Forums or Facebook?

[wfb]

I am a long term lurker and occational contrbutor on this and a couple of other car forums. I have been a member here for many years and even when I let my last Marina go about five years ago I still looked in on the forum regularly as I enjoyed keeping up with members projects and advice. The bravery of Morris McKinnon's restorations, Josh Ward's amazing enthusiam for all things Marina and Kilroy's travel stories and indepth build ups have always kept me coming back. It has always felt like a close knit friendly community.

I can't help but notice that over that last few years that the amount of activity on forums seems to have slowed down. Have people moved away from forums and on to other social media platforms (facebook)? I have resisted being involved with facebook and social media in general as I feel that these companies have too much influence on the world we live in and by not being part of it I am in my own little way rebelling against there system.

I am now starting to think that I maybe cutting my nose off to spite my face as if the forum activity has shifted to facebook then I will be missing out on a lot of content and usefull infomation that I would enjoy and possibly want to be part of. So my question is, is there an active Marina/Ital community on other platforms that would warrant me joining up. What are other forum members opinions?

[KwS]

There are a few Marina groups on FB now, which is a pain in its self as everything is all spread out, but they seem somewhat active. Nothing can replace forums for write ups and being able to access information though. Facebook is for the generation what wants everything now, and don't want to trawl through a search to find what they need.

Both have their place, but I personally prefer forums. I've seen the move to FB happen to a lot of forums in the past, but lately, it seems as though a few forums are starting to gather steam again, so hopefully that continues as people realise its a better medium.

[Kilroy]

I suspect - from my own experience - that our actual involvement with the vehicles has slowed, and therefore the lack of forum activity is simply an echo of this.
It is not that we have lost enthusiasm for our vehicles of choice, but more that life has forced us to place our attentions elsewhere.
Facebook is a 'forum' of fickle choice for many, but when I peruse what people have to say there, especially when selling things, there are scant details, often minimal knowledge, and often very few grammatical skills to describe what it is they are trying to flog off.
Interestingly, the Marina FB pages are less guilty of such description, but they instill less community spirit than dedicated forums I feel.

My guess is - this is still planet earth's No.1 source of the real stuff people might need to know about Marinas.
I do include Itals in that statement...

[MarinaCoupe]

From the Owners Club perspective, we have found our Facebook and Instagram pages very useful in attracting interest in the cars. It has resulted in an increase in membership and is a very useful way of quickly getting a message out to those members that following them. We have about 300 club members, by comparison we have about 1500 followers on Facebook.

The virtue of Facebook & Instagram are their immediacy, you post and people respond almost instantly, there is a social side to it. The downside is that it’s pretty much uncensored, because of the immediacy, people often react first and think later, also people share what they believe to be correct, whether it is accurate or not. There’s often a lot of friendly banter, on the Marina pages, it’s generally well mannered, but on some other sites it’s quite toxic. So you often have to sift through comments to get an accurate feel for a subject. The biggest problem is that because of the sheer volume of comments, it’s impossible to go back to a subject or find what you or somebody else has said even a week later, let alone a year or more ago.

Personally I joined Facebook to check out the owners club pages, but it gets under your skin as you follow links down rabbit holes.

By comparison this and the other forums are organised in such a way that you can follow a string of comments and find it many years later, meaning you can use it as a repository of knowledge. As most people’s questions will have been dealt with before, you can search for answers without having to wait for responses unlike Facebook & Instagram , which are pretty much unsearchable. For example you wouldn’t get a reasoned string of contributions like this, without people throwing in spurious comments, pictures of their old cars, armchair warriors saying “they’re sh*t burn them all”, is it for sale, is that a Ford etc. etc.

Personally each day, I visit here first and then Facebook. Here to follow ongoing projects and other useful conversations and then Facebook to see what’s trending.

In summary I would say that they satisfy different needs and compliment one another rather compete.

[PHUQ]

Facebook is great for mickey taking, posting up photos of shows, reminiscing etc and has a much bigger "casual" engagement than the forum- people whose "Dad had one of them" or who were more actively involved years ago but no longer own a car. From a club's point of view as it's one of the first places people look for information these days it's crucial to have an official presence on there as a shop window to the club as much as anything else. I don't know how much of the traffic on the club pages actually translates into membership, but it's good for getting members together and showing that we're out there and doing stuff (well, when we're not locked down anyway).

For technical information, detailed blogs of car restorations etc forums win hands down. It's a shame that Photobucket's paywall introduction has lead to so many photos disappearing though.

I actively use both regularly, although in support of the Owner's Club most of my ramblings end up in the magazine these days.
Incidentally despite what a lot of people think the forum isn't affiliated with the club- it's privately run by Ben, who is also on the Club Committee of course so there is an overlap, but it's funded by Ben & donations from forum users.

