Are Woodworking Forums Dead

[gee-dub]

Forums, specifically the people on them, helped me accelerate my learning curve no end.  I cannot say enough about the format for knowledge exchange and support.  The currently popular social media vehicles come and go and I'm glad that people have fun with them but, they are a different animal.

[Llama]

22 hours ago, RichardA said:

great place for comic relief, especially from that guy living in Marc's basement!

I may be leaving Wisconsin, but I'll never leave Marc's basement! 

[socoj2]

Here is the problem with face book. im a member of a local 20k user group with 500 active post a day. No way or they organized or can you read them all.

300 of them are Can you identify this snake or whats a GOOD restaurant. Your duplicating the same information over and over again and it gets tiresome. Facebook is for Soccer moms or people who are not invested in the community. 

Forums are how you BUILD a community of like minded people.

[Unknown craftsman]

I see forums staying around a long time.Esp woodworking it's just natural for craft people to collaborate together.

I know several woodworker near me that don't belong to any forums I think their work could benefit from a online forum.

Soon they will be assimilated and belong to the collective.

 

[thewoodwhisperer]

I think the best argument for the value of forums (which has already been stated over and over) is indexing and "searchability". From what our stats tell me, at any given time we have 20-30 members on the forum and 70-80 Guests. Guests are people who are just browsing without an account and in all likelihood, they found us through a Google search. So while they aren't taking part in the social/community aspects of the forum, they certainly are deriving value from it. 

And while social media has it's shortcomings and public groups on Facebook are pure doodie, I do have to say that a well-run private group can be an exceptional place to give/receive help. Our private Guild Facebook group is absolutely awesome, primarily because we have a few simple rules that kind of go against the spirit of Facebook (no self-promotion and no stupid memes). The group continues to be civil, friendly, and incredibly responsive. But as others have said, good luck finding older posts from last year. But that's not really what Facebook wants you to do anyway. The idea is to simply post your question again and allow new people to chime in with new information. It's not meant to be a repository. So while there may be a lot of soccer moms on Facebook, there are also incredibly helpful communities if you know where to look. 

Cool thing is, however you like ingesting your woodworking content and retrieving information, there's a flavor available for you. And while forums have a stigma of being "old," they really are hard to beat for long-term retention of information. 

Someone also mentioned the issue of money. This forum is not a money maker. Because people come here often and for a  specific purpose, click ads don't really work. Last year, I moved the forum to a cloud service provided by the forum software makers. It made life easier since most of the maintenance was taken care of for me and the server environment was completely managed, but the cost was $130/month. The end result was a significant net loss every single month. So yesterday, we moved the forum back to our regular server. The forum runs fine on the server but it will require more work on my part to keep things running smoothly. And should something happen on one of our other sites that causes server performance to decrease, the forum will be affected. So while that's not great news in general, it does mean I can stop losing money every month and the forum might actually start to generate a small profit. I don't maintain the forum for the sake of profit, obviously, but it's nice to at least not lose money on the deal.  So for those who were wondering, there ya go.

[Woodenskye]

6 minutes ago, thewoodwhisperer said:

I think the best argument for the value of forums (which has already been stated over and over) is indexing and "searchability". From what our stats tell me, at any given time we have 20-30 members on the forum and 70-80 Guests. Guests are people who are just browsing without an account and in all likelihood, they found us through a Google search. So while they aren't taking part in the social/community aspects of the forum, they certainly are deriving value from it. 

And while social media has it's shortcomings and public groups on Facebook are pure doodie, I do have to say that a well-run private group can be an exceptional place to give/receive help. Our private Guild Facebook group is absolutely awesome, primarily because we have a few simple rules that kind of go against the spirit of Facebook (no self-promotion and no stupid memes). The group continues to be civil, friendly, and incredibly responsive. But as others have said, good luck finding older posts from last year. But that's not really what Facebook wants you to do anyway. The idea is to simply post your question again and allow new people to chime in with new information. It's not meant to be a repository. So while there may be a lot of soccer moms on Facebook, there are also incredibly helpful communities if you know where to look. 

Cool thing is, however you like ingesting your woodworking content and retrieving information, there's a flavor available for you. And while forums have a stigma of being "old," they really are hard to beat for long-term retention of information. 

Marc, thank you for joining the discussion and all you do to help this community!

[JosephThomas]

I think the best argument for the value of forums (which has already been stated over and over) is indexing and "searchability". From what our stats tell me, at any given time we have 20-30 members on the forum and 70-80 Guests. Guests are people who are just browsing without an account and in all likelihood, they found us through a Google search. So while they aren't taking part in the social/community aspects of the forum, they certainly are deriving value from it. 

