[Arun_S]

I was a regular reader of Airliners.net, lot of moderators left, forum changed hands. If you read through the forum posts now, it is all assumptions and innuendo's.

Now for any article on Airlines, I read the posts of V.Narayan Sir.

This clearly shows the role Team-Bhp moderators are playing in keeping it a thriving community.

[rijo_tj]

Other forums, i know of, that are still successfully surviving are

XDA Developer forums

ForumKerala (Its mainly a movie related forum with many other topics being discussed, similar to Team BHP)

One Plus forums


The common thread that i have seen in all these forums are the following,

They have a regular set of hardcore contributors who partake in each and every conversation that is happening thereby making any thread alive, active and relevant. This is true for Team-BHP, Forum Kerala, One Plus forums wherein you can notice that you would never see a thread wherein the major contributors does not provide their valuable input.

Another thing i have noticed is the strict moderation that is happening in these forums. This eliminates a lot of spam, unwanted political/non relevant discussions, unsubstantiated information being shared etc thereby making the threads very attractive to follow for both the regular members as well as newbies. I cannot even begin to imagine how this kind of moderation is possible but i doff my proverbial hat and give my full round of applause to the Moderators.

Of course one additional advantage i see in Team-BHP is that this forum is basically a Pan Indian forum with a healthy dose of global reach thereby increasing the quality of userbase and those who contribute information.

[Nav-i-gator]

I always prefer reading over watching videos, other than for entertainment purpose of - course.

Forums give you access to information as well as let you create/contribute; it is not a one way traffic like a Vlog. A vlog may have 10 points out of which 5 are clear to you, 3 you need some more information, rest 2 you are unaware but someone else know is a wrong information. How do you manage this on Youtube? Comments sections are a joke and moderation is in the hands of content creator only.

Here in TBHP, we all contribute, correct each other with reliable information, share our real life experiences and subconsciously bond with people we like - purely based on what they share and how they share it (no filters, video edits, music and things like that).

And I can't accentuate the importance of moderation more. Any forum without a strict rule based moderation is bound to become a troll fest and/or filthy unreliable source - More like news debates these days.

I am a part of 2 groups only (apart from numerous ones on Whatsapp/FB that you are "forced" to be a part of ) - one is TeamBHP, other is a FB group called Beer Buddies. Both are as different as chalk and cheese, but one thing in common is the heavy moderation. It's still easy here, as we are all sane (or at least post only when we are ), that one is a tipplers' paradise so keeping it's quality while still letting the members to have fun is difficult.

No comparison, that is just a fun group while TeamBHP is a forum that stimulates and caters to my better senses - a quest for gaining and sharing knowledge, experience while learning to behave, respect differences in Opinions and also learning how to post in proper English along the way! Who can beat that?

I am not surprised at all over the success of TBHP, I somehow feels a kind of personal achievement with this forum's success. It is mine, as much as it is of GTO's.

[arunramaswamy]

Originally Posted by GTO

P.S. Our forum activity levels have gone up by 25 - 30% in the last 2 years. We're growing, but we're an outlier among online communities. Team-BHP has hundreds of teenage members signing up too, clearly proving that youngsters serious about sharing & learning are attracted to forums.

GTO why does team-BHP not have any presence in any of the video-sharing platforms? I mean Visual content has a greater impact than print content. Alo I would like to see our mods in flesh and blood showing everyone how it should be done.

[poloman]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

+1 to this. Of late we have had one too many utterly trivia threads that IMHO caters to the lowest common denominator in us. This only caters to artificial volumes at the expense of real quality and depth of content.

+100 There is dramatic rise in threads under sections like " Shifting gears". The introduction of "Thanks" button in non auto threads have accelerated this trend.

When I joined the forum the most useful threads used to be under the "Initial ownership " section. These useful core auto sections are now showing a downward trend in quality and quantity of threads.

Hope moderators realize this and take corrective action promptly.