Chris has written pretty much the same thing while I was writing this, but I've typed it out now so I'm going to post it anyway

[wfb]

Thanks for your thoughts guys. So far the theme seems to be that forum and facebook activity are different to each other in the quality and depth of there content. Forums for proper indepth project write ups / technical discussion and facebook for quick comments and posting some pictures etc.

Kilroy has made a very good point in his reply, that as our lives change so will our use of this forum. When I signed up I had newly joined the then very active Marina Eccose club and was attending some sort of event most weekends over the summer period. I had several projects on the go at the same time and they actually got finished. I didn't have a child, my wife and I lived in a modest house that suited our needs at the time and I was self employed with minimal overheads which meant I was able to pick and choose my working hours. Fast forward the 14 years since I joined and all of that has changed. I am now a dad, I now have a much bigger mortgage, we now have ageing parents needing care and pre covid my business was employing 3 people and had all the overheads that they bring and the cost of premises/vans/insurances etc.

If all these things have happened to me then it stands to reason that similar lives are being lead by other forum users. If we have less time for our cars then we will have less stories to share about them. Project cars that used to take me 12 month to complete are now taking 5 years plus and are still far from finished.

I am aware that the forum and the club are separate entities and do see the point that in order to promote the club and share infomation that facebook is a prefered platform as the shear number of users will always make its reach far greater than any forum. The kind of activity that I was thinking of was more along the lines of are these other Marina/Ital groups the places where people are now sharing cars and parts for sale, barn finds being unearthed and Marinas being spotted out on the road etc. The little every day occurances that used to pop up on forums that don't seem to be as common now.

[david painter]

From my perspective I have always liked Marina's this goes back to first starting in the motor trade from school. I had two coupes and a pick up. it was whist recovering from a operation several years ago i found the forum with the help of StutheGasman previous owner of one of my coupe's and time on my hands . I found it very informative reading a lot of what was there before posting anything. When i answer a question i personally try and be as accurate as possible, in the hope it will serve as a good technical archive. Through the forum I met Tony and eventually became a club member. As far as Facebook goes I personally have no interest in it whatsoever, as others here have mentioned its far two instant and seems to lead to arguments from what i have heard but have no first hand knowledge of. I think the popularity of facebook has risen with the younger ( instant) generation living on their phones and using them for everything. My use of mobile is for ringing and texting a bit camera is handy as is watts app for sending pictures but that's it
Dave

[lock1506]

Hi Barry, as you know I've had marina's for well over 25 years now, (yes Matty I'm getting on now lol) and as I have a few other classics as well I dip in and out of other club forums but I've always been a solid marina club member. I find our club the most helpful and welcoming and we are quite a close knit group I think and the forum is always my first port of call to see what people are up to. Rover SD1 forum is another good one. I did join facebook about 2 years ago because that became the easiest way to find out what shows and autojumbles were on or not. Two other clubs I was in both had forums that nothing ever happened on as they had moved over to facebook, where they just seem to be open for lots of uncalled for comments and I didn't feel like you were really part of a club on there.

[JoshWard]

I must admit I find car groups on Facebook a bit painful. There are so many different ones, I have lost count of how many Marina ones there are! Also forums seem to attract people who are much more genuinely enthusiastic. Forum's aren't immune from it, but people who don't know their trunnions from their elbows are far more numerous on Facebook groups. Forums also don't seem to attract the wannabe wheeler dealers quite so much who, anytime an old car comes up for sale, immediately descend on it with 'how much m8?', 'pm me' etc. The immediacy can be useful but quite often you will see somebody asking for help with something, attract a million different replies, of which 99% will be completely inaccurate. Any time I have had to ask a question I have had far more luck asking on here.

I have also increasingly found that Facebook groups get filled it with random images just copied and pasted from Google. So, whilst there's lots of 'content' it's not new or high quality in any way. The same content invariably then gets shared round every single group associated with that particular car.

I used to be a regular 'forum-ite', on a number of different old car forums. Most of them have died away as a result of Facebook. It is possible to keep them going though. My other hobby, vintage electronics, has one particular very active forum. There is a Facebook group but it doesn't get used to the same degree and again attracts the same things I find annoying about car groups, the forum side of it doesn't!

I think the 'scene' itself has changed fairly recently as well which affects things. I have pretty much been priced out of the Marina market, helped by those wannabe wheeler dealers, and the type of person who is a Marina owner is very different to even just a few years ago. Going back a few years there were a few mad enthusiasts with dozens of crusty Marinas. Now there are far more people with a general interest, I.E. they buy a Marina because they want a 70s car but are not necessarily die-hard Marina enthusiasts. I suppose really, that is a good thing. We have always wanted the cars to be more popular. I am just selfish about it as I can't afford them now Instead I find myself looking to 1960s and older cars as the prices of those are slipping behind the 70s/80s stuff. That might be why we see fewer posts on here though. With cheap Marinas being dragged out of garages becoming rarer, that inevitably means fewer project threads etc.

