When did Stingray Forums die out?

1524 Views 26 Replies 17 Participants Last post by warp ten, 8 h ago

Ragtop

Discussion Starter · 22 d ago

I was pretty active on this forum back in 2014 and 2015 when I first got my Corvette. I've returned, only to find activity very slow, only a few new responses a day, very few new threads. Anybody have any guesses what's going on? I hope it's not heavy handed moderation. In the short time I've been back, I already had one of my posts deleted because I "already made a similar post in another thread" when I was replying to a fellow forum member. Are we trying to save server space?

I know the weather is nicer and more people are probably out driving instead of just chatting about it, but it just seems like the forum is dying.

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jsvette

· #2 · 22 d ago

Ragtop said:
I was pretty active on this forum back in 2014 and 2015 when I first got my Corvette. I've returned, only to find activity very slow, only a few new responses a day, very few new threads. Anybody have any guesses what's going on? I hope it's not heavy handed moderation. In the short time I've been back, I already had one of my posts deleted because I "already made a similar post in another thread" when I was replying to a fellow forum member. Are we trying to save server space?

I know the weather is nicer and more people are probably out driving instead of just chatting about it, but it just seems like the forum is dying.

Let me try to address your post. Fortunately SRF has not died (any rumors of its death

are greatly exaggerated), and continues to experience a reasonable number of active users based on click through views on a daily basis as well as new members joining. Posting activity is low but probably reflects the fact that most of our higher activity was from lots of owners early on of the "new" C7. Our owners of the new generation C8 is slowly growing.

It is hard to predict why new discussions or reply posts go up and down, but they also don't reflect when members are reading/viewing content. For example you were less active from 2019 until this year in terms of reply posts and from 2014 until this year with new discussions.

A very small percentage of posts get moderated. In fact most of our moderating efforts are spent ensuring scammers, fraudulent accounts, on line adult and betting web sites, etc., never see the light of day on SRF. Your duplicate post was deleted as has been the practice on SRF since the very early days of SRF. The decision back than (and one that still holds true) was based on the fact that when a member posted the same content on multiple threads, other members who responded to one of the posts on one thread then would come across the same post on another thread and inquire what happened to their response.

We (moderators and administrators) continue to introduce new and relevant topics as we come across related news, but in reality, it falls to members to post new topics, questions and information related primarily to Corvettes.

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Reactions: 5

SixGunOutlaw

· #3 · 22 d ago

Echo what jsvette posted.

Reactions: 1

bg888

· #4 · 19 d ago

I hope this Forum is not dying out.
It has fewer followers than others but the content seems better in a number of ways.

There are very few Trolls on this site. I dislike the responses that are very negative and just based on big ego or opinion. This site does not seem to attract that type of individual.

There are few off subject issues posted and responded to.

I find this one of the better forums on this and related subjects.

Reactions: 4

mneadle

· #5 · 15 d ago

My opinion is that Facebook "steals" a lot of the traffic. I am a member here, and other car forums, cigar and cruise forum websites and ALL are slower than in the past. There's groups for all of these topics on FB and see more daily activity there (but also less expertise and more BS). For someone like myself - FB is easier because it's 1 stop shopping for multiple forums and I am there often anyway for regular BS.

Reactions: 2

JsC7

· #6 · 15 d ago

Ragtop said:
I was pretty active on this forum back in 2014 and 2015 when I first got my Corvette. I've returned, only to find activity very slow, only a few new responses a day, very few new threads. Anybody have any guesses what's going on? I hope it's not heavy handed moderation. In the short time I've been back, I already had one of my posts deleted because I "already made a similar post in another thread" when I was replying to a fellow forum member. Are we trying to save server space?

I know the weather is nicer and more people are probably out driving instead of just chatting about it, but it just seems like the forum is dying.

I can tell you what it is. It’s all the eight-year-olds on here with smart ass comments that think they are funny, or telling a guy to read his f$;%&in owners manual.
It should be a friendly environment. It is far from that.
I belong to a Ferrari forum for my other cars, and guess what… I don’t see the same low-mentality responses that I read on here.
I quit reading on here because I feel bad for the guy that has a question and gets the responses he gets.
The only reason I’m on here now, is I happened to see a preview in my email.

smajicek

· #7 · 15 d ago (Edited)

jsvette said:
Let me try to address your post. Fortunately SRF has not died (any rumors of its death are greatly exaggerated), and continues to experience a reasonable number of active users based on click through views on a daily basis as well as new members joining. Posting activity is low but probably reflects the fact that most of our higher activity was from lots of owners early on of the "new" C7. Our owners of the new generation C8 is slowly growing.

It is hard to predict why new discussions or reply posts go up and down, but they also don't reflect when members are reading/viewing content. For example you were less active from 2019 until this year in terms of reply posts and from 2014 until this year with new discussions.

