RMweb

[Pebbles]

Any Idea as to what's happened to RMweb? I just get an error message.

[Hatfield Shed]

RMweb was advertised as running slowly for about a couple of weeks prior to current unavailability. I would imagine someone has made the decision to accept being offline to rectify the cause of this slow running problem.

[Pebbles]

Many thanks, just thought I was going mad!

[Dave S]

It had some faults and slow running over the last few weeks which the hosting company denied was happening, then on Monday/Tuesday it completely fell apart. I don't use Facebook but there are some updates on there

https://m.facebook.com/rmwebupdates/?re ... yDxpMA6pp8

When you see the term 'Disaster recovery position' that usually means a lot of work for someone.

[burnie]

There was talk of it being moved to another host as the previous one wasn't running very well, I have previously been a moderator on another forum outside of the model railway field, they used the same provider as rmweb, it was very poor and they moved to another provider and got a much better service. I think forums as a platform are not as popular as they were, with most users going to social media type platforms, as a result I am not sure forums get the same input of technology that other applications get these days, mostly us old fogeys that use forums and computers...........

[Atlantic 3279]

I was surprised that RMWeb had been down for several days yet I'd seen no comment about it in the sections of this forum that I normally visit. Maybe I should have looked in the right place?

I'm not sure I'm an old fogey yet, although opinions on that may differ depending on the age and attitude of the person providing the opinion. Whatever the case, I far prefer the organised structure of a forum to the apparent chaos and trivia on trendy low-brow "social media".

[mick b]

Before it died, the ignore function was disabled and every mundane or otherwise posts were all displayed. It was amazing how much ongoing total crap, had recived the ignore button in the past!!.

Other then a couple of threads, I havent missed it for a minute.

[Atlantic 3279]

Whilst this is purely personal, unfounded, idle imagination, a question did crop up in my mind, and that was whether hosts might deliberately ignore, or at least pay rather less attention to, faults reported by a forum's management, in a form of retaliation following a forum's reluctance to allow a ton of intrusive advertising?
I do know that there's a school of thought that suggests that businesses should simply get rid, by neglect or refusal of service, of those customers who fail, even after inducement and encouragement, to comply with high spending/profitability targets.

[mick b]

Perhaps Warners the owners have realised that it is not the Cash Cow they thought they could turn into when they bought it.

Perhaps they thought everybody would suddenly pay up for Gold membership ?.Clearly that ploy has'nt worked, the awful advertisng banners etc were easy to get rid off with a Ad Blocker. Instead they lost a lot of people ,as result of that hoped for intrusive money maker. Not helped by a website provider, producing a total disaster of a site that simply couldnt cope with the level of traffic.

Has it has simply got "to Big for its Boots" as I said before , why has a Model Railway Forum, got threads for Cycling, Formula One etc etc etc . Say the wrong thing on there , and everybody knows the response from the so over the top Mods in charge. Perhaps they have should spent more time on limiting the free for all for subject threads., quantities of photographs etc etc being posted.

Its still off at the present time , I am now beginning to wonder if it will ever return in a similar format ??. Doubtful at best.Or at all.

[Dave S]

I became a little disillusioned with it over past months for various reasons and removed 90% of my content, but it's the biggest (or one of) and it will be back with a different hosting provider, (If I understand correctly it's Amazon?)

The last year it was 'private' cost £20,000 for the year to run, so I doubt Warners thought it was a cash cow. The advertising is annoying but I doubt it covers the cost of running it yet so expect to see more.

[mick b]

I became a little disillusioned with it over past months for various reasons and removed 90% of my content, but it's the biggest (or one of) and it will be back with a different hosting provider, (If I understand correctly it's Amazon?)

The last year it was 'private' cost £20,000 for the year to run, so I doubt Warners thought it was a cash cow. The advertising is annoying but I doubt it covers the cost of running it yet so expect to see more.

Warners had a yearly turnover of $26.3 million for 2021

https://www.dnb.com/business-directory/ ... 19274.html

£20,000.00 a year to a company with that kind of turnover is a tiny amount of money to invest.

What is coming appears to be is zero free useage, whether Warners are making or losing money on RM Web who knows. I presume Warners are paying the main moderators a wage as well as the Web fees.

Warners other than a very occasional mention, appear to have very little if any input in the running of RM Web.

[Hatfield Shed]

Once inside a business, there is no escape from the question of 'what return is being achieved for this spend?'. Having failed to monetise the site by the non-compliance of the majority of participants to the voluntary paid membership proposal, I suspect this will become compulsory. It was a good run while it lasted; I departed from active participation a couple of years past due to the deluge of under-informed comment...

...I far prefer the organised structure of a forum to the apparent chaos and trivia on trendy low-brow "social media".

Total old fogey here, spending more and more of the available time reading books.

[Dave S]

Warners had a yearly turnover of $26.3 million for 2021

https://www.dnb.com/business-directory/ ... 19274.html

£20,000.00 a year to a company with that kind of turnover is a tiny amount of money to invest.

What is coming appears to be is zero free useage, whether Warners are making or losing money on RM Web who knows. I presume Warners are paying the main moderators a wage as well as the Web fees.

Warners other than a very occasional mention, appear to have very little if any input in the running of RM Web.

If you go to Companies house a quick scan of their returns reveals the company isn't in bad shape with a turnover of £19 million, but while revenue from publishing and distribution has increased, advertising revenue has dropped by £700,000+ over one year. It employs 181 staff with a wages bill of £6.8Million which is 35% of their income. So maximising the products they have has to be a priority for them and using RMWeb to increase revenue is a no brainer.

Although the running costs of RMWeb for the last year when 'private' were £20,000, the reality was the pot was empty as too few paid for it, if Warners hadn't stepped in it wouldn't be here. The current website is many times larger than the last private incarnation and the hosting fees etc are well into 6 figures which is a drain on any company resources irrespective of how big the turnover is.

I've become a bit disillusioned with the box opening and frothing, as well as the moaning about cost and accepting reduced detail and poor quality models so I removed my content. I still look in and occasionally contribute, but it obviously suits others rather than me which is shown by its popularity and sheer number of users (30,000+ last time I looked)

[Atlantic 3279]

...I far prefer the organised structure of a forum to the apparent chaos and trivia on trendy low-brow "social media".

Total old fogey here, spending more and more of the available time reading books.

I'm always delving into one or other book from my collection of volumes on railways of the past. At present I'm completely re-reading John Quick's 2013 book on the Robinson loco liveries of the GCR, as although my D7s will be finished in 1930s LNER livery the old habits of the painters at Gorton are still of some relevance. But that's a digression from the RMWeb theme...

[JASd17]

You do the right thing Mr Atlantic Sir.

I have the same routine.

Again, apologies for any deviation from the RMweb thoughts.

Still busy copying timetables here. But everyone knows I am not quite all there.

John