As far as useful information, there is next to nothing of value here. Not compared to what is actually out there. As far as entertainment... well it depends. It takes all kinds, I guess. I mean, if you find Weird Al, or memes that were tired in 2010 funny... stick around.
When I started looking at this board about a year ago, it was the same thing. Different people, mostly, but similar amount of actual activity.
In fact, it seemed like even fewer people, and mostly was one guy proposing marriage to a provider and then getting all sad, and then she'd flirt with him, and he'd propose again. Don't know what happened to him. But it was like, him and 2 providers and a few other guys. That was like watching a loop of Wile E Coyote blowing himself up, funny at first...
Consider what you get by being active here? Nothing really. The information is rarely timely or as detailed as you can get elsewhere sooner. Also, what is there to discuss? I suspect the only reason there are any active users here is that there are people who like the "small pond" feel.
You can easily use TER, and not even visit the discussion boards. At least I did before about a year ago. The reviews and search functions of this site are the things that actually make it worth coming to, and you don't need to access the discussion boards to access those.
Finally, the board interface is terrible and makes it seem like a bunch of little individual conversations. Any thread which goes too deep in post count becomes messy, etc...
I will say that there is a very active community in another place online, and it has the critical mass of people to have actual information. Necessarily, it does center around the mid-level of the market, and there is a lot of activity at the bottom of the market. Not much at the top, because the upper levels don't need to relay information via message boards to survive (that's a whole different topic). The active message boards on TER in Ohio are centered around a very limited strata of the hobby. The dullest strata. The safest strata.
Posted By: bg513
I was fairly active on the boards a few years ago as I was just starting in "the hobby". I just recently decided to get back in and I noticed something very different. Back then and actually fairly recently (6 months ago or so from a search I did) this ohio board was pretty active and entertaining. What happened? Any chance of a concerted effort by the guys and gals to get this place entertaining and informative again? Thanks in advance for your replies.
-- Modified on 4/16/2014 7:34:39 PM