Team-BHP (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/)

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Team-BHP for me has been my go-to source in times, both good and bad. So much knowledge and camaraderie. That's a rare thing to find these days. While I have seen traces of content moderation and engagement across sites such as Revzilla, xBHP, and Car & Driver, none, as other BHPians have pointed out, can match our level of engagement. The sheer plethora of topics we talk about, across automobiles and life, is simply unreal and humbling. A big shoutout to the content moderators who have been instrumental in maintaining forum decorum! :)

Love the clutter free content here. I don't know why other forums died over a period of time, I never accessed one, but I'm sure there must be some reason for their downfall which I'm not aware of. I have always felt that anything can work or will be successful if its done with passion, which I can see on this forum, probably that passion was lacked on other forums.

I have accessed this forum as an outsider for 15 long years before I took the plunge last year to be as a member. With diminishing attention span and degenerative brain cells with age, my time on FB/Twitter/Instagram/LinkedIn was significantly reduced, till I had to let them go years ago, the only place which made me comfortable and glued was Team-BHP over all these years.

I can surely say, all the members put their heart into writing and pouring out their inner self. I can see the passion of the moderators to keep this place troll free and clean.

Travelogues by various members are my favorite to read during my spare time, picking up brains of some esteemed members always gives a different perspective. Technical know-how of Jeron always amazes me, GTO’s Mumbai drive to school for a cause opens my eyes, safety from Thad's point of view gives me minute details, Narayan sir's write up gives so much insight about life, Smartcat's level of knowledge about finances makes me think analytically and the list would go on and on. I must admit I have taken so much from this forum over these years that I'm in debt to all the members/moderators to keep this place worth coming again and again and again and consume the best possible content I could ever dream of.

PS. I don't have any social media/online presence anywhere else except here. I know the value of this forum, lest I would take any chances to deviate from the set decorum. Living a clutter free life.

Love the unbiased and high-quality content available on team-bhp. I feel many other auto publications and discussion platforms have gone to the dogs principally because they have had to compromise in their quest for monetization.

That raises the question of how team-bhp manages finances. I suppose that the content (such as official reviews ) is quite expensive to produce; hosting and maintenance costs would also be reasonably high. The only visible monetization I see is through ads (that too primarily aimed at non-members) and merchandise sales. Not sure if it is sufficient to meet costs.

Given how quality and independence are cornerstones of the team-bhp experience, wouldn't it be good if team-bhp has a "corpus" or capital of some kind (if it doesn't have one already) which it can count on even when external conditions are sub-optimal? Should we consider a Wikipedia style voluntary donation system if such a corpus is required to be built?

Apologies for the slightly off-topic post.

Exactly! And sometimes it's not just trolls. For example, the indian biking subreddit has mostly become a validation environment (to put it nicely) for newbies and riders who probably haven't even ridden the motorcycle being discussed. There's too much baseless negativity. I'm glad we have superb moderators on TBHP, due to whom there are respectful and high quality interactions amongst like minded people.

Mods will better know of the new users in the recent past and the age profile of the users in general. Forums are unique in a way that the "memory" of the content and retrieving ability is unmatched compared to other social media sites. Other sites don't offer that. However, people who are exposed to other social media sites in a young age may not be able to appreciate this quality. I wonder which other forums other than team bhp has such traction in the country/across the globe.

If I were to describe team-bhp in a sentence in the fewest possible words it would be as follows:

"team-bhp is the bible of automotive information."

Since I joined team-bhp nearly two decades ago, I have never come across any other forum which is even close to team-bhp. I really appreciate the censorship which never ever lets anyone put garbage or attempt personal attack on this website. I have myself received refractions, (may be twice or thrice for some post on covid-19) but at the end, I understood that it was not appropriate to some, hence should not be allowed to be published. Apart from this, I have always relished the treasure of information and team-bhp always has been "the website to go to" when it comes to cars to keep my-self abreast of the latest in the industry.

My experience is that dedicated manufacturer/model forums are still very much alive in countries such as USA, UK, Germany, the Netherlands, France and undoubtedly a few others countries with languages I don’t speak.

I have accounts on a number of Internet forums in all these countries. E.g. I posted a question about my Alfa Spider on AlfaBB today and within hours I had several replies.

The older the car/model the more likely you are to find a thriving Internet community and various forums. But these make/model forums tend to be 90% about fixing your car yourself.

TeamBHP has a unique and very wide range of car related topics. But TeamBHP members are not big on DIY it appears. There are exception of course, I do my utmost! :)

Not a big thing, because there is still plenty to read on just about any car topic under the sun. And I might add, quite a number of very interesting non car related topics too.

Without any doubt, TeamBHP is the best moderated forum I know. I would think it is a significant factor in its continuing succes. There is, pardon my French, simply no crap on TeamBHP.

Which makes for a refreshing environment, specifically if you compare with the Facebooks of this world. I am a member of several FB groups dedicated to certain make/models too. But I often wonder why. Somebody asks a genuine question and within hours there is so much crap in the comments. It is just mind boggling.

I am a firm believer that real good content will always win the day. Well, it will for me, any topic, any day.

