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I have, in several posts the last few months, suggested that the trains.com forums were "well attended", and had much valuable information, in spite of the slow and somewhat inconvenient format. This is still true, however, as weather gets colder, and model railroading activities resume for the winter, I have the impression of some dropoff in participation at trains.com. There seems to be far less daily input.Other forums, often with less useful basic MRR help, are getting busier than ever [ie: Trainboard, Atlas], but input here is dwindling. Maybe it IS time for trains.com to revamp their forums, at least somewhat, if they wi***o retain participants, and get some new ones. On the PLUS side, the trains.com forum is free from the personality problems and cliques that increasingly infect other forums.It would be a shame if a revamped trains.com forum simply became yet another vehicle for the same overexposed bunch, with their increasingly juvenile registry names, and their slogans-upon- slogans, befitting only those truly desperate for identity and attention.The LAST THINGS the online hobby needs is yet another "here's yet another photo of my latest whatever, isn't it great" contributor, or messages with rows and rows of smiley-face icons and annoying waving avatars, or "let's-all-post-photos-of ourselves" threads, or yet another "pretend coffee & donuts" group, or yet more "blind leading the blind" contributors, ("Experts" with 2 years experience providing bad information to other rookies). All of these are already well served elsewhere, since a serious model railroader needs no computer at all, and these folks go out of their way to prove it. ("Well served" being an understatement of massive proportions. )I doubt trains.com wants to have to supervise and monitor their forums to the degree now forced on other forums. I might get some opposition to this post from certain "other-forum" contributors, but that is of zero interest to me.They generally hide behind a cloak of anonymity when they post here, but are recognizable by content.I've probably encountered most of those lads before, and believe they best serve this forum by staying off it.This post is because I am very interested in what trains.com thinks about the topic in general, and potential changes to these forums in particular.Also from those who ask serious questions here, get serious answers, and don't want this to become yet another Mickey Mouse Club of online traingeeks, but DO want a faster and easier forum. I worry that if this forum becomes all the things people have wished it to be, that it will just become all the things I don't like about the others. regards / Mike
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