A very small percentage of posts get moderated. In fact most of our moderating efforts are spent ensuring scammers, fraudulent accounts, on line adult and betting web sites, etc., never see the light of day on SRF. Your duplicate post was deleted as has been the practice on SRF since the very early days of SRF. The decision back than (and one that still holds true) was based on the fact that when a member posted the same content on multiple threads, other members who responded to one of the posts on one thread then would come across the same post on another thread and inquire what happened to their response.

We (moderators and administrators) continue to introduce new and relevant topics as we come across related news, but in reality, it falls to members to post new topics, questions and information related primarily to Corvettes.

well hello Jeff, all the above is so true as you can see my posts started in 2013 when the c7 rolled off the production line and nearly impossible to get but thanks to this forum I found a great dealer to get it from at MSRP and I appreciated being treated with respect from everyone here in this forum and I sure posted alot. got my c7 March 27 2014, so exiting and all the mods I did to make it a supercharged beast beast with 701 HP 610 whp.
I am happy to say my z06 was completed Monday 5-22-23 and on its way soon to California. I still have my C7 as a 2nd car for now cause parting with that after all those mods is a hard thing to do right now.

Reactions: 2

jsvette

· #8 · 15 d ago

smajicek said:
well hello Jeff, all the above is so true as you can see my posts started in 2013 when the c7 rolled off the production line and nearly impossible to get but thanks to this forum I found a great dealer to get it from at MSRP and I appreciated being treated with respect from everyone here in this forum and I sure posted alot. got my c7 March 27 2014, so exiting and all the mods I did to make it a supercharged beast beast with 701 HP 310 whp.
I am happy to say my z06 was completed Monday 5-22-23 and on its way soon to California. I still have my C7 as a 2nd car for now cause parting with that after all those mods is a hard thing to do right now.

Can't wait to see your Z06! How exciting

bg888

· #9 · 14 d ago

Random thoughts;
I was curious so I went to a number of other forum sites and read a number of threads along the same line. For example, oil changes, batteries, tires.
North American cars, Euro cars, Korean cars, Japanese cars.
There looks to be only a few major hosting platforms, the one here is XenFora it seems very popular. I looked thru many posts on this sponsored platform as well as the other major platform. I wanted to check to see if the layout of the forum had an impact on the content. It does not seem to affect the content but the number of registered members varies a LOT.
I assume the Moderators will have better info on the sites than my simple evaluation so correct me please.
For example; on this (FORA) platform there are 10 x more members on the Stingray site than there are Porsche members on that site. However, there are 10X more Kia members than Stingray members.
These numbers are different on the other sponsored sites. I did not expect such wild swings in numbers of members.
The content topics are all very similar. I categorize the posts in 4 groups.

Boasting Opinion- No right or wrong opinion but strong opinions about something.
Chatter- just a lot of posts about something-more like conversation
Technical info- problem solving, generally a correct answer or proper info
Ads- Sales, Buy, maybe hidden low key sales for a product or hidden sponsored content

All of these are ok as long as you know what you are getting. What I do not like is when you want number #3 Tech info but get #1 a baseless opinion or BS or worse #4 a disguised Ad.
My guess is that the members that want #2 Chatter have moved a bit to FB or similar platforms. News falls into this category sort of.
I may be weird; I am an engineer and have worked in Power Train field for 47 yrs. But I often just go read random site info to stay up to date on new trends or info. There are some great YouTube channels for this also. Also going to reputable manufactures sites that host technical content is often very useful.
For what it is worth.
All I can conclude is the more members you get the more likely you get the members on the extreme edges of the spectrum. But with smaller number of members, you may not get as wide of coverage of content. The other issue is when you see something you don’t like you don’t need to read it or respond to it, just move on.

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Reactions: 1

jsvette

· #10 · 14 d ago

bg888 said:
Random thoughts;
I was curious so I went to a number of other forum sites and read a number of threads along the same line. For example, oil changes, batteries, tires.
North American cars, Euro cars, Korean cars, Japanese cars.
There looks to be only a few major hosting platforms, the one here is XenFora it seems very popular. I looked thru many posts on this sponsored platform as well as the other major platform. I wanted to check to see if the layout of the forum had an impact on the content. It does not seem to affect the content but the number of registered members varies a LOT.
I assume the Moderators will have better info on the sites than my simple evaluation so correct me please.
For example; on this (FORA) platform there are 10 x more members on the Stingray site than there are Porsche members on that site. However, there are 10X more Kia members than Stingray members.
These numbers are different on the other sponsored sites. I did not expect such wild swings in numbers of members.
The content topics are all very similar. I categorize the posts in 4 groups.

Boasting Opinion- No right or wrong opinion but strong opinions about something.

Chatter- just a lot of posts about something-more like conversation

Technical info- problem solving, generally a correct answer or proper info

Ads- Sales, Buy, maybe hidden low key sales for a product or hidden sponsored content

All of these are ok as long as you know what you are getting. What I do not like is when you want number #3 Tech info but get #1 a baseless opinion or BS or worse #4 a disguised Ad.
My guess is that the members that want #2 Chatter have moved a bit to FB or similar platforms. News falls into this category sort of.
I may be weird; I am an engineer and have worked in Power Train field for 47 yrs. But I often just go read random site info to stay up to date on new trends or info. There are some great YouTube channels for this also. Also going to reputable manufactures sites that host technical content is often very useful.
For what it is worth.
All I can conclude is the more members you get the more likely you get the members on the extreme edges of the spectrum. But with smaller number of members, you may not get as wide of coverage of content. The other issue is when you see something you don’t like you don’t need to read it or respond to it, just move on.

