What's going on with PB Nation??

[The Jayster]

This is not a post to disparage PB Nation, as I used to be active over there as well and never had issues with it - except for that late 90's/early 2000's phase when it was full of unruly and uncouth teenagers but that could be hardly PBN's fault.

No I mean the News section is barren, the main sub-forums are moribund, etc. I visited the sale section a few days ago and you can now go back a month's worth of posts on a single page, whereas in the not too distant past you would post your sale at 1 pm and by 5 you'd find it on the fourth page (...)

I know John Dresser now works for GI but I wouldn't see the link between that and PBN's current state. I'd think that in general forums aren't so popular anymore (all that reading and writing...), that they belong to the "Internet 1.0" era, that people prefer to exchange on FB, etc. Also, paintball is not nearly as popular as it used to be (although not necessarily dying as some would say).

By contrast, MCB seems more lively. Granted, we have our lot of core posters and it seem to cater a tad more towards old-timers (like myself) and/or die-hard players, which could explain the difference.

What's your opinion?

[warbosschoppa]

Facebook happened, ease of uploading images and making posts. Manufactures have their own pages that their social media teams can immediately put out information on products or teasers for stuff. The ability to upload videos. And overall more users in general. PBN didn't have a mobile app which is how I am assuming almost everyone these days accesses the internet. Those of us with desktops or laptops are in the minority these days.

[The Jayster]

"Those of us with desktops or laptops are in the minority these days." Excellent point, and you can say that again.

Like everyone else I have a mobile phone, with which I have a love/hate relationship. Yesterday I was downtown and chaperoning my girl with her cousin and they wanted to go to Starbucks (...) Pulled out my phone and knew instantly where to go. Cool. Yet, I hate using it for anything but such snap queries and (gasp) actually talking on the phone (and limited texting, cuz I'm not keen on talking to people... I'm turning into an old curmudgeon).

I'm a die-hard laptop user. I do *everything* with it. Such as writing the post I'm writing right now! It baffles me when I see people who own only a mobile phone and use it to, say, shop for a vacation and book it through their mobile.

[warbosschoppa]

I'm a desktop user with multiple monitors, note pads up, calculators, spreadsheets videos and websites. I have no idea how the hell people can do anything only on a 7" screen. My phone literally just for music and gps haha.

[Euphie]

warbosschoppa I hear you there, I am typing this on my 43" monitor and I love it! That and I can type 90wpm on my desktop, I used to be a transcriptionist after all, but I absolutely struggle to get any sort of speed out of typing on my iPhone SE with it's 4.7" screen

[superman]

John does work for GI, but also runs pbretro so that likely is eating up alot of his spare time.

Honestly the biggest thing pbnation has going for itself is that it has the information that can semi easily be found/searched. Aside from that there isn't really any new information being posted or aside from peoples individual projects. I thought that fb cracking down on sales would see an influx of people posting/visiting but it appears that is not really the case.

I have seen way more people coming to mcb because it is significantly more active with old people that know stuff.

[iamthelazerviking]

Yep ^^^^ smart phones and Facebook + reseller websites. Instead of going to the forums with technical questions, there's a FB group where it will get answered within minutes. BST is easier, faster. Instantaneous notifications.

[warbosschoppa]

Which is a curse and a blessing, it is great people can get questions answered but sadly it doesn't archive nearly as nice as forums do for future knowledge preservation.

[The Jayster]

"Which is a curse and a blessing, it is great people can get questions answered but sadly it doesn't archive nearly as nice as forums do for future knowledge preservation."

Excellent point - how many times were we able to find a solution to a problem by performing a search through forums?

[superman]

Not to mention that if you are not in a specific group, chat etc then you can't access that info. Even worse is say if fb decides they no longer want you to be a part of their community, aka bans you. you don't have access to search any of it that is made public unless by happen stance via google.

[warbosschoppa]

This is very true

[Trbo323]

there's a FB group where it will get answered within minutes. BST is easier, faster. Instantaneous notifications.

I disagree with most of this.

Yes you can get AN answer quick but it's often someone with little to no experience so it's a shot in the dark if it's correct

The bst pages often require you to sign up so it's not faster in that respect. Lose a post? Good luck finding it

I get instant notifications for MCB. That's one of the reasons I use Tapatalk. I can also control what notifications I get. I can control if I get a notification for any thread, post or if someone quotes me. It works across multiple forums so I have MCB, AO and PBN all coming into my feed.

Facebook is garbage in comparison, nothing is organized, everyone asks the same 5 questions because there's no great way to search for an answer only ask it yourself. Low-ball galore when you try to sell and nickel and dime sellers when you try to buy. Hell Facebook tries to be man in the middle half the time wanting your bank information so they can control the money. No feedback for any seller besides making a new post asking for a "legit check" because apparently making a fake account to legit check yourself is impossible.

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[fullofpaint]

PBN massively suffers from bloat too. When they were one of the biggest forums in the world it made sense to have so many different sub groups. But know? First time users who log on see a wall of groups that's just overwhleming.

Plus PBN still charges to post news with pricing/dates. No wonder no one uses it to announce stuff anymore.

[Psycho91]

I was wondering and was gonna ask the same, but hell I haven't been on pbn in like 10 years

[packersrule729]

MCB to PBN:

[DocsMachine]

PBN massively suffers from bloat too. When they were one of the biggest forums in the world it made sense to have so many different sub groups. But know? First time users who log on see a wall of groups that's just overwhleming.

