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I remember when I first joined this forum a few years ago, there were people saying at that time, "it’s not as good a forum as it once was". Obviously when someone joins any forum, everything is fresh, every discussion is new. Yet after many years, members have probably heard a lot of it before. So it might seem as if the forum is not what it was, even though (in practice) it’s even better.
Exactly. The actual racing we discuss is different every year so there is no reason why any forum dedicated to the sport should get stale.
I think its a remarkable feat by TRF TOWERS to keep this whole thing running smoothly
Thank you Mr Wilson. I never thought of that. We are really lucky to have Mr Wilson on this forum.
BC – The speed has been good for me for quite some time now, I haven’t seen/heard any complaints about it of late.
Can I ask everyon, is speed still an issue?
Cormack the speed is a lot better than what it was a few months ago when it was almost impossible to access but I still find it one of the slowest forums on the net.
One of the reasons why some people, including myself, post less often these days is simply because, and I’m talking about
general
topics rather than ones on a particular race or horse, it just gets tedious posting the same thoughts on the same topics, year after year.
Another off-putting factor is the sheer number of sub-forums here, it must be more than a dozen, there could well be some fascinating contributions being posted in some of them, but I’m never likely to read them. Such separateness doesn’t help to engender a sense of a community, a group of friends exchanging thoughts on a shared passion.
I should add, I think Cormack does a good job running the place, though.
The demise of TRF is very much overstated imo.
Take a look at Imperial Calls thread in Lays and Plays, almost six grand ahead since November. Robert Gibbs has a superb and profitable blog in there as well. Zarkava’s, trends analysis of the upcoming Guineas is pure quality as was BigWolf’s analysis of the recent Lincoln. Mr Wilsons speed figure work is essential reading, The Blues Brother has shared what seems like a mountain of his work on speed figures with us as well. Jose’s handicapping blog is the best you’ll read anywhere on the subject. The forum
still
has long standing contributors who have an ability with prose that any professional racing publication would kill for. These are just a few examples, there are
many, many
more.
I think people get "all issued out" discussing Racing’s politics, you feel your repeating yourself over and over so its understandable there may be less debate on that score, although when something topical comes along, there are still plenty of people happy to express a generally informed opinion, if the recent Grand National safety thread is anything to by.
Reet, I miss the posters you mention as well. However the impression sometimes conveyed was that they prefer discussing racing with people whose involvement, knowledge and experience in the game is at a similar level to their own, which while being completely understandable, would have ruled out people like me from ever joining the forum in the first place and I don’t think that was ever the ethos of TRF. Granted I don’t want to see it turn into Disneyland Lite, either.
Regarding the bannings, the moderation of the forum always seems to be on a very fair
repeat offender
basis and I’ve never had the impression that cormack shirks difficult threads if their expressed in a reasonable way (and I know because I’ve tested him on this
). I went through the last dozen
or so postings of both the aforementioned posters and I can see how some of it would be viewed as completely unacceptable to other forum members, and again its not what TRF has ever stood for. If you repeatably ask someone to do tone it down and they repeatably ignore you, what other option is there in the end?The site speed has been very good over the past few months. Keep it up!
One area that has been neglected lately is the Q&A section. A few more of those would be welcome.
My interest in racing is largely a solitary one, none of my friends or family has any interest in it, so TRF has always been a great place to touch base and express opinions with other racing fans. Long may that continue.
No resting on the laurels, mind.
Great post Cavelino, sums up my own thoughts on where we are much more eloquently than I managed myself. I think people focus on only the H-racing section when assessing the health of the forum and there has been so much exciting, interesting and profitable work published in the sections you highlight. I’d also single out Rob North’s excellent posts and your own work for mention.
Some of the (free) info in the daily lays, systems and trends/research rivals (and often beats) anything available commercially or in trade publications.
Re – the Q&A’s.
Yes, been overlooked. Very happy to focus on getting a few more in the pipeline. Any suggestions for who people would like to see featured?
Venusian – you have a good point about the number of sub-forums. It doesn’t want to be a library and I’m perhaps a bit gulity of trying to ‘order’ things to a stifling extent. The site wants to be a bit more dynamic than that (in terms of structure). I’ll do something with that in the next couple of weeks as it’s something that’s been on our minds for a wee while.
Without re-igniting the whole debate over bannings, I don’t think people appreciate how tricky a balance that is. Or how time consuming moderation can be (to which I am always largely indebted to Matron whose absolutely sterling work in that area goes largely unnoticed).
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With apologies, I sometimes get confused by Cormack15. I remember reading a fairly recent thread to the effect where he wrote that, because he has two heads, in future he would confine his personal thoughts to user name Cormack15 otherwise both he and his work colleagues would all adopt the user name TRF Admin.
