The topic states it all.

Just looking for thoughts and reviews on this they seemed to be the place to go “back in the day”. Mind you LSC was thriving in her own world while other forum administrators went belly up or had enough!

What happened to the refugees from MLS and LSOL and why were these forums sold or crumbled?

THOUGHTS?

Most of the MLS people are still there. The sale has definitely affected the forum in my opinion. I’d like to excise the live steam forum and bring it over here.

LSOL is easy, the software sucked, the owners sucked, the increased advertising sucked, the watermark stuck on your personal pictures sucked, and the complete bent towards selling and making money at every turn sucked.

Other than that, LSOL was ok. (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)

Greg

I really miss G Scale Mad, it was a lot of fun. It’s replacement G Scale Central is fine enough but for me really a pain to navigate so I don’t spend much time there anymore.

MLS certainly isn’t what it once was, mostly live steam. I also miss the Garden Railways magazine forum, once upon a time it’s was IMHO as good or better than MLS or LSC, lots of great people and activities, today it’s tragically slow, for various reasons Kalmbach changed the format and it just killed participation.

Beware format changes, they can kill a forum as fast as any purges or rules.

So very many people who made those places tick have all gone away, the activities like the Master Class were killed by either lack of participation or inability to reach consensus.

As it is today, it’s the sharp reduction in active members and the reduction of new people starting in LS on ALL forums that’s the biggest hurdle to keeping things interesting,those who are still standing have long established layouts and frankly not a lot that needs doing so active topics are nowhere near as busy as even ten years ago. Hoping things get better as the economy gets better.

Well this MLS guy ended up here and has never looked back. I always hated the website software, things always broken or coming and going. Then the landing page went down with the recent posts. The last nail I needed was corporate ownership. I never had the pleasure of seeing LSOL. I think we are all real lucky to have Bob and his great site. I don’t know what I do without MLS, especially after spending an awesome week spending time with a lot of the great folks this site has introduced me too.

Greg, I’m very interested as to the why of your Live Steam excision comments? That’s the one part of MLS I do miss, as there seamed to be a bit more going on in the LS department there. I’d love to see the regulars in the LS forum there, start posting here.

Another forum that has gone bust is the Aristo forum, I think I was on that forum about a year. I was also on LSOL back when it had a “free” level which IIRC was read only, but then they made even looking at the site pay only. Didn’t matter, lost interest in both, that was before the people purges and murdering of topics that killed participation on both.

G SCALE MAD was an excellent website - forced to close down because of vicious e mails and threats to the owner.

GSC which sprang from it started well. However, after a few years I eventually abandoned it as it got itself bogged down with forum rehashing etc., and adverts and quite often slowness to load from time to time. It also tended to become more Swiss and German rail orientated.(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cry.gif)

Many of the old stalwarts from G Scale Mad who transferred to GSC also left it. The “clique” that was on it from the start went Farcebook…

I came here and glad I did…

I am an LSOL orphan. I do not know why Joh decided to shut it down. The thought amongst us LSOL orphans, is that he simply lost interest. The site had declined after the clique of old timers took offense and left, claiming that one of the members was taking over the site. I was sad to see that group leave LSOL, but I do not feel their accusations were correct. I had neither the desire to take over LSOL, nor the skill set to do what they accused me of doing. After they left, the site was quite lifeless most days.

After joining LSC, I see what a site can be. There is usually quite a bit of activity daily, and the skill-set of the really active modelers on here is better then the skill-set of the active modelers modelers that were on LSOL.

In a way, we’re all LSOL orphans from The Great Schism of June 2000…

I guess I was lucky. I joined this site before I even planned what I was going to do and have always enjoyed it. I never wanted any other site and never looked. I first joined around 2000 and the computer forgot me one time and I had to rejoin. I forgot my password a few times but Bob bailed me out!

We’ve never had the horror stories I’ve seen mentioned on here.

Life is grand!

