Celebrating India's biggest automotive community: 2 decades & counting

From petrol & diesel conversations changing to ICE vs EV debates, smartphones replacing our basic Nokias, ChatGPT & AI - Team-BHP has discussions on everything.

GTO recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Team-BHP went live before the term "social media" was even coined! And this behemoth has weathered it all like a champ, thanks to all of you. Without you BHPians, Team-BHP is nothing. With you members, Team-BHP is a champion. In the 20 years since Team-BHP.com went live, we have consistently grown & matured through vast changes in the landscape = mobile internet explosion (earlier, desktop was our main source of traffic), the rise & fall of larger platforms (Orkut, Google+, MySpace, Digg), petrol & diesel conversations changing to ICE vs EV debates, smartphones replacing our beloved and basic Nokias, Covid & its implications on work as well as life in general, ChatGPT & AI, Tata & Mahindra becoming the talking points instead of Honda & Toyota, the death of print media, 100 mbps internet connections instead of 512 kbps, India emerging as a superpower ....content remains king & there will always be need + demand for high-quality discussions. The fact is, we have had our 3 best-ever months of traffic in 2023-24.

In our 19 birthdays so far, we have celebrated a lot of what Team-BHP has, including memories, what it gave us, trivia, being different, the only large & active "road safety" website section in India & more.

Let's shift a gear on our 20th birthday...

On this milestone birthday, let us celebrate what Team-BHP does NOT have.

Easy Registration, Easy Posting

This is not an open forum where one can simply register, and start posting. This isn't a casual forum. Less than 1% of forums worldwide follow this philosophy and almost no one of our size does so. Yet, this move is critical to Team-BHP's health & quality. We want our discussions to be thought-provoking, educative, interesting & fun. For that to happen, we request all new members to be very thorough with their membership applications. Trivia: On a monthly basis, for every 1 BHPian who posts on Team-BHP, there are 1,500 readers. Our monthly readership recently nudged 50-lakh individuals.

Trolling, Abuse, Personal Attacks

Admit it, trolls have completely destroyed social media & even Twitter or Facebook - with all their billions of dollars - cannot control the troll problem. Well, on Team-BHP, we don't have a troll problem. We have zero tolerance towards trolling. If we find any member indulging in trolling, we warn first; if the habit persists, then it's a ban. We work hard to keep Team-BHP safe for YOU, senior citizens, women, children...no trolling, no bullying, no flamebait.

ChatGPT / AI

ChatGPT & AI are game-changers, but not necessarily in the area of content. On Team-BHP, we take pride in our original thoughts, ideas & opinions. We're here to learn from one another, not a machine. Our forum rules were recently amended to include an AI point and a few members have already been banned for using ChatGPT in their posts.

Repeat Threads

One of the things that kills forums is "repeat threads" on the same topic. We judiciously merge new threads, sometimes running multiple thread merges / deletions within a handful of hours. If you want to know which 20-lakh SUV to buy, please continue in an existing thread instead of starting yet another "Grand Vitara Vs...." thread. From time to time though, we make exceptions only for senior members & don't merge their query, even if it's a repeat discussion. But 90% of repeat topic threads get merged with an existing thread. This screenshot is from the What Car -> SUVs & Crossovers section.

Lack of Content

Quite the contrary, actually! On our mobile homepage, we have space for 15 Hot Threads in the default view (before you have to click "load more"). And on most mornings, we play with a list of 20 - 25 great threads / posts that deserve to go to our homepage hot threads. It's a good problem to have & we circulate our backlog list within the group on a daily basis. We usually add 14 every day, just to give the 1st hot thread of the previous day, homepage presence on two days (assuming that yesterday's top thread was a very high-value one). Team-BHP is an extremely-busy, high-activity forum!

Compromising OUR Privacy

We haven't ever sold your personal data to anyone. We don't bombard your email inbox with marketing messages. We don't send you spammy PMs with brand promotions. We allow you to choose a username that completely hides your identity. We won't share your email address with anyone. If you upload your car service invoices, we'll ensure that all personal details (e.g. address, phone) are blanked out. In that sense, I like to believe we are the "Apple" of websites as that is also another company very serious about safeguarding the privacy of its users.