Some of the posts on this thread would appear to contradict that intention and so this dual personality scenario makes it difficult for me to understand whether I’m dealing with the commercial manager of the forum (who no doubt has a pecuniary and vested interest in painting a positive picture) or an unbiased and objective fellow-member who is honest and up-front about the realities of the forum’s current well-being compared to past times.
Then again, as I do with other retail ventures who seek my custom, maybe I should just read between the lines and form my own opinion as to the merits or otherwise of the forum without having to rely on promotional junk-mail as being the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
I’m here still Oh So Sharp – just mainly posting on the P2P threads these days, still try and contribute to the big race discussions and other topics though too
FWIW I don’t think there’s any demise on TRF – still a good core of posters as mentioned earlier and a few new additions too, all of which contribute to a great forum
Martin
The other problem with running TRF is that you have to deal with complete and utter prats, trolls and spoilers, of which Winkleman is a living, breathing and glowing example.
For info Winkleman – in case it had escaped your notice, TRF is not a ‘retail venture’. We don’t charge anybody for members for anything. Not a single thing. It’s all FREE ffs!!!!!! FREEFREEFREE!!!!!!! In fact, we regularly GIVE STUFF AWAY.
I don’t know what some people expect at times, I really don’t.
*takes deep breath, calms down but this time, instead of putting the kettle on, considers something a little stronger*
The troll does have a point about the log-in thing though, I did mean to separate Cormack’s posts from TRF Admin. But on this thread I think it’s appropriate that I post as ‘me’.
And thanks for the (constructive) feedback everyone. Although I might get a bit prickly and defensive from time to time I really do welcome the positive feedback on things we need to improve.
Despite the odd poster such as Winkleman, which every forum suffers from unfortunately, you are a great, knowledgable bunch of people (the depth of knowledge constantly surprises me) and it is almost invariably a satisfying experience trying to keep the good ship TRF afloat and off the rocks.
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A most unfair, untrue and unjustified response which is stunningly venomous and unbecoming of someone holding such an elevated position on the forum.
I have no desire to pursue the personal insults further other than to refer to published online statistics of the health of this forum which clearly shows a diminution in the forum’s popularity:-
Worldwide Rank(523,277) position=191,561
Daily Visitors 556 -40%
Daily Visitors Rank 205,463
Daily Pageviews 1,500 -42%
Pageviews Per User 3.80 -7%
90 Day Average
Estimated Website Value £31,999.01The facts speak for themselves and no amount of ‘sexing-up’ of the figures or attempting to demean the ‘critics’ can hide the glaringly obvious.
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It’s perhaps unfortunate that the title of this thread attempted to draw out comparisons with other sites whereas it’s impossible to compare like with like.
The simple fact is that from time to time, each and every forum, blog, tweet etc. will have something to offer someone at some point in their surfing lives. No one place will be able to cater for each and every individual taste all of the time.
The popularity or not of a particular forum should not be of any real interest to anyone other than the people who draw an income from traffic numbers. And so it’s debatable as to whether our continued posting on such matters serves any useful purpose other than to regurgitate historical differences of opinion as to how former,and perhaps still lurking members, were received and treated by both their fellow-forumites and the powers that be.
I originally joined the forum when it started. I believe sometime in the nineties. The one I miss most is Aidan. What happened to him?
Sure some of the people who used to be here are missed, personally I found The Ante Post King and Cheltenham Specialist to be two extremely knowledgeable posters, both exceptional judges who know what it takes to win at this game.
But that’s not to say the forum has gone downhill. In my opinion we have as good a race previewer as I know in Bosranic. The posts of Gingertipster are always interesting even though I don’t agree with everything he says, there’s a lot to be learnt from his methods.
There’s so much knowledge on here it’s unbelievable, from resident Irish racing guru Imperial Call to Jose and Glenn, plus many, many others.
Of course this is the best forum
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It’s nice to see a new poster taking such an interest in forum matters. Attacking management in a sly and sophisticated way is such a sad thing to do. Why not come out and say what your true intent is? Why not also add the following disclaimer from the "site you just stumbled across"?
This a website evaluation service, enter your domain url in the box above to find the estimated worth of your website or blog. We also provide data about Visitors, Traffic numbers and Server details. The information is not guaranteed to be 100% accurate
So kind sir, you’ve layed out your stall. Now would you like to tell everyone who you are and the nature of your true intent here?
That aside I have come across many sites that become compartmentalised with posters generally sticking to one section or another. The way some sites have successfully overcome this has been for a section called "all topics" where the user can view the top 20-50 hot/recent topics being discussed on the forum across all boards. This exposes people to discussions on sections of the forum they rarely or never visit.
). I went through the last dozen 
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