And while social media has it's shortcomings and public groups on Facebook are pure doodie, I do have to say that a well-run private group can be an exceptional place to give/receive help. Our private Guild Facebook group is absolutely awesome, primarily because we have a few simple rules that kind of go against the spirit of Facebook (no self-promotion and no stupid memes). The group continues to be civil, friendly, and incredibly responsive. But as others have said, good luck finding older posts from last year. But that's not really what Facebook wants you to do anyway. The idea is to simply post your question again and allow new people to chime in with new information. It's not meant to be a repository. So while there may be a lot of soccer moms on Facebook, there are also incredibly helpful communities if you know where to look. 

Cool thing is, however you like ingesting your woodworking content and retrieving information, there's a flavor available for you. And while forums have a stigma of being "old," they really are hard to beat for long-term retention of information. 

Someone also mentioned the issue of money. This forum is not a money maker. Because people come here often and for a  specific purpose, click ads don't really work. Last year, I moved the forum to a cloud service provided by the forum software makers. It made life easier since most of the maintenance was taken care of for me and the server environment was completely managed, but the cost was $130/month. The end result was a significant net loss every single month. So yesterday, we moved the forum back to our regular server. The forum runs fine on the server but it will require more work on my part to keep things running smoothly. And should something happen on one of our other sites that causes server performance to decrease, the forum will be affected. So while that's not great news in general, it does mean I can stop losing money every month and the forum might actually start to generate a small profit. I don't maintain the forum for the sake of profit, obviously, but it's nice to at least not lose money on the deal.  So for those who were wondering, there ya go.

Thanks for the response and the details. It's easier to understand the push for support now that we see your profit/loss situation.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[RichardA]

1 hour ago, Woodenskye said:

Marc, thank you for joining the discussion and all you do to help this community!

Agreed, but please change that avatar!

[Llama]

10 minutes ago, RichardA said:

Agreed, but please change that avatar!

 

[RichardA]

1 minute ago, Llama said:

 

You bee's a sick puppy....... fluff yo feathers!

[thewoodwhisperer]

In case you couldn't see it clearly.

[Eric.]

LOL

I'm gonna go take a shower now.

[Llama]

Hey Laser Lips!

Get off my drink! 

[thewoodwhisperer]

sip sip sip sip

[Tom Cancelleri]

4 minutes ago, thewoodwhisperer said:

sip sip sip sip

What he's failing to tell you is that's secretly a drink from Starbucks. Dunkin Donuts called, they're really upset with you and you are sleeping on the couch tonight. 

[Llama]

No Sponsor for you!  

[JosephThomas]

Wife and I always laugh at the Dunkin comments on the live show.... It also makes me crave donuts, you should contact them about sponsorship.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[..Kev]

7 minutes ago, Mike. said:

FWIW, I would pay more than $20/yr support.  Also, I learned about you from this forum and have since bought your book and the Morris Chair build video.  You know your business better than anyone, but in my case (at least), the forum is creating paying TWW customers. 

I also visit the TWW site frequently and the woodtalkshow site. I actually wish the woodtalkshow site were integrated into the forum.  You typically get a few comments on each show, and if those comments were in the forum you would get even more discussion. 

I know you try to keep the forum separate from your other properties.  I can only assume it is for branding/control reasons - a forum can quickly spin out of control and it would be a full time job for you to clean up the mess.  But in general the mods here respect what you are trying to do, are big fans of yours, and keep things civil. 

I might be a little old school in my website usage.  There are a handful of websites I visit directly.  I don't rely on social media, be it facebook, youtube, or other "hubs" to direct my traffic. 

 

 

This is a fair point!  How many times is the advice given here to pop over to the Guild site and check out Marc doing X to see how it's done?

[Llama]

yeah yeah, and we should have "Guild Member" badges too

[Woodenskye]

1 hour ago, JosephThomas said:

Wife and I always laugh at the Dunkin comments on the live show.... It also makes me crave donuts, you should contact them about sponsorship.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

I always crave donuts.  Marc should build a k cup tree if he really wants the dunkin sponsorship.  Look I'm helping hijack my own thread.

[thewoodwhisperer]

1 hour ago, Mike. said:

FWIW, I would pay more than $20/yr support.  Also, I learned about you from this forum and have since bought your book and the Morris Chair build video.  You know your business better than anyone, but in my case (at least), the forum is creating paying TWW customers. 

I also visit the TWW site frequently and the woodtalkshow site. I actually wish the woodtalkshow site was integrated into the forum.  You typically get a few comments on each show, and if those comments were in the forum you would get even more discussion. 

I know you try to keep the forum separate from your other properties.  I can only assume it is for branding/control reasons - a forum can quickly spin out of control and it would be a full time job for you to clean up the mess.  But in general the mods here respect what you are trying to do, are big fans of yours, and keep things civil. 

I might be a little old school in my website usage.  I visit websites directly.  I don't rely on social media, be it facebook, youtube, or other "hubs" to direct my traffic. 

