, much less one that doesn't require lots of rust & mechanical repair. Who, in their right mind, is going to spend $5,000 for an entry level hobbyist vehicle for a daily driver when they can buy 2006 BMW for the same money? As the cars get priced out of the market for people, so does the interest in them.


Yes,very true. Applause I notice that when I go to the local vw shows. I would like to own a pre 67 sedan,but the prices are crazy to me.
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 30, 2017 12:25 pm    Post subject: Re: Samba daily online users declining Reply with quote

You have to consider the holidays too. I think it's just the cold. I love taking my Beetle out in the cold. It's the best time of year for them. Others don't like the cold as much.
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 30, 2017 12:33 pm    Post subject: Re: Samba daily online users declining Reply with quote

Message boards like this will not die as long as there are people who want a dedicated, organized, no-BS (yes, I know, but I am talking in relation to FB) approach to the hobby.

FB car groups are generally full of sidetracked semi-threads that are, for me, less valuable than the in-depth, on-task knowledge available here.

And then there is type of thread; this amazing story - https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=8648919#8648919 - would never sustain on FB.

Long live theSamba!
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Last edited by scottyrocks on Sat Dec 30, 2017 1:54 pm; edited 1 time in total
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