Jeroen

Sir, I am a merchant navy engineer myself and do almost all the work I can whilst at home. Your threads are an inspiration and I started stocking tools after I came across your thread on the same. this was in my early years. But DIY and posting about it are two different things. The time and energy it takes to document through photographs and compile it online are exhausting. You make it seem a breeze.

https://www.mybmwi3.com
I came across a BMW i3 forum while researching for range extender based cars.
it seems to be pretty active.

https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/
It is for teslas only, I never used but it is active with a lot of members. (don't know about the quality of the content).

https://www.germancarforum.com/forums/
There hasn't been much activity lately in terms of new posts, but there is a lot of old content.

I've been an avid reader and follower of TBHP for last 10 years or even more.
Tried multiple times to get an entry so I could actually interact with the members - finally 2024 turned our to be a lucky year for me as I got my wish approved this year.
I may be at home or office any given day but the first page by default will be TBHP to check the latest posts.
TBHP has helped me making my first buying decision till the last one that I took last year to go for Ather Scooter.
Now I am hooked big time to Jimny and Thar threads to make my next purchase.
Vehicle reviews and ownership reports are my favourites with unbiased opinions towards all brands and Good, Bad, Ugly of all - I totally love that about TBHP.
More power to the community to go places from where we are today.

Cheers!!

While not car-related, one Indian web-based forum that's small but apparently doing very well IMHO is the one hosted by HiFi Vision. The moderators are not as active as ours, but the members there are mostly self-disciplined folks. Very passionate community about Hi-Fi and Home Theater. I learnt a lot from them, and if I am not mistaken many TBHPians are members there too. Not surprised at all.

https://www.hifivision.com/

I think so that many of the youngsters are gaining the information from YouTube as its looks interesting due to video, but there is a drawback as well of youtube, as a person cannot rely on the information which is provided by a person as it cannot be truthful or can be contradictory.However in forums there is a discussion between many people which means that a person can correct other person's information if it is wrong. People like to get engage in videos now-a-days.

I use y combinator's hackernews regularly. It is also a rather well regulated technology forum. But as pointed out here Internet forums are dying, for many reasons. For those who work in IT, would know the stackoverflow fiasco, not just now, where it banned users for deleting posts, when openAI is added to learn on it and add answers. That went from helpful to toxic, and then literally nuclear on its users.

Well moderated forums are those which respects it's people and are working on shared values of civility and trust. For some forums, the money ruined them. For some it is the lack of moderation or rising to newer challenges. Prolific Video has its part too, but forums should try to incorporate these new things and add value over and above them.

This forum right here, is a shining example, and I truly am happy to be part of it.

I feel like team-bhp is more than a forum. Like qaqa, I am not part of any other forum, nor have I ever tried, and I am also off all other social media, though I used to be on those earlier. I have stumbled across many via google searches, but never even felt remotely felt inclined to become registered member, let alone for one that has an application process (talking about you team-bhp).

So, why team-bhp? I don't really know, can't pin-point to any one reason. It can't just be that I'm really into cars, else I'd have tried other forums as well, even if just to be disappointed in them. Heck, I can't even recollect how I first came across this place. Perhaps a google search. It could be because in the anonymous internet that we live in, there is some sense of tangibility I feel, even though I've never actually attended a meet, everyone feels real, almost like this forum's application process is like an Aadhaar verification, although thankfully, I only had to do it that one time here. It could be because there is no political inclination, it could be because the reviews are the most comprehensive and non-journo like there is in the country, it could be that I was tired of reading sponsored drives in magazines, or it could be the shockingly high-quality of content from other disciplines such as V. Narayan's insights into the aviation industry, or Jeroen's boats which I'm so very jealous of. Maybe it's the fact that the community is so spread out, that I have met countless 'fellow-BHPians' during my travels, and when I moved abroad, I just knew there would be a team-bhp community there...there was! Now, I just need to gather the strength to mingle. It could be any one or all of those reasons.


The only negatives/areas of improvements that I can think of from my perspective is perhaps that I felt like the average age of most members is higher than mine, and though there are definitely members of all ages, all photos I see from meets are of people with families, which might be why I've probably shied away, although that might be an excuse....it's a me problem. The other is the under-representation/participation of women on the forum although I see them in almost equal numbers in the photos from meets. I think the world of motoring is making giant strides towards going that extra mile to include women, and I'd love for a forum of team-bhp's stature and repute to undertake initiatives to work towards that. I would also like to say that I like others here who grew up reading team-bhp learnt a lot of automotive terms here such as 'FNG' but my favourite is 'wifey' which I found hilarious the very first time I read it.

In conclusion, I think the fact that it attracts people who otherwise are not into online communities, is testament to how special it is.


You are absolutely correct in noting that. When it comes to DIY repairs, in my opinion, it has a lot to do with time availability as people tend to be overworked in India compared to North America for example where most people I know are back home by 5:30-6:00 PM, lack of infrastructure both in terms of not having attached garages as well as lack of rentable garages for DIY work, lack of DIY culture (I know people in the US who worked on and flew small planes/cars with their parents/grandparents help when they were 16, and they aren't rich either. You just don't have that in India), and of course there's the cheap labor.

When it comes to DIY mods, well it's plain illegal now, so even if you are doing it, you might want to take a call on whether or not you choose to publicize it.

Sorry for being old, but I assure you I was young enough (30s) when I joined. :)
You complain about old people on one hand and then admire the contributions of two 60+ members. Pick a side man... rl:
That's a common American lingo.
Most people who love to talk about cars are men. That is why car forums anywhere are mostly filled with men. If this was a fashion forum, the gender ratio would flip the other way. How do you suggest we change this?