Who Watches the Watchmen (Our Chit Chat Thread)

I was banned for 3 months and my admin privileges removed due to a complaint from a fairly new user that I had publicly called him trouble maker after looking at his ban and infraction history. I had been on boards since 2004. That vocal user has since been lifetime site banned for racist abuse. Was it worth it for boards to plicate that fellow and make a pariah out of me?

I hear you, but DeVore would have banned you for that too even in the golden days. He was always of the privacy of users was sacrosanct angle, especially if that was seen to be abused by mods(or other members PMs) and a fair number got demodded and/or banned for that sorta thing. It's less about placation(even of knobends) and more about keeping a consistent standard. Things like PMs and mod stuff are no go areas not to be used beyond their private purpose. IMHO this goes triple for long term members who should know the score more than a newbie. The only DRP I ever had was someone being a bit of a dick and rules lawyering and an admin/cmod backing them. I didn't agree, but it is what it is and looking back it was his only recourse really.

I agree re VB running and hosting, but old Boards was so patched over the years it was barely VB any more. A very different animal and why it used to fart out 503 or whatever errors on the regular. It needed a full time hand on deck. A new platform that isn't patched to feck that doesn't require that will cost less. Never mind that VB itself is no longer supported as an entity. Since 2013 IIRC? XenForo again IIRC is the new version of that sorta thing.

Unlike the admins Fitz 😉 I'm not on a power trip, too light of touch too I've been told... Might be a plan though. The forum layout is still very popular among watch guys. Well as you've rightly pointed out yourself it's mostly middle aged guys in the hobby and they generally prefer both the familiar and the forum format itself. There's a growing younger demogrpahic too of course, but they're more found on the 'Gram and Reddit, even Arsebook.

Funny enough though I'm also a middle aged oulfella now, back in the early days of watch groups online in the 90's it was still mostly middle aged guys and I was one of the few enfant terribles 😂 That's in the vintage realm mind you, though even on the Timezone forums it was again mostly older guys even in the current market stuff. Going even further back to the 80's and early 90's on trips to the UK and watch sellers there I was very much the odd one out being a youngfella. Though the guys I met(and later those online) who were older and knew their sh1t were very helpful to the newbie and gave great advice and steered me well, including a couple of dealers. One chap in London who must have been in his 60's put me off buying a more expensive watch he was selling and pointing me to a better and cheaper one he wasn't. I ended up buying my 1916 Longines Trench from him as he told me it was one of the lowest mileage ones that passed through his hands and 30 years later he wasn't wrong. The damn thing's one of the most accurate and reliable watch I've ever had.

Actually FItz your journey through the luxury current watch collecting area has been informative and you've been quick with your advice to people considering the same journey. EG avoiding buying the budget watch when you really want the more expensive one and stuff like that. Fair play. Learning from native guides like you was what saved me from bad purchases and you're paying it forward with the newbies in your area. Ditto for your 'Tube channel with the very novel "who should buy this". I've tried to do similar with the vintage stuff here where I try to give values and what is or isn't a good buy for someone reading. IMHO too many watch commentators don't do this, though so many are newbies themselves with deep pockets and shallow brains, or well dressed embryos reading brand adverts.

Experience counts, because it's usually earned from monumental fcukups as well as triumphs. Or maybe that's just me... It's not just age either. If I were looking to buy a 1960's Seiko I'd be wearing out my keyboard and his patience PMing our own Irishplayer and he's a youngfella. Well compared to us anyway... I steered him pretty well on his 1930's pilots watch so I'd be extracting my pound of flesh there. 😁

Whatsapp is OK, but like arsebook it's more a show and tell platform. I've seen that with a couple of car forums that went that route. They went from large archives of great information as well as show and tell, to here's a pic of my car/pics of what I'm selling. Plus arsebook or whatsapp aren't searchable. They're an instant hit type platform. For subjects like this IMHO anyway forums are still better. Plus as noted above most watch collectors are middle aged farts like myself and they tend to prefer the forum layout.

Discord is very good for some subjects, online games would be one, or general "live" chitchat. You could say similar for whatsapp too I suppose. For speciality hobbies/subjects not nearly so much. I've been on two watch discords and after an intial flurry of here we are and here is a pic of my watch they both died a death within months. Other social discords I've been on seem to follow a pattern. Kinda like the old private forums here on Boards. If they're under a certain number of posters they usually die off pretty quick. The ones that are sustainable are larger groups and aren't reliant on one or two cornerstone members.

Actually this watch forum, though certainly down on traffic, is funny enough a lot more active than many previously active forums on this site. I suspect those posters who went around a few forums a day made up the bulk of those now dead forums and can't be arsed digging through the labyrinth anymore, whereas if you're more like into browsing one or two forums you're more likely to stick around because once you found those forums you could bookmark them and have one tab open. Passing traffic is almost completely gone. Which is a major problem for a discussion site.

TBH the only forums I browse now are this one and the feedback forum to look at the carcrash in progress. I've only looked for the other forum I mod tGC a handful of times since the "upgrade". I suspect I'm not alone in doing similar.