Porsch Pete's Boxster Board is dead - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

986rgt · 10-13-2010, 02:19 PM

Some a$$hat pushed Rob too far today, and he's hanging up the closed sign. Sad day for any of us that went to that site too.

derb · 10-13-2010, 03:38 PM

That's too bad, I liked that site. I saw the "That's All Folks" background earlier today and thought something was up but didn't know what.

Boxtaboy · 10-13-2010, 03:43 PM

He shoulda just banned the guy, and kept the board up. IMO, the board owner gets the right to decide what content they want on the board, and if people don't like it, leave.

jrblackbox · 10-13-2010, 04:01 PM

Maybe, he was planning this all along and he was waiting on a whipping boy, as last Friday he asked not to have any more donations sent to the board, and offered up a couple of other charities. I remember a couple of years ago I had sent in a donation that he declined, and the next thing I knew he shut the board down.

Jake Raby · 10-13-2010, 04:09 PM

Imagine that.. someone pissed someone else off on PPBB.

986rgt · 10-13-2010, 04:14 PM

It's not like it doesn't happen here either Jake. I know you had your issues with the site, but, for the most part it was a great place filled with great people. Lets just try to remember it as the great site that Chuck created all those years ago...

Burg Boxster · 10-13-2010, 04:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jake Raby

Imagine that.. someone pissed someone else off on PPBB.

Ah, the high road I see......

:ah:

986rgt · 10-13-2010, 04:08 PM

I almost think Rob was waiting for another explosion like this so he could do this and not have to deal with guys/gals like Aligator anymore. It really sucks though, been on that place since almost day one in 99...

ehanauer · 10-13-2010, 08:28 PM

Since Rob took over the site and made it a forum for his political views, I've spent less time there and more time here and at Planet 9. If I want politics, I'll go to a political site. PPBB was supposed to be about Porsches.

mshassere · 10-13-2010, 08:34 PM

Attacking rob. Im surprised he put up so long with the personal attacks. I respect him for dealing so well with the hacks.

Jake Raby · 10-13-2010, 09:29 PM

PPBB filled a void with a certain demographic... It was certainly my least favorite forum, really because of the "vendor hating" that was so widespread.. Those people seem to forget continually that without vendors their cars would be piles of junk. There it didn't matter if you were someone who sold bumper plugs or engines, some wise ass had something negative to say about what a company sold, how they sold it or how it cost too much... Never seen anything like it. Amazing.

When they kicked off a client of mine just because he posted that he visited my shop and was blown away, I was done with that crowd..

I'd bet PPBB will be back, someone will take it over or time will heal the wounds, it happened before a couple of years ago. If not that group will start a spin-off and it'll probably be full of vendor haters too.

Sorry for the stereotyping guys, lots of good people frequented PPBB.

Boxtaboy · 10-13-2010, 11:54 PM

What I want to know is how both Merlin33 and Ericindallas posted on PPBB long AFTER Rob shut it down! Did he turn it back on temporarily?

As for PPBB being vendor haters, I'm not sure they really were. I mean, they still welcomed Bumperplugs, Suncoast Porsche, Pedro and others. The board in general, just had a general rule that they didn't want vendors to overinfluence the main board itself because it actually detracts from the experience. A perfect example is 6speedonline where that board is flooded with vendors harassing folks with their wares...I mean how can you enjoy discussion on the forum if all you see are vendor ads disguised as informative posts on ECU reflashes, plenums, replica GT3 seats, sport exhausts...and how many wheel photoshoots does one need to see? They even have a subforum dedicated to vendor posts, but when I asked the board owners why they allowed vendor ad posts in their main boards too, they said yes, it was unfortunate, but their paid vendors told them that not enough people paid attention to their ads in the vendor forums, so they wanted to post in their main forums too. Ugh.

PPBB perhaps was extreme in filtering out vendors, but IMO, that was refreshing. I mean, if one wanted to get info on wheels, plenums, rep seats, and yes...even upgraded engines or engine parts, one could always just go to any of the other Pcar boards around. It's not like you can't find the info elsewhere, and even though PPBB was mostly vendor free, people there still had running cars that weren't a pile of junk....even without all those plenums, sport exhausts, fancy wheels, etc installed on their Boxsters. They just didnt need any vendor money to keep their board running. It was noise free discussion..except for the occasional politics.

Iflylow · 10-14-2010, 01:01 AM

I am new to PPBB, and it looks like they are shuttting it down? Is this a temp thing? I enjoyed the board, and got a lot of useful info.

This is my first time on this site, hopefully it will be the same.

mikefocke · 10-14-2010, 03:45 AM

that occurs when you try and run a public forum with thousands of users each wanting it their way. In this case "run" means everything from maintaining the hardware to providing the ISP to configuring the software to doing backups to answering users requests/emails/demands... And the fact that you are running it at a 90% loss so your family is funding it factors in. Where do you start and stop your commitment?

Anyone who operates in the public with competing demands on their time and fortune faces the same pressures. (As one who got 14 calls from his constituents the other day in addition to putting in 8 hours on the job site ...and I'm retired and a volunteer.) And probably has to face the family requests to share less of yourself with the hobby and more with them. (I'm so busy attending to other people's long neglected issues, I hadn't had the Boxster out in 2 weeks, for example.) So you ask yourself why you continue to do this. And when someone seems to challenge you...it is so easy to say "take this job and shove it...I don't need to take this".

Sometimes you rethink that emotional outburst but sometimes, on reflection, you feel that you feel better for stopping the pain.

While I much preferred the highly moderated politics free environment that existed when Chuck ran the board, I grew to tolerate Rob and Cecil's occasional forays into political opinion as a small price to pay for maintaining the active forum that it was...perhaps 5 to 10 times more active than any other I've found.

Jake Raby · 10-14-2010, 05:57 AM

When I refer to the "vendor haters" I am not talking about the sponsors, but more the members who even bashed the paying sponsors.

I have to say because of that type of member I was much less willing to help anyone on that board, even if they emailed me and said "I am a member of PPBB".. I've been on Porsche forums since Rennlist was just a newsgroup, before forums existed. In all those days I've never experienced a community like PPBB.

I have my own forums, primarily for aircooled Porsche and vintage VW engines... Its no problem to administrate, just run a tight ship and when crap starts take care of it swiftly. I never have issues and have almost 10,000 members.

ehanauer · 10-14-2010, 06:31 AM

I don't have numbers to back this up, but there seemed to be fewer and fewer posters on PPBB. In the old days, if I didn't check on one of my posts it would have moved down to page 2 within a day. Now a post remains on page one for three or more days.

I just think many people were turned off by Rob's political editorializing. We signed on to discuss Porsches. There are lots of political sites on the web, but too few Porsche sites. PPBB had been dying a slow death for the past couple of years.

Brucelee · 10-14-2010, 08:02 AM

Overall, this forum has been a very positive experience for me. Every once in a while, we get a nitwit or two but overall, you guys have been great.

I think keeping the politics over in the Lounge helps quite a bit. We allow folks to vent but keep them in quarantine as it were. Also, while politicians are fair game, the responders are not. I try to keep it from getting TOO personal and for the most part, that has been working.

You guys are a very solid group of forum members.