Thanks very much for the time you took and your thoughts. Interesting comparisons. As you know, but other members may not, we (moderators and administrator) are non-paid volunteers who have no direct control over the format and set up of our forum, sponsors and soliciting new members. That is the responsibility of Vertical Scope, the owners of ours and about 1100 other forums. We (moderators and administrator) do have control over appropriateness and tone of content, compliance with posting rules, adding new content (as do our members as well), sections and sub sections of our forum etc. Of course, we and members can encourage our friends to join. Additionally, I check pretty much on a daily basis for any new member sign-ups that may have slipped through Vertical Scope's automated spam algorithm and are inappropriate for our forum. For example, on line betting, gambling, 'adult' and/or otherwise blacklisted.

Our primary effort since the beginning and through several owners to current, is to keep Stingray Forums an informative and non-confrontive site.

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Reactions: 3

HYPR

· #11 · 14 d ago

Ragtop said:
I was pretty active on this forum back in 2014 and 2015 when I first got my Corvette. I've returned, only to find activity very slow, only a few new responses a day, very few new threads. Anybody have any guesses what's going on? I hope it's not heavy handed moderation. In the short time I've been back, I already had one of my posts deleted because I "already made a similar post in another thread" when I was replying to a fellow forum member. Are we trying to save server space?

I know the weather is nicer and more people are probably out driving instead of just chatting about it, but it just seems like the forum is dying.

As a newer member I am sad to see the lack of posts. Strange how the Corvette forum receives consistent posts and this one so few. I would love to see more activity.

CHASLT1

· #12 · 14 d ago

Only the big Corvette forum seem active. And the mods have kicked off about half he peeps.

Reactions: 1

warp ten

· #13 · 13 d ago

CHASLT1 said:
Only the big Corvette forum seem active. And the mods have kicked off about half he peeps.

I was on the Corvette Forum for many years but the mods made some stupid criticisms of innocuous comments, saying they were considering kicking me off. I told them I would save them the trouble and quit. Told them dealing with their mods was like moving to China and being punished by the Party for the slightest infraction that seemed to criticize them. Emails from the Corvette Forum now go straight to the Spam folder. --Bob

Reactions: 1

bg888

· #14 · 13 d ago

Just some info. Based on a sample of data from two forums.

I did a bit of data analysis on the other forum and on this one.
I call Percent response the number of Reviews/Views
On the other forum the number of views are very high. The reply percent runs typically around .05% With a range is .01% to 1%
On this forum the typical response is .5% With a range of .05 to 6%
I ran some further statistics but keeping it simple the typical reply % on this site is higher than on the other site. If I can find a simple way to down load the data I can run some deep statistics on a larger population of the threads. Or not!
I am guessing the range on the data is a sign of the interest in the subject. But I am a bit surprised that one forum has a significant difference in reply percent. The subject material is similar and the people on the site are likely similar.
So there might be a number of reasons for the difference.

Some of the view numbers on the other site seem unrealistic. Example: 200k views and only a few replies.

The thread dates run 15 yrs or longer, making the views seem very high.

Some threads show very high views from 700k to 1200k. So maybe the way the view is counted is different. Such as page opening or hit type. There are significantly more ads on the other site so maybe there are $$$ aligned to the hit rate and it is in the best interest to generate $$.

Maybe the moderators are cutting the replies, or the view numbers are combined or there is an accounting issue.
Always interesting to look at data….

Facts are Facts, Facts are based on data, My/Your interpretation of data are not indeed facts.

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Reactions: 1

bg888

· #15 · 13 d ago

I Meant Percent response is the number of Replies/Views

jsvette

· #16 · 13 d ago

Thanks for your continued comparison looks bg888 👍

computers.direct.1

· #17 · 12 d ago

Interesting. I was very active when my C7 was new to me. Initially I had more questions than answers and I found the forum to be invaluable. As I learned more about the car, I was able to contribute. In preparing for C8 ownership I found sources of information outside of the Stingray forums including a competitive forum specifically for the new midengined car. Yet here I am... in Information overload, writing a reply. Go figure?

Reactions: 1

CHASLT1

· #18 · 12 d ago

Seems all car forums are going out little by little.

Gene

· #19 · 8 d ago

I rely on this forum and have not been disappointed. Thank you for being there for me!

Reactions: 1

Kangarew

· #20 · 8 d ago

I appreciate all who contribute! Thanks so much!! If all forums are in decline, it makes some sense as young drivers become less enthralled with cars and more drivers purchase e-cars. I can just imagine what an electric car forum is like—how to reboot, how to adjust the intensity on the screen, I heard a funny hum the other day, etc, etc.

Reactions: 3

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