There have been some big fundamental changes to Ratebeer over the last year or so. Some people think for the better, some for the worse and some feel it’s needed to keep track with the modern world.
I myself have been considering the big question a lot lately especially now I have hit the 5k milestone.
Should I stay or should I go?
For those of us who use the forums it will be more keenly felt, than those who use Ratebeer solely as a database.
I however know some long standing members have left ratebeer or the forums at least at the beginning of the investment announcement and others are talking of leaving still due to various changes past, present and future.
I for one am undecided. I do think it’s useful to know what others think though as we tend to chat in our own little groups of like minded people and don’t see the bigger picture.
There are definitely concerns (most importantly, RB’s complete inability to fix long-standing problems), but not enough for me to want to abandon ship. That said, it gets incredibly dejecting to be paying for Premium when it doesn’t seem to result in new features or new stats.
I like the new forums. And undeniably we have more forum traffic.
And how stupid is it to throw away all the thousands of ratings we put in here now?
Also, the forums are the place where I’ve met a lot of real life friends, and where I will stay to find people to meet up with if I travel to new places. I don’t see any other way to find such people. You just have to dive in there.
On the other hand, if I am really honest, it was only your toy stories that kept me going, so who knows what I’ll do in the future :P:P:P
One last fucken toy box story would be fitting if you choose to leave. I’m gonna stick around, I think, but I’ve transferred my rakes to Untappd as you know and I’ll jump off whenever the fuckery becomes overwhelming.
I think these forums are a huge improvement over the old ones. They’re missing some of the integration from the main site like showing our ratings/places next to our usernames, but aside from that I don’t see any problems with them.
The overall changes have been pretty divisive. I’ve not been happy with all of them but some of them have been needed. I’ve also been pretty vocal about my suggestions to improve the site, I hope they catch joe’s attention and he takes them seriously, but in the absence of his Friday Missives who knows what’s in the pipeline? I feel like it’s worth sticking around for a while to see what happens though. You’re also a Premium member so I’d say stay at least until that runs out then rethink this decision then, if we’re still in the same situation then yeah, leave, go for it, but I see no reason to leave at this point in time.
If you do leave, what will you do? Just stop rating? Move to BA or UT? Maintain your own database of ratings?
Getting to 5k requires some dedication and it seems strange that someone would just give all that up.
I completely disagree that we have more forum traffic, at least in terms of substantive contributions, as compared to only a couple of years ago. I also think many of the longtime members of this site use it solely as a dumping ground for their ratings now, and that the community part of the site has dropped off precipitously.
I can understand why would say this, but the forums has deteriorated badly into insider jokes and have been getting better as of late. And the numbers don’t lie.
I’m staying but do wish more effort into actual site (maps, stats, awards) I’ve no need for an app or a NorCal beer fest. The new forums are fine by me (don’t care about badges but they don’t offend me) my issues is there no local forum for any place I frequent, live in Florida family in New England neither of which made cut. I used post a decent amount in NYC forum but even that was a touch dead. I feel the US should just be divided into like 6 regions so we all have somewhere to post local stuff.
Thats Partly. Life. People tend to drift away, and partly the changing environment.
I firmly belive that Face book and other social media is as much competition to RB as untappd is
When i joined RB it was one of 2 places to go. Now thought the market is much bigger there so many other places that people are already that cover beer.
I took a lot of flack fro trying hard to get stuff started in the new forums, but i think if RB is to thrive that interesting forum discussions will play a big part of that
I am not stressy about what’s happening. I don’t enjoy the new Forum format and my use of this area has dropped off quite a lot since the change plus the inability to fix some of the ongoing problems is disappointing.
I am an advocate for new and better Stats, particularly on Country splits and these just don’t seem to happen. I don’t bother with badges or awards, not interested.
What I do get from the site outweighs the disadvantages though, so I will continue on here, I have had a look at Untapped and it just seems a bit basic, there is no feel of quality to it.
It seems to be a common theme amongst most long time forum posters that they just don’t engage as much with these forums as they did on the old ones. Surely this can’t be good.