Plus PBN still charges to post news with pricing/dates. No wonder no one uses it to announce stuff anymore.

-This.

I mean, Facebook was the main killer. FB feeds the dopamine center in your brain- and that's not just me being flippant, they designed their interface to do that, it's intentionally addicting- so everyone closed down all the old "owner's groups" and Wordpress blogs and whatnot, and jumped in with both feet.

BUT... the "bloat" is a big one, too.

It was useful when PBN was getting a million pageviews a day (or whatever it was, I don't know their stats) and had a hundred thousand or more regular, registered users. It made sense to split them up into subgroups. Otherwise, as Jay notes, any post you put up, would fall off the front page in hours.

But those days are over. PBN has only a tiny fraction of the users it used to, and what users it does have, are 'diluted' by being split up into a hundred different subforums.

And that is something I've suggested here, too. Few of the "off topic" subpages see much traffic- it might not be a bad idea to consolidate those, from thirteen down to maybe two or three.

Same goes for all the marker-specific subboards. AKA and Empire haven't had a single post between them in four months. Tiberius hasn't had one in close to three years. Even Inception hasn't had one in eight months. First Strike's been a full year.

In my opinion, those pages should be consolidated, using the same form as the BST: Pump/stock, mech and electro. Maybe a fourth for rare/vintage and/or custom-built.

Doc.

[superman]

most people go to the ask experts instead of posting in the subs. I think it is likely they think people won't answer in the subs even though we all see it.

[Euphie]

I haven't meaningfully used Facebook in years, but because of Paintball I still have an account. I have no idea why paintball people congregate in the place where you have to edit your photos or it thinks you are trying to sell real guns but, that does seem to be where they are. The engagement based setup of social media is absolutely trash for distributing information, as the incentive is against searching and stickies, the company wants to see activity and screen time not you getting the information so you can log off of your computer and go fix something.

[Hp_lovecraft]

For some fun trivia, I was the lead admin at paintballforum, and then pbn asked me to jump over, and take care of all the newb/rec groups, since pbn had a reputation of being absolutely savage with the newer players. This must have been almost 18 years ago. The environment was toxic, and I left moderation after a week. It was so bad that I just didn't want to moderate anything every again.

But it was the place to be at least in the early 00s. Paintball dojo, paintball city, paintballreview, warpig and paintballforum were all starting to fizzle, and everyone was running over to pbn, The 90s forums, like RSP and ASP were a waste with spam at that point. This was right around the housing market crash, which hurt paintball.... and ad revenue for forums fell.

So I get why PBN exploded the way that it did. Right place, right time. The old Gardiner VS Kaye thread was legendary.

But they lost control by 2010. Thats why they started doing all those "gold ups", and all the stickies were out of control. I tried to tell them "no more then one sticky per thread", and that sticky can have all the stickies. Otherwise the threads are impossoble to read and follow.

[Trbo323]

For some fun trivia, I was the lead admin at paintballforum, and then pbn asked me to jump over, and take care of all the newb/rec groups, since pbn had a reputation of being absolutely savage with the newer players. This must have been almost 18 years ago. The environment was toxic, and I left moderation after a week. It was so bad that I just didn't want to moderate anything every again..

So you're the one that started that chain reaction and the reason I good bumped into admin at pbf. Jerkface

So I get why PBN exploded the way that it did. Right place, right time. The old Gardiner VS Kaye thread was legendary.
.

Got a link? I've heard of this discussion but never actually read it. What SNs do each of them use?

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[DocsMachine]

Got a link? I've heard of this discussion but never actually read it. What SNs do each of them use?

-The 97-page thread starts here, and really doesn't get rolling 'til several pages in when Billy Gardner shows up (BGardner) and starts trying to "explain" Smart Parts "technology" and their patents.

Tom, as "AGD", shows up on page 48.

I poked my head in there too, but BG, for some odd reason, was not all that forthcoming with actual facts.

Doc.

[ZaDeer]

Oh man what a time to be on the nation then. Peak Gardners vs the world, couldn't make popcorn fast enough!

[martix_agent]

Facebook is garbage in comparison, nothing is organized, everyone asks the same 5 questions because there's no great way to search for an answer only ask it yourself. Low-ball galore when you try to sell and nickel and dime sellers when you try to buy. Hell Facebook tries to be man in the middle half the time wanting your bank information so they can control the money. No feedback for any seller besides making a new post asking for a "legit check" because apparently making a fake account to legit check yourself is impossible.

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What you're missing is that it doesn't seem to matter that information is curated as long as there's somebody to answer the question.
I will do searches for information and I almost always get PBN or reddit threads to show up but NEVER facebook posts.... yet people continue to answer questions on facebook. You eventually end up with somebody who knows what's going on or who is/was an actual tech or repon facebook. You used to only find that on forums but even those people mostly not using forums.

So you're the one that started that chain reaction and the reason I good bumped into admin at pbf. Jerkface

This happened before you even showed up on the forum I think.

[martix_agent]

I poked my head in there too, but BG, for some odd reason, was not all that forthcoming with actual facts.

Doc.

This thread was a massive shit show. Bill showed how hard-headed he is, and that honestly should have killed his company on the spot. Obviously at this point in time smart Parts was pretty big, but the hate for them was starting to gain traction.

I think my favorite thing he said was that people were only mad at him because teams using his products were beating them in tournaments... or maybe it was all the shade he threw out about tom kayne not being a good engineer(turns out he only had a highschool education; I forgot about this.) He shows up in post 1005, for those of us who aren't displaying the same amount of posts per page as your are