Bob McCown said:

In a way, we’re all LSOL orphans from The Great Schism of June 2000…

Bob, I joined LSOL AFTER that event. I heard mention of, and fragmented details about that event, but I never really got the whole story. And, really, I didn’t care about the sordid history before I arrived. The bunch there was welcoming and supportive right up until the one trouble maker started stirring the pot, and accusing me of several things. The old timers for the most part believed him, never asking me what my side of the story was, and that rift and split really took the fire out of LSOL. After that, until LSOL folded, the chat room was usually empty, and there were no longer daily posts in the forum. Sometimes a few days would go buy before I saw a new post in there.

I did stop in MSL, just to see if that site was worth joining. This was many years ago. I landed in a thread where one poster and another were really slinging it at each other. A few days later I went to MSL again, and landed in another thread were, yup, 2 posters in there were going at it. I really don’t want to be somewhere where I would have to be exposed to, and have to put up with, that kind of insensitive, childish behavior. I am (supposed to be) an adult now. So I never did join that bunch, and I haven’t gone back.

I am very happy with my choice to join this diverse group, and I enjoy the camaraderie that we have here. And Bob, I assure you that I will not be trying to take over LSC. I will just be the squeaky wheel that just won’t be quiet. (shut up Rooster).

Doug Arnold said:

I guess I was lucky. I joined this site before I even planned what I was going to do and have always enjoyed it. I never wanted any other site and never looked. I first joined around 2000 and the computer forgot me one time and I had to rejoin. I forgot my password a few times but Bob bailed me out!

We’ve never had the horror stories I’ve seen mentioned on here.

Life is grand!

+1

Ditto but Bob never bailed me out EVER!

deleted

In the beginning LSOL wasn’t bad, I got on around 1997, things were slow at first but then took off. Things seemed good until the melt down in 2000. When it came back it seemed as if Jon had lost his day job and decided he could pay for the baby’s shoes by making money off the site. All sorts of money making schemes followed eventually selling Aristo products on the side and teaming up with St. Albans. All of this started going south with the economy, first with St. Albans going belly up then Aristo. With that about the only thing left was membership dues and apparently that wasn’t paying the rent so he pulled the plug. After Bob opened the doors here I seldom went back and when I did what I saw didn’t impress me. My not asking for my money back in 2000 had granted me a lifetime membership but other than getting me into the ECLSTS for a couple bucks less it didn’t do much for me. No tears were shed when the plug was finally pulled.

Gary Buchanan, FOG said:

In the beginning LSOL wasn’t bad, I got on around 1997, things were slow at first but then took off. Things seemed good until the melt down in 2000. When it came back it seemed as if Jon had lost his day job and decided he could pay for the baby’s shoes by making money off the site. All sorts of money making schemes followed eventually selling Aristo products on the side and teaming up with St. Albans. All of this started going south with the economy, first with St. Albans going belly up then Aristo. With that about the only thing left was membership dues and apparently that wasn’t paying the rent so he pulled the plug. After Bob opened the doors here I seldom went back and when I did what I saw didn’t impress me. My not asking for my money back in 2000 had granted me a lifetime membership but other than getting me into the ECLSTS for a couple bucks less it didn’t do much for me. No tears were shed when the plug was finally pulled.

Yep, it was Winter 96-97 and it was the place to be over or around the “Big Trains Listserv”, then the melt down and the withdrawal that was resolved by Shad, Bob, Aristo’s own site and a few others like the publisher of Finescale. They made it or let us all not put all our eggs and friends in one basket. Taught us all to have many avenues to get info to and from our friends that we made through the Internet. Now we got our grand kids asking how we talked to people before the internet.

I actually know how to use a rotary dial phone.

I wonder what would happen, if a section of the forums was reserved for Morse Code/Telegraph users…and their club decided to move here. I guess my still in use rotary telephone is a bit of a classic. I still use it, but I often have to remember how…!!