Sponsored Content & Advertorials

Forget the lame Indian car magazines that have been doing this since the 1990s. We now find ourselves in an unfortunate era of content where a corporate can buy anything = the front page of Times Of India, YouTube videos, posts on social media, praiseworthy articles so sweet that you'll end up feeling sick, even the mighty New York Times has succumbed to it...the industry has come up with some ridiculous names for it = native advertising, advertorials & so on. The problem is so severe & misleading that some governments have made it mandatory to disclose to the reader that the article is sponsored. On Team-BHP, we don't do sponsored content. We haven't taken a buck for a word posted on Team-BHP. When we review, it's like this, making the pros & cons crystal clear at the very beginning. If auto manufacturers block our access to their cars for a negative review or member thread, we source test-drive vehicles from BHPians.

Spam & Frivolity

On this forum, BHPians insist that one should post ONLY when they have something of value to add. There is no "kewl pics" or "nice car" or "u suck" commenting here. Team-BHP would rather have a 1.5-page discussion with solid insights, over a 10-page discussion with one-word responses. Just look at what happened to Quora (among other social media platforms)! Team-BHP insists that all of us post ONLY when we have something of value to add to the thread; otherwise, it's better to simply read + thank useful posts. The best way to know if you're following this is to look at your thanked Vs post counts. Ideally, your thanked count will always exceed your post count, even if you're a newbie with 21 thanks off 15 posts.

Immature, Dangerous & Sensitive Content

Nope, there are no posts on drunk driving here. Or bragging about doing 200 km/h on the Atal Setu Sea Link. Or Racist Posts. Or Politics. Or Religion. Instead, on Team-BHP, we believe in having constructive discussions on cars, bikes, road-tripping & other aspects of life in India.

Poorly Written Posts

This is especially an achievement in India, where merely 0.1% of the population speaks English as their first language, and approximately 30% can speak English to "some" extent. We are very particular about the quality of language used for automotive discussions & are proud of the fact that an overwhelming majority of posts are well-written (or at least, acceptably written). Not 100% of them, of course, and it's an everyday exercise, but the Mod Team keeps pushing, editing, requesting and taking action where necessary. In total, there are ~7,000 Moderator Actions every month on Team-BHP. You really cannot get away with "Well, v can b frndship wid another Hyundai cars ownerss nd kn w abt thngs abt Hyundays and al that!!. We can knwing how to modify our cars" or "I AM VERY INTERESTED IN CAR......... I WANT TO MODIFIED MA MAHINDRA XUV700 BEASTY VEHICAL........"

Here's to celebrating the lack of junk on this platform! Here's to continued striving to keep it clean. Happy 20th Birthday, Team-BHP

Here's what BHPian Rehaan had to say on the matter:

Wow... 20 years! And it's pretty much just flown by

As each first-time visitor reads something they like, as each visitor decides to sign up as a member, and as each BHPian spends yet another day visiting Team-BHP -- we only grow stronger and stronger!

A big thanks to each and every one of you (members & readers alike).

Look forward to everything that is yet to come.

Here's what BHPian DogNDamsel12 had to say on the matter:

Happy 20th to this wonderful forum. Happy to have been a part of the forum, which I had tracked for some time even before joining the forum. I'm so used to the forum that sometimes even while experiencing anything related to cars/travel, in my head I am thinking of sharing it in the forum, albeit I may not be able to do that for the paucity of time.

Also, GTO thanks for keeping the forum safe for everyone, as you aptly mentioned. Personally, I consider trolling = bullying. It is a punishable offence in many cultures. But in current times, social media has given fancy names to bullying such as trolling, roasting and whatnot, to normalise bullying. This ends up silencing the majority, and interactive forums go dead. I am very grateful, therefore, that the Team-BHP forum safeguards the dignity of all members alike. Especially, shout out to the mods, who work untiringly to maintain the hygiene of the forum.

Going from strength to strength, despite the personal anonymity sometimes, the members are all "threaded" together. Congrats and cheers!

A photo from this year, when a group of women drivers met up in Kolkata, including the wife of BHPian PapaBravo, the wife of BHPian GhostRider28 and the mom of PredatorWheelz!

Here's what BHPian AtheK had to say on the matter:

Amazing journey, while I did sign up sometime back it was only during the last few years that I really became very active on the forums. The content here is absolutely top class and I really don't see a reason to visit any other forums.

Congratulations to GTO, moderators and all the members on your 20th birthday and wishing many more in the near future.

Here's what BHPian ex-innova-guy had to say on the matter:

Congratulations to Team BHP for this incredible milestone and what a journey! Had read the previous forum birthday posts and it feels so nostalgic.

I personally like how the content on here is written and how a BHPian respectfully disagrees with any other member’s views and there are healthy debates if any. Have learnt a lot over the year and with each passing day I yearn for more. A lot to learn from each and every one of you. Thank you all for the wonderful contribution to the forum and hope we can have a Mega meet someday.

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.