<p>I felt I had to write this. I wrote similar postings before, but at present things are bad, very bad. The forum is now going down rapidly. For one, see how many members replied to the latest restorations from Jim: four. Oh, on one it was five, but the fifth did not give praise, but was just asking a question.</p>
<p>The most awkward thing -looking at myself- is, I am not even asking why this is anymore.</p>
<p>At the same time I might as well give you this printscreen of my private mails. Three 'members' who do not even bother to open the mails I sent them. Yes, the first one was sent on January 14, which is exactly a year ago in a few minutes. The people I sent mails to did not even log in to the forum anymore after that. It can't be my mail to them that caused this, because the did not open it. If ok with you, I will now delete them.</p>
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There are always flat spots or periods of minimum activity on open forums but there really isd no excuse for members to ignore conversations between us all either within private messages or on the forum.

The term going down rapidly can mean a few things such as what Kees points out or the technical issues, some of which I have recently suffered.

A fix for me has come from one of the technical guys and thank him for that and so far it is working as a result of clearing my browsers cache memory.

I have found facebook is causing a lot of collectors to migrate away from forums due to the ease of use and I have to include myself and actually now run my own facebook group.

If and when the forums technical problems are fixed, we as forum members should shout out nice and loud to other prospective members about how good the forum really is. Advertising the forum on the various model collecting facebook pages will go a long way to recruiting new members btu for now I hold back on this until I know the forum is working properly again.

Rollerman.

Both of you got some valid points here.
I can understand that the problems caused with uploading photos or rewriting texts in a post are a threshold for new members. A few of us, hardcore die-cast lovers still share their thoughts, opinions and photos and articles, no matter what. Having said that, we must also think that a lot of collectors are older people, and not everybody is fluent in English, the forums language. So perhaps there are a lot of members watching, reading what they can understand , but are afraid of posting larger text..... Just a thought by me.

I have been in contact with admin and they are working toward a fix for us. The problem being is the Admin people I get to talk to do not have any input as to when out forum gets updated. They are working on all their message boards first it would seem then the forums. Large ones like our will unfortunately be at the end of all this and there is no time line. The people I talk to are hoping for later this year but until then I guess we are on our own. I for one will be here but I am not moving over to a social media account due to the constant threat of hacks and junk. I tried once a few years ago and found it a total waste of time trying to get rid of the ads and read what I wanted to, which was very little then. Even my own children did not contact me there so I just quite. That was probably 10 years ago now and I will not go back.
Nuff said, I am here until this forum dies. Which I really hope does not happen as there are some great people here. I just wish some of the new members would contribute more and the watches actually join in.....Please.

This may be the forum with the most members, but the members active are pretty few, and I can plead guilty.
And it is a crying shame. There is so much great material here yet most is forgotten or never viewed anymore.

I have never been a facebook fan, but there are some pretty active photo sharing groups out there. They ususally do not go the depth of this forum, particularly not in restoring, yet they are easily accessible and easier to participate.

Nothing lasts forever and that may make you sad, yet what remains and will remain is the love and fascination for model cars, and from my perspective the ones from the 50's and 60's.

Whatever will be will be, but the love of model cars will remain.

A Renault Alpine 110 on top of my trusty Peugeot 308 SW

I suppose what can affect the activity on a forum are the type of collectors we have. If you are a very active collector - someone always adding to a new collection, chances are that collector will also be very active on the forum. A collector/modeller such as our very own Keesie will also be very active, but a collector who just buys toys and models for a display cabinet is not likely to be very active on the forum and we know it takes allsorts but what Keesie has pointed out is odd when we have members who like talking about models until for some reason the topic goes cold then they go cold!

Rollerman.

I think sometimes people just run out of things to say. It is all said in the (fill in the black) Topic so I have nothing to ad.
It is true thought that not all collectors like to show their collection. Others, like myself like to show what I have and restore and also what I buy just to restore. I only do it for my self now and I live in a small town and hundreds of miles away from any such places as there are in England and Europe. I am talking about the toy fairs where maybe you could meet someone from not that far from you. Here, with such vast distances from here to there, it makes it almost impossible. Therefore people like Kees, Kevin and my self, along with most here, seek out this kind of forum and like to contribute what we have, maybe hoping that others will also like what we do and have.
Everything must run its course but it will be a sad day when this forum goes the way of so many other have in the past 10 years. Fewer and fewer to choose from and more and more on Facebook. Bah

<p>Tom, do NOT feel guilty, because that was not my intention. I meant members who are not active at all, and even that, but the ones who look into postings but do not post anything themselves. I just picked out these three people, because when you enlarge the picture, they were not on the forum for months, or a year.</p>
<p>I meant, the forum GOES DOWN. Only three or four remaks on a good resto is a joke. There were times that at least 10 or 15 members jumped in and asked all sorts of questions and remarks, but these days are long gone.</p>
<p>Believe me, there is ALWAYS something to write about, but you have to use your common sense. Jim, why do you NEVER say: 'that's nice' or 'well done' but try to think of something else to say? Ok, nobody can be in every posting. When something is not in my field, I seldom take part.</p>

<p>About Facebook, I am not on it either. I came into contact with Maz Wooley who does articles on Facebook , same as our member Karl. Maz invited me to make articles, and HE corrects and places them. I do 'answer' sometimes, using my wifes Facebook. The first thing I wrote was that I wondered why no one replied to an article.......Karl and Maz explained that Facebook is not a forum, which I have to accept. It is more a newspaper.</p>
<p>I will always be active, when I am able to. I cannot look into the future, but when I stay in good health, I will always look for old scrap to restore. I, and others have proved that this has got nothing to do with money or means. I have a 20 year old 3.2 pixel camera, a laptop already 10 years old, and I think I proved more than once you can make a model out of nothing.</p>
<p>I do not expect others to be the same, but it would be nice to get more comments on new things. This would also be stimulating to place more subjects. But what I have said feels and is a repetition of what has already been said in the past by me and others. I just think we cannot carry on very long like this.</p>
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"when something is not in my field, I seldom take part" seems to be one of the problems with the site.

<p>"Jim, why do you NEVER say: 'that's nice' or 'well done' but try to think of something else to say?" asked Keesie. I guess I always have more to say. Some say I talk too much and can over explain but that is just me. I know you don't mean anything by it other than being a question. I have said lot of good but don't use the words you mention as it seem I am patronizing them. That was what I was accused on Gary's in private by the owner and some of the moderators. so try hard to not do just one or two word answers like that is nice or Good job. Some of my recent comments.</p>
<p>Great job and a really nice color combo too.</p>
<p>They all look very nice and street cars are some of the best sellers</p>
<p>What a great set for kids. Gives you everything you need</p>
<p>It looks very detailed and is a good looking car</p>

<p>Jim, I don't really 'keep track' of how many words you or anyone else uses, it is just, in general some of use use very few words to reply. The more words does not mean it is always better, but I think in general a longer answer is better. Well, you know what I mean.</p>
<p>DD, there is nothing else I can do as to be in as many fields as possible. I think that is a minor subject though, i is more: how many more or less active members do we have? As I said, when there are 10 I estimated too high........I think there are about 6.</p>

I hope this site carries on as I have learn't & shared a lot with you guy's over the time I have been on here, there are some great members who have a wealth of knowledge in all aspects of the toy car world, Facebook (I keep away from) has taken over a lot of peoples interests but dedicated sites like this are far more superior, lets keep our heads up & keep it going.

I will certainly do that and keep on contributing to our site...

Same, I am not leaving due to a few glitches. I hope we can move over to a new site this year at least.