Is This Site Slowly Going By The Wayside?

[kb0zke]

My two cents worth:

Looking back at what was is only useful if it is for the purpose of planning what is to come. What was useful in the past that can be updated to be useful again? Why did we do what we did then? Is that still necessary? Is there a better way to do that?

FB seems to be where the younger people are going - for better or worse. We own a Grand Design Reflection 215RLTS, and I'm on mygrandrv.com owners' forum. It seems that most GD owners, though, are on the FB group. I'm not on FB, so I can't compare the two.

Sometimes we keep doing the same thing because that's the way we always did it. It may take a young person to ask why we're doing it that way. When we analyze the situation, we find that we don't really need to do it that way anymore.

What do I want to see here? I'm pretty happy with it as it is. I grumbled about the update a few years ago, but I've gotten used to it (I don't like change). Perhaps the moderators could be a bit more aggressive it moving posts to more appropriate sections and editing subjects to make it easier to search for topics, but that's about it.

[Larry Burkett]

Quote

 

I'm with you too David, I'm not one for a lot of change just for the sake of changing it. I don't do the Facebook thing either, and since DRV owners are a Facebook only group, I can't even join that. 😠

[slackercruster]

Are many young people getting into RV's? I think the ones that do go for the van life. I don't use the forum much as I have not been out with the RV since Oct. of 22 and have no plans scheduled.

I really don't see how RV'ers can travel to campsites nowadays. The cost is stupendous for most of them. I think there were a lot of old timers on the forum that have retired or passed away. There was a old guy here that always helped me out with the tech stuff. I think he was the weekend mod. Fantastic help over the years, miss him. 

I'm near 70 and thinking of selling truck camper and truck as a turnkey sale. I mostly used mine for my part-time work and since I don't do that work any longer, I don't use it much. I was never much of a vacation person, so if not using RV for work, I don't really need it.

Still, if you need one...it is nice having an RV. But like all things, it goes downhill with age if it just sits. The 2011 F350 Truck only has 33k miles on it. Prior to that I had an Aliner I had bought in early 2000's. I would mostly boondock unless working in NYC. Back then it was $100 a day to park it in Jersey City, even though I didn't need any hookups. Now it is about $150 a day in Jersey City. I can't afford that, nor do I like working in NYC any longer...too dangerous for me.

Well, if the lotto ever comes in, I will buy a small, cushy Class C. I would not care if it devalued just sitting. I like having an RV if $ was no object. And I still may keep mine if the resale is poor. I could never replace it again. So not rushing into anything. I paid $17K for the truck camper. They are $26k now. I don't know how much the truck cost now.  I paid $36k a new F350. I can't tell if the dealers are charging more for trucks than the msrp now. Crazy!

I looked into RV Trader to sell it. WOW! $160 to $260 to run an ad. Maybe I will look into truck classifieds and price it with the TC. 

Well, good luck everyone and thanks for all the help over the years! Not planning on leaving, but have one foot in the door!

 

 

 

Edited August 11, 2023 by slackercruster

[2gypsies]

5 hours ago, slackercruster said:

Are many young people getting into RV's? I think the ones that do go for the van life. I don't use the forum much as I have not been out with the RV since Oct. of 22 and have no plans scheduled.

I really don't see how RV'ers can travel to campsites nowadays. The cost is stupendous for most of them.

 

Yes, there are many young full-timers and they don't travel in vans. Some travel with their children. There is a huge group of Xscapers - an offshoot of the original Escapees.  They are young and still working, for the most part.  With technology nowadays they are able to work from their RV so they can live wherever they want and travel accordingly.  Also, many of them are boondockers to cut down on RV park costs.

https://xscapers.com/

[Lou Schneider]

5 hours ago, slackercruster said:

Are many young people getting into RV's? I think the ones that do go for the van life. I don't use the forum much as I have not been out with the RV since Oct. of 22 and have no plans scheduled.

If you have any doubt about younger families fulltiming in RVs attend any of the Xscapers functions.  You'll see plenty of full time families in RVs of all types.  Their Annual Bash sells out the Lake Havasu City rodeo grounds every January.  By night they party hearty, by day activities are more restrained so people can work at their jobs and the kids can home school.