[CarGuy_DM]

YouTube can be one of the biggest contributors to their demise. Each and every one with a phone has a channel. Particularly when it comes to car reviews. I don't think in most other fields like cameras, electronics, appliances, etc. there are so many channels. But in the car review arena, everyone somehow is a reviewer.

What I fail to understand is why so many showroom owners lend their cars for reviews to these people? Most of whom are amateurs and 90% of whom handle the car in the worst way possible. They somehow have to review the car's driving dynamics only at the red line. If the showroom owners watched these videos I believe many of them may consider not lending their vehicles. But alas! Many new reviewers are possibly underage as well. Recently a reviewer was asking for 1.9 million likes before he turns 19. Such reviewers are a threat to the others on the road.

Facebook groups are probably the worst place for any advice on cars. Because the owner clubs are full of extremely biased people who having spent their money behind the cars lose all objectivity.

[nasa_hubble]

I think a huge impact has also been due the the availability of very cheap data and 4G networks. People have become huge consumers of content. Earlier due to less availability of data people used to surf webpages a lot for their queries and interactions. Now you can literally get answers, troubleshoot and interact instantly on youtube, fb groups, Whatsapp groups, Telegram, etc. It has also become very easy to monetize one's knowledge over social media leading to a shift of content creation to those platforms as well. So maybe people prioritise them over discussing it on web forums.

This trend is not just with web forums on the internet but as a whole on the print media publications as well. Also, majority of people are consuming data via handheld devices which in itself is a deterrent to typing posts on web forums.

[tirumalavoleti]

As one of the early internet readers I came across many forums across many domains.

I loved and read hundreds of articles.

Soon after youtube became high quality streaming service with lots of options to view from, it became first priority over reading. Also mobile penetration made the reading hard as compared to desktop. Interestingly, video viewing on mobile is still good.

It needs lot of dedication and commitment to maintain forums like TBHP as the readers need time to read.

One great thing forums offer is the emotional and committed comments which would be missed in videos unless there are video comments available (might be real soon to post video comments, but still would be clumsy).
So while the content attributes to 50% of the enthusiasm to readers, the comments and discussion fuel the remaining 50%.

[ariesonu]

Along with TBHP, I regularly followed http://www.teamfiat.com/forums/ and had made threads about my classics but the knowledge sharing was very restrictive and today it hardly has any traffic & last updates on selective subjects are from Feb 2021.

So we are back to square one; that we all have come to LOVE (Some love to hate) - TBHP.

Regards

[veyron_head]

If there is a unique differentiator I could see, that would be our stellar moderation on posts. And equally important is how the mods allow healthy and diverse points of view. I cant remember any single word post like a 'good one' or 'super' in any of our 100s of discussion boards across teambhp. It's enormous effort IMO.

That said, guys, it's indeed time for a YouTube channel. It can coexist with tbhp. We could link the videos here and continue the discussion as we always do. It could be the Fastest indian channel to hit 1 million subscribers!!

[srini1785]

I come from a generation that used Hotmail and Rediffmail. TBHP members who are now in their 20's would not even recognize these names. These sites were the "in" things those days and i used to cycle around 10Kms just to get to an internet cafe. There were some internet chat rooms which looked like Hookah Dens and no idea who were are talking to but it was fun. These Indian sites were either sold to or thrown out of business by big MNC's whose onslaught started in early 2000's and is still continuing. IMO the only reason why TBHP survived so far is because there are no big MNC's like Facebook or Twitter which cater exclusively to auto content in india.

PS: Not to sound pessimistic but its a great forum and probably the only one whose content is properly moderated.

[AZT]

Forums, like everything else are consolidating. People are joining global forums discussing the same thing than India specific ones. Also, unless there is moderation on who joins, a lot of forums go down the drain and people move on to other ones.

[Chetan_Rao]

Quality of moderation aside, a CRITICAL part of sustaining a web forum like Team-BHP is the ability of conversations to grow organically, and the audience having an opportunity to be an active contributor rather than just a passive consumer.

