N
NP2626
Guest
Shirley, You mean that all your buildings on your layout are built stock? Not one change to a design?
My opinion is that it has nothing to do with building models specifically and more to do with the few number of regularly active participants on this board. While our host claims it is the largest model railroad board (and very well might be message wise), it is the most dead of most any I've participated on. On the forum "on the other side of the tracks", I had to check hourly to keep up. Here I can keep up by signing in every other day - and still be amazed at the nothingness. For the number of sections and "discussion" boards set up, there just isn't the critical mass of users to keep them going. As such posts and entire discussions get lost and forgotten about. That isn't a way to attract new participants. Then there is the coffee shop that further sucks good posts that would be better served up in the appropriate category threads. Just before you joined I was ready to give up. Tony had stopped posting, and we had lost a couple other regulars that vanished and the forum was dead. I would say something like three weeks with almost no posts other than the coffee shop. And then there are the few people who actually kill conversations. Heaven forbid a thread that could morph into something very interesting is killed because to OP jumps in and says that "is not the topic of MY thread". As such the subject matter is exhausted the conversation is killed and it just becomes one of the other thousands of threads just laying around in history that no one will read again. Or the opposite, someone will start 10 threads where the answer is a one line response, or the topic is so close to others that they just obfuscate and dilute the interesting topics.Over at the TrainBoard, they are running several Contests! Wonder why building type contests are so poorly represented here on the ModelRailroadForum? I did this once before with a "Build a Freight Car kit" as the basis and even went so far as to have the prize be a Red Caboose Freight Car Kit that I mailed to the winner. That contest had O.K. participation; but, nothing to write home about! I'm wondering just how popular an activity Model Railroading is now-a-days? It's certain that the "Building Models" portion of this hobby has taken a back seat to general life in what ever lane you are in!
Then there is the coffee shop that further sucks good posts that would be better served up in the appropriate category threads.