Rearranging this Forum

[Paul Miller]

I've always liked this forum since I joined 5 years ago. I've learned a lot about railroads, spoken with some great railfans, and have met so many great people due to the forum. I've gotten a pretty good education about the L&HR. I certainly liked it more when each railroad had its own thread, probably because it was easier to navigate. For some reason I don't get the pop-ups either, I think my security walls in my computer block them so it's not an issue on my end. One of the better things with the newer format is that I am starting to get interested in the other lines around NJ and how they tied in with the L&HR. Done some great hiking lately because of the L&NE threads and have been able to contribute a few things to them as well. It does appear that there are less comments and newer subjects than when I first joined since the new format was initiated. So in the long run, it may be better to go back to the individual threads. I'm gonna stay on regardless, as I hope everyone else will. It'd be a shame to lose such knowledgeable people. I think all you guys keep the spirit of the Fallen Flags alive with your stories, memories, education, and pictures for those of us who became fans after Conrail. I appreciate those who have run this site free for me for the past 5 years and all those who have helped me in my searches. Thanks to all for enriching my knowledge, and most of all Happy Memorial Day to those of you on this forum who fought for us to keep our freedom of speech and be able to even comment here. Dave, let me know if you're coming up to NJ this summer and we'll explore! Marty, probably said it 100 times but it's never enough THANK YOU!

[Jeff Smith]

FYI, this is on my to-do list. Hopefully I'll have some time in the near future. If I don't, someone may want to <BUMP> this thread on ocassion. For those of you who were moderators, please identify which of the predecessor railroads you handled.

[scottychaos]

I was the LV forum moderator..
I agree with nearly everything that has already been said here..I never did see the logic behind the consolidation of the forums,
and I agree it did make things quite a bit user-unfriendly.

I think (if I recall correctly) that the logic was that some forums were very slow, had little participation, and combining them all might make for one more active forum..
well ok, but some forums were *not* slow! (such as the LV forum), and lumping in the LV with all the other Anthracite railroads basically killed
the "LV community" that had existed when the LV forum was its own stand-alone group..

I understand that some of the smaller railroads, like L&HR (just to pick one) might not have a big following,
and a stand-alone L&HR forum might be "slow"..well, my response to that is..so what?
The mere fact that the L&HR forum exists at all will allow other fans to easily find it, and then join-in..
the forum has to exist in the first place, before it can grow..

Each of our "fallen flag" railroads deserves its own little individual home here on RR.net, because then the fans of that railroad
will have their own little community they can participate in..IMO, individual forums *increase* discussion, because people then know where to go to
find the discussion about the railroad they are interested in..

so yeah, un-doing the consolidation is definitely the way to go!
im all for it as well..

and..I would add a new one, that I dont think has been here before. NYO&W.

Scot

[charlie6017]

and..I would add a new one, that I dont think has been here before. NYO&W.

Totally agree........I find the NYO&W very interesting and I also think this road deserves it's own forum.

Charlie

[Franklin Gowen]

FYI, this is on my to-do list. Hopefully I'll have some time in the near future. If I don't, someone may want to <BUMP> this thread on ocassion.

Thank you, Jeff!

For those of you who were moderators, please identify which of the predecessor railroads you handled.

I was the moderator of the Reading Company forum.

[Alloy]

I supported Mike and Otto in their consolidation, because I could see that there were forums that saw little or no activity on the board. If it was going to make administration easier, I thought they should do it.

However, given a choice again, I’d like to see fallen flags have their own forums. Even if they’re slow, I’d agree with Scot that they have more potential to grow if they’re already set up as individual sites.

This thread is about the Anthracite roads, but I’d like to see the process extended to some other ‘shotgun marriages’ on the forum.

[David]

Thank you Jeff for your comments--I was moderator of the L&HR and L&NE forums. There have been some VERY interesting stories about the L&HR placed on here within the last six+ months ago by an individual that remembered many real life times when he was at a young age. I could not wait to see another story about my favorite North Jersey railroad by him. I am not sure that he either ran out of those fascinating stories or he was discouraged putting more on because of a lack of comments to these stories. I hope if these railroads are separated again, those stories and other comments per individual railroads will follow back to the "new" set up. Also--I would like to see a forum for the NYO&W. That railroad ran to Weehawken NJ and there is hardly any information on here about it.

[David]

We will need a CNJ Moderator.

[Jeff Smith]

I think I've got some mods in the wings, but if there are any suggestions/volunteers, PM me. I'm not always on top of the PM's.

I think the way it will work is I will (re-)create the forums. The exisiting moderaters of this forum can move their topics to their own forums (this is done from the drop-down mod quick tools; please be sure to un-check the "leave shadow topic" box).

Once I have this set up I'll post here again and you all can start the process.

I want to stress this isn't a criticism of the prior consolidation; I understand there were strong feelings. I wish I had more time to spend on this; baby steps!

One thing I'd like to ask, and again, I don't always have time to do complete searches. We have an N&W forum, but not a Southern? Am I seeing that right? Any other well-followed major fallen flags you'd like to suggest?

[toolmaker]

A question for those of us who subscribe to the existing forum. I think this means we have to find the new break outs and re-subscribe as desired?

[Jeff Smith]

Gary, if you subscribe to a post, or otherwise have posted in it, you should still be able to follow that thread using the subsc notice or "view your posts".

[CAR_FLOATER]

This is good news, good news indeed. Here's to hoping this all gets "fixed" in the near future.

Now I may be jumping the gun here, but if it means anything (and I assume this is Jeff's decision, and his alone), I'd like to be placed in consideration for the Moderator's position for a future CNJ or NYO&W forum. I already do this over on the "other" .net forum, but traffic over there is all but dead on those forums, surprisingly. I'd like to "start fresh', if at all possible. Just thought I'd put it out here is all.....

Ralph Heiss

[Jeff Smith]

Thanks for the PM's and messages. I'll give you guys a heads up when I'm ready; it will likely be the end of next week before I get a chance. Busy weekend.

[Franklin Gowen]

We're in another, even busier weekend right now (Merry Christmas, everyone!), but this topic richly deserves a <BUMP>.

Is the plan still the same as Jeff last left it seven months ago, or is there more to discuss? IMHO, we had the past problems and the present solution clearly defined. There was also a broad consensus in favor of moving forward with recreation of individual fallen-flag subforums. Though a "miracle cure" is understood to not be a guaranteed result here, we still need to take action in order to (hopefully) stop the decline.

[Jeff Smith]

Thanks for the reminder; I've got some time to work on this soon I hope.