The Silly Season 2023 Or (a plan for new tankers)

[MrChef]

Holiday 2023 (a plan for new tankers)

In the Immortal words of Martin Riggs.The silly season is upon us. For you folks Not in the new world, that time is from our Thanksgiving holiday Through New Years, including the various gift giving holidays in between.

For many it's a season for family and friends to come together and be thankful.

NOW, That being said these holiday seasons also tend to bring the absolute worst attitudes, behavior and demonstrations of stupidity out of people. Then there's the cutthroat General public. Outshopping each other like a competition challenge on Squid game.

Being that it's my first holidays as part of this awesome community I had a question: Do you all commonly see a spike in new tank owners/members joining up here on the forum? If the answer is No then my point is moot.

If my answer is a possibility, I was curious if there is anything we could do to encourage new owners/members to become and stay more active?

I can share that when I was interested in finding a local RC tank club I was encouraged to seek and join Facebook RC tank groups. Which is also fun but a completely different experience than being part of a forum community, which I prefer BTW. FB groups is wayyy more the current trendy formula of- Post a Pic and see how many Likes you can get. Ok for a crack addled praying mantis but not really my cup of tea. I'd much rather have good conversation and see builds and how to's.

As tankme mentioned I've recently been introducing like minded people I meet from FB groups and other forums to RCTW. I use PM for links and introductions and don't blatantly post up- "Hey come join RCTW" on other forums and such.

I've yet to meet an asshole on This Forum and You All have been good RC tank hobby ambassadors in my experience. Thank you all for that.

In the holiday spirit of giving, Is there anything else we can think to do to help the "new guy"? If it's just answering some tedious questions or just posting up an "Atta Boy". That's the spirit of giving.

Happy Holidays All!

Please discuss any new ideas.

Chef

[Estnische]

I think the short answer is that it depends on what floats the boat of the new guy or girl.

My long answer is that we seem to get three types of noobs:

- 'I just got this RC tank at a boot sale - how do I make it work?'

- 'I saw a cheap Heng Long tank, liked it and my partner bought me a Tiger - what do I do now?'

- 'I want to build the RC tank of my wartime hero/unit and I can model - how does RC work?'

We try to help as much as we can with these three, so I don't know that we can get much extra traction. My thought is we need people like Pitstain and Mr Tank a Lot making Youtube videos with our banner that will pop up on people's feed suggestions and bring them to us. But I've made short Youtube stuff before, and it is a very labourious process to put together watchable content. My hat goes off to them.

[tankme]

I see a fourth type...

I want "X". Who can build it for me?

I always love this question: "Where is the detailed manual of every step I need to do for this custom application only I want?" OK, it isn't posed that way...but I think you get my drift.

I have no issues spreading my knowledge if a person has a specific set of questions, but the person has to be willing to do some of their own research. In a world where YouTube can show you how to replace spun rod bearings on an LS1 engine in a 20 minute video, please, please learn how to use Google (*cough* or Edge). Like I stated on another forum, I sometimes collect manuals for stuff I don't currently own as maybe one day I buy something like a TK16 and need to have the info for a specific build. Tanks are actually quite complicated, so are RC cars, or RC airplanes.

Facebook is a place to show off your stuff, not explain how you built it. A forum is the only place I know of short of having your own website to chronical your build especially if you are Barry or myself whom have been working on a specific tank for like 10 years...lol I like YouTube for information, but it can be hard to sift through all the content. I would do YouTube vids explaining things...*if* I had the time.

I do see more tanker signing up here which is why I made the comment. As long as someone is respectful to the community, I will be respectful to them. I've been trying to keep my opinions to myself more lately and stick to only delivering stuff that will help someone. If the same comment has already been made that I would have made, I will typically not contribute. I won't feel a need to as the question is answered.

That's my two cents...back to building tanks...

[ColemanCollector]

One of the nice elements of this forum is the amount of sub-forums to help people that like to browse and discover on their own. The search function is pretty good as well.
The members are another nice element. I don't think I've seen the "The search function is your friend", reply in the time I've been here. Folks either answer the newb question or provide a link to the answer. That's very nice of the veteran members.
Not sure there's much more to be done to keep folks around given the width and breadth of the hobby. Forum has a good mix of grizzled vets with mad skills and enthusuastic newer folks with mad skills, and everybody likes to share their mad skills!
YMMV,
Mike.

[Kaczor]

I have a comparison with the Polish and German forums. Live meetings keep that community alive. From spring to autumn, the life of the forum goes from one meeting to the next. We build models to show them live. This is impossible on an international forum because we have members from Australia to America. But events such as Model of the Month or the recent Grop Build activate the forum.

PS. On the mentioned local forums, most of the registered members have only a few posts (e.g. after receiving a reply, they never appear on the forum again). The most frustrating case is people who register to sell or buy something but do not respond to private messages.