I don't post as much on here as I used to, but that's mainly because I am not buying crusty Marinas every month now. I am also conscious of the need to create content for the Club magazine. I know the Club has received negative comments from some members if magazine content has been repeated elsewhere. For the same reason, when I do post a thread on a Marina Facebook group, I only ever use the official Club one. I do respond to content on other Marina groups.

I guess in some ways I am just a bit of a grumpy old man when it comes to social media anyway. You'd certainly never guess it is a quite considerable part of my day job. Maybe that's why I have little interest in it in my spare time, I would much rather be messing around with cars!

[marina12]

This is a great forum. Because of its style and subject it works best as such.

Perhaps the scene now means the remaining Marinas and Itals have a better chance of survival which is a good thing.

Twentyish years seems to be a when a model is nearly worthless: think MK1 Ford Focus which were new when the internet was a new thing to many (don’t think there was Facebook then). Now less and less seemingly a daily car and are just becoming of interest.

Understand the point about being priced out of the market- started looking as they just started moving seven or so years ago and they haven’t stopped so no car for me.

Pricing means our cars are no longer a cheap to enter hobby- it’s now having something worth a four figure sum sitting in the parking place most of the time ( unless it’s dailied).

Added to that a forty year old car now may well need structural work ( just been quoted a price for a repair on something newer and non Marina/Ital) and it’s not cheap- some didn’t last ten years back in their heyday. Seen brilliant work on the forum so know it’s possible.

Off topic the whole electric vehicle thing is now a reality which whilst not holding prices back for our cars does make thoughts arise on long term viability or lack of ( fuel availability, emissions control zones etc), unless a electric power system is fitted- expensive but possible.

Just a few thoughts some of which are off topic.

[wfb]

Having seen the bullying tactics that Facebook are trying to intimidate the Austrailian government with I think I will leave signing up for a while. I felt that these tech giants had too much control in peoples lives before this happened and Facebook have just re enforced this opintion by there actions. I am sticking with the forum (not that I was ever leaving but thought that there might be additional content elsewhere) and will try to contribute more.

[PHUQ]

People answering questions incorrectly (and often then getting upset when you correct them- "well, I was just trying to help") on Facebook is a particular bugbear of mine, I guess because it's so easy to throw out an answer without thinking about it people feel compelled to answer even if they don't have the foggiest what they're talking about. If I don't know for sure but think I'm right I'll make it clear that I'm just providing some information for further research. You do get the same questions asked over and over again.

In terms of pictures as Josh said there's a lot of "like collectors" who just post pictures they find on the 'net (without bothering to credit them, so it's not like you can follow up and get more information if there's something interesting), or the same pictures they've posted over and over... particularly so this last year where we've not been able to go anywhere anyway. This means the interesting stuff- technical info, people posting up historic photos etc etc can get lost in the repeated stuff, especially as Facebook's algorithms seem to to decide some odd things.

I do think Josh has a good point with the changing scene, with more interest in ready to go cars at the higher end of the scale with owners who are perhaps less inclined to muck in at the more technical end of things. They might love their cars but can get their "fix" from Facebook more than the forum.

I definitely think there's a place for both and I think a lot of the Facebookers would get a lot from the forum if they were prepared to put a bit of time in; you definitely lose out on some of the social side by not being on Facebook but very little actual knowledge.

I feel bad not posting more of my own project stuff on here but as a committee member I have to be biased towards the "third way"- the magazine. I've helped a member out today who uses his van every day but isn't online at all, so there's definitely still a need for a world outside of the www!

[ScreamingLordStokes]

I think Martinclan's post concerning the brake servo and master cylinder illustrates the value of this forum. There's been advice, practical solutions, offers of parts, a really super response from all concerned.

[Gee tc]

I use both.
However this is far superior on here.
No trolls and knowledgeable people who actually know what they're talking about.
FB is good to post pics, announce news and events and to wind Josh up!

[wfb]

Ok, so I have finally crumbled and signed up to facebook! There seems to be more and more car related stuff happening on there. As people have mentioned a lot of it is batter and photo posting but there does also seem to be more spares and cars coming up on there too. The forum is still the place for project threads and technical talk but facebook has a huge number of users that just wouldn't visit the forum.

So the next quetion is what groups would the facebook users recommend a newbie like me to join? The offical club page and the disscussion pages of course but what else is good?