A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to a Forum

[Anmer]

I got into tracking aircraft by using a Mode-S receiver way back in 2005, right at the beginning.

In those heady days there was only the Kinetic forum, really busy with lots of new ideas and suggestions.  Those were interesting times.

Then AirNav joined in and I'll say no more.

I remember posting on the Kinetic forum that it would be good to have a file download area but that was dismissed.  So when Hamish launched the Radarspotters forum in 2009, I was keen to get involved and upload User Guides and outline files.  But, for various reasons, Hamish sold the forum to Dinneen in 2011.

I soon realised Dinneen was "only in it for the money" as they say, so I moved on and launched this forum in 2012.

Membership has now reached the level it was at Radarspotters back in 2012 and we're still enjoying steady growth.  But what's happened to the Kinetic, AirNav and Radarspotters forums?

The Kinetic Forum

Posts have virtually dried up and it's gained only 24 new members in 2016, the last in September.  This forum gained 615 new members in the same period.

Chris Taylor was moderating the forum on behalf of Kinetic but he appears to have joined Moonraker and his moderating days may be over.  And it looks like Kinetic has lost interest in the hobby market.  How much longer will the forum continue?

The AirNav Forum

The forum is still active, mostly focused on database updates.  But AirNav itself seems to have lost interest too. As can be seen by the screenshot below, spammers can easily post unrelated content and often do.  This is always a good indicator that no one is actively moderating a forum.

Radarspotters

From being the preeminent, independent forum, this has declined the most.

There's no vetting of new members who can join using spurious email accounts, typically encouraged to increase membership stats.  Unsurprisingly, spam posts remain unmoderated as can be seen in the screenshots below.  Sadly, the one or two genuine new members who post questions get totally ignored.

Clearly Dinneen has lost interest too, granting spammers total freedom to post unrelated content hidden amongst Brian's copy and paste posts.

What a sad end to Hamish's initiative back in 2009.

Radarspotting

Compared to the above, we're in pretty good shape.  The forum is moderated with the assistance of Smudger98 and Jamie. All new members are vetted and applications must be activated.  Touch wood, in 4 years we've never had a single spam post.  And out Stats are published so you can always check how we're doing.

Plus, and I think this is a major asset, we have active members who share their excellent operator logos, side-views and silhouettes.  And those who are only too willing to help others who post questions.  Thank you all for helping make this forum what it is - active, helpful and still growing.

I don't think we can say the same about the other three.

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[Graham Bell]

Thank you Mike for an interesting summary of events over the past years,is it really that long,I personally feel that the members of this forum owe you a debt of gratitude for the manner in which the forum is controlled and administrated at no little cost to you of your time and resources.
Thank you for your efforts on our behalf.
Regards-
G.B.

[alpey]

Thank you Mike and to all the members of the Forum to have welcomed me, in spite of my bad practice of your language.....
Amicalement
Alain

[corsa]

A belated message of thanks to you Mike,Smudger ,Jamie and everyone else who offers help and assistance on our forum.

Our forum is in my humble opinion second to none for our hobby with a great group of first rate guys......

Thanks to one and all.....

Regards

Tom