 

I wish more people thought like you do Mike. In both support and how you consume your content with direct visits. To answer a few of your points..... I certainly realize that the forum is part of the big TWW picture. That's why it's still here afterall. I like knowing that your average woodworking google search will likely bring up a post in this forum. I like the fact that this remains one of the friendliest and most welcoming woodworking forums available. I like the fact that as far as forums go, this one embraces current technology in a fairly useful way. And since many of the people who frequent this forum are fans and friends, it makes it an all around pleasant place for me to hang out (when time allows). So the cross-talk that happens between the forum and my other properties is always welcome, but it's a difficult thing to track. In the ideal world, each one of my properties would at least break even on its own and then anything that happens beyond that is gravy. The forum is the one place that doesn't do that. Well, it does now, but it didn't. In my estimation, the secondary business the forum does generate for me probably doesn't make up for the losses we were enduring every month. My hope is that these changes won't impact performance in the forum at all though it will surely involve a little more work on my part. It's worth it for the tradeoff. 

As for why I try to keep things seperate, I'm not sure I have a satisfactory answer for that. Perhaps it's stupidity on my part, lol. But when people find this forum, I want them to enjoy it for its own merits. I really don't want this to be a TWW or Wood Talk fan club. The only reason I have a link in the nav bar is because people insisted on it.  I fully expect that there are actually people in this forum who don't even like or respect what I do online, and that's OK. Forums take on a life of their own and while I try to steer the ship, I feel like it's hard for this forum to find its own voice if it has to live under the TWW branded umbrella. And the separation from the Wood Talk podcast is just something that makes sense to me. I used to try to force the connection but there's really no reason for two to have anything to do with one another. Unless the podcast lives in the forum or the forum lives at woodtalkshow.com, connecting the two seemed like an exercise in futility. If it weren't for the fact that these names have been around for a long time, I'd change the name of the forum and make the separation complete. 

I guess i just like having my eggs in neatly organized baskets with tiny strings connecting them. Not pretending it's a good business strategy but it's something that my gut tells me to do, and I usually listen to my gut. Except for after taco night. I then ignore my gut for 24 hrs.  

And to make this post even longer, here's some info about supporters. We have approximately 17,800 registered users, and we have 66 Supporters. So as you can see, monetizing a forum directly can be tricky business. Big thanks to the supporters we have (you guys are awesome), but you can see that you're relatively few in number.

[thewoodwhisperer]

Just now, Mike. said:

or if you are shooting a guild video in a 2 car garage and need to hide the powerwheels and tricycles.

 

 

 

This is about to be my life in a few weeks, lol. Almost like you knew that!

[drzaius]

I'm kinda shocked that there are that few suporters. I wish more people realized what a bargain the $20/year is. How much is it advertised?

[Cliff]

8 hours ago, thewoodwhisperer said:

 

Someone also mentioned the issue of money. This forum is not a money maker. Because people come here often and for a  specific purpose, click ads don't really work. Last year, I moved the forum to a cloud service provided by the forum software makers. It made life easier since most of the maintenance was taken care of for me and the server environment was completely managed, but the cost was $130/month. The end result was a significant net loss every single month. So yesterday, we moved the forum back to our regular server. The forum runs fine on the server but it will require more work on my part to keep things running smoothly. And should something happen on one of our other sites that causes server performance to decrease, the forum will be affected. So while that's not great news in general, it does mean I can stop losing money every month and the forum might actually start to generate a small profit. I don't maintain the forum for the sake of profit, obviously, but it's nice to at least not lose money on the deal.  So for those who were wondering, there ya go.

My question is.. what the heck kind of maintenance do they need that requires so much work? I understand the occasional bug fix or cleanup on a db (though they should really be doing that via scripting/cron jobs.) but if takes up a lot of your time that seems silly to me. Shall I take them aside and teach them how to code?

I wonder if Azure cloud would be better or worse in this situation. I've thought of moving all my different sites there to consolidate. Lot of good features, but since MS charges $0.xx per cpu second you use, could be more expensive, or cheaper. 

I'd say if the server/forum maintenance takes up a lot of time, take a trusted mod and have them do it! 

[BonPacific]

24 minutes ago, Cliff said:

My question is.. what the heck kind of maintenance do they need that requires so much work? I understand the occasional bug fix or cleanup on a db (though they should really be doing that via scripting/cron jobs.) but if takes up a lot of your time that seems silly to me. Shall I take them aside and teach them how to code?

I wonder if Azure cloud would be better or worse in this situation. I've thought of moving all my different sites there to consolidate. Lot of good features, but since MS charges $0.xx per cpu second you use, could be more expensive, or cheaper. 

I'd say if the server/forum maintenance takes up a lot of time, take a trusted mod and have them do it! 

Honestly that doesn't sound that bad, depending on your traffic it's not that far off from managed Wordpress hosting. The costs are more likely to be SSD and Server costs.