A lot of effort goes into our official reviews, but what ultimately keeps the threads relevant for years is user-generated content, created through their real-life experiences. Some of our user-generated ownership threads are more popular than the product's official review.

For all the popularity of instant consumption, audio-visual media formats, none are (yet) able to replicate that sense of 'ownership' in the consumer. Make no mistake, producing top-class AV content is a herculean task, and whoever does it has my utmost respect.

Yet, we may love a video on YouTube with world-class production attributes, but unless we were part of the crew, how many of us feel a sense of attachment & ownership because we, in some part, contributed to what it is, instead of just consuming the end-product and at most leaving reactions to it before moving on to the next suggested item?

A forum thread is alive and evolving, never a finished product, as long as someone is contributing to it. The medium has its limitations, but it's also a medium like no other.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by veyron_head

If there is a unique differentiator I could see, that would be our stellar moderation on posts.

+1 to that. And it cannot be replaced by easy to spoon feed social media or natty glitzy carnal stuff. Even in the magazine generation there were those who read Time, India Today and The Economist and those that read Stardust. As long as humans exists there will always be a segment of the population that desires intellectual content that is well composed, factual, serious and well presented - regardless of media.

That said, guys, it's indeed time for a YouTube channel. It can coexist with T-BHP. We could link the videos here and continue the discussion as we always do. It could be the Fastest Indian channel to hit 1 million subscribers!!

+2 to that. This is exactly what I was trying to say in my post #22. Thank you for putting it down so simply.

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

Quality of moderation aside, a CRITICAL part of sustaining a web forum like Team-BHP is the ability of conversations to grow organically, and the audience having an opportunity to be an active contributor rather than just a passive consumer.

For all the popularity of instant consumption, audio-visual media formats, none are (yet) able to replicate that sense of 'ownership' in the consumer. Make no mistake, producing top-class AV content is a herculean task, and whoever does it has my utmost respect.

Yet, we may love a video on YouTube with world-class production attributes, but unless we were part of the crew, how many of us feel a sense of attachment & ownership because we, in some part, contributed to what it is, instead of just consuming the end-product and at most leaving reactions to it before moving on to the next suggested item?

A forum thread is alive and evolving, never a finished product, as long as someone is contributing to it. The medium has its limitations, but it's also a medium like no other.

The essence of Team BHP's format distilled by Chetan Rao so succinctly. At Team BHP we will need to introspect and brainstorm {which I am sure the Mods & Management team are doing} on how to incrementally evolve our medium and make it for starters a mix of word & video. Easier said than done. But once done Team BHP's volumes will grow even more rapidly - I say this purely from my professional knowledge and not because I am even a tiny consumer of videos of any kind.

[rrsteer]

I think what we see is a part of the evolution of web-forums. Over a period of time, like with e-commerce sires or internet portals, there was space for only a few - the best. Team-Bhp was/is the best forum.

If T-Bhp were a stock, I'd be bullish on its future. Reasons being:

1) The main object/s of discussion - automobiles. I think a unique product of mankind that intersects the domain of art and science. It will always warrant discussion - passionate ones - as its an art form; and the explanatory ones because of the engineering or science behind it. I personally feel video as a format can't do justice to this requirement.

2) The general long-term association of buyers with their automobiles - these span many personal stories, not all can/will be captured in video. We would could continue to share experiences with words.

3) Leadership: GTO/Moderators - I find them very passionate. So that takes care of the quality part.

4) T-Bhp model - One very interesting aspect of T-Bhp membership is that you have to earn it. And once earned you continue to get a very neat interface/ comparatively less ads/ great content etc.. This initial effort and the subsequent quality experiences, reinforce that this is the best place out there.

5) Captive audience - IT workers/ office goers sitting in- front of a screen all day/ working from home etc,. these slaves would need some distraction, you know, that moment of refreshment - what better way than to ogle at that dream car/ bike and read about it!
(you can't always play video in office. In my case, I can't play one, even at home or my wife knows I am not working and is quick to ask me to help her with a chore)