I went to the Bash a few years ago and they're a very enthusiastic bunch.  One of their nighttime party venues centered around a Mad Max type vehicle with propane flame throwers and a killer sound system blasting heavy metal music.  The next day it led the kid's parade sans flames, playing Sesame St. music for the kids.
 

https://bash.xscapers.com/about-us/

Edited August 11, 2023 by Lou Schneider

[kb0zke]

Larry, check out https://suitesownersinternationaltravelclub.vbulletin.net/

[Larry Burkett]

Wow, that is great. Thank you very much.

 

[JGWALES]

Age has nothing to do with commom interest

 You can have conversations with all ages.           I have noticed topics here 6 replies 456 views.  Take info and dont participate ? 

[Deezl Smoke]

2 hours ago, JGWALES said:

Age has nothing to do with commom interest

 You can have conversations with all ages.           I have noticed topics here 6 replies 456 views.  Take info and dont participate ? 

 Yes, though it is getting more and more difficult to have those conversations even with your own age. Modern first world societies push the formation of groups by political ID. Don't support my views?,...you're a ****ist,  or a ***ot etc. So ya, people may click on a thread, see the direction it's heading and leave. This creates a view on the counter.

 Go have a view of my thread in the HDT page "Opinions on deleted emissions for rv", and you'll see the division I describe above.

 Back in the late 90s and early 2ks, I used to belong to, and participate heavily on a couple agriculture forums. As time went on and technology afforded taking your internet connection with you in your pocket, the tolerance for differing opinions started to become less and less. Facebook came about and one could just watch by the month the further division of groups with differing opinions on every topic, from tillage vs. notill, to what church you go to. 

 Now that the people are addicted to instant viewing and posting, censorship and monitoring of any/all media has become a way of controlling information and forcing certain narratives.

 This is just part of the process that can not be avoided when humans are involved.

[folivier]

When you don't have to look a person in the eye and stand there and be accountable for what you say then people tend to say stupid things.  Look at how some online discussions go.  Would you say some of these things to a person standing within arms reach?

[durangodon]

45 minutes ago, folivier said:

Would you say some of these things to a person standing within arms reach?

Yes, I'm totally capable of saying stupid things under all circumstances.  😎

[Vladimir]

Lots of special forums are becoming less active.  This forum splits the difference.  Some forums like astronomy are still doing well.  Others like the fly fishing forum are useless and will soon disappear.

Here is the current topic list for the fly fishing forum:  NFR stands for not fishing related SFR somewhat fishing.

It is pretty funny reading for a fly fishing forum.  Not much useful information if your a fly fisherman....................

Beanies have arrived!

Rain

Baseball 2023

NFR Good News

NFR Humor

SFR Fishing Foods (Food near fishing)

College Football 2023

Passing Cars Correctly with Space

Not fly fishing, but

What are you eating?

What are you listening to?

The Mountain Bike Thread

NFR Why is it??

WDFW Considers consolidating Elk Management

What are you drinking?

2023 Garden Thread

Awesome Dogs of PNW

NFR (What are you reading)

Raft Anchor Questions......FIRST FLY FISHING TOPIC in the Forum.  This was followed by another 15 non-fishing topics.

So the RV forum isn't doing to badly.  At least it is on topic.  Once we get to the fly fishing forum posting we will be in trouble.

There are a lot of people on this forum that really know their stuff.  Yeah, I use search engines to find answers to technical problems, but many times I will look for confirmation by posting here.  Good advice is hard to find on the internet.  I think lots of folks are just cranky after the pandemic, and maybe we are just getting older.

One thing that would help this forum is more travel related information.  After 20 years I have fewer and fewer technical questions.  I still travel close to six month a year.  Not a blog posting, but information like on the tropical storm in southern California, etc. etc.  Crowding at campgrounds, fire updates, etc.

A close look at the forum topics and their rearrangement might be worth examining.  It is a fine line, between having lots of forum sub-topics and no posts and no enough sub-topics to generate interest.

The astronomy forum updates a few of their forum sub-topics every six months or so, but they also set up short term topics like eclipses and other upcoming celestial events.

On a tech discussion show, the prediction was that web sites are coming back.  Simply, because a lot of other forums like X, facebook, and redditt just have to much noise to signal.  So a specialized web site is becoming much more efficient for information gathering.

Everything goes in cycles and this might be just part of the cycle.

 

 

 

Edited August 22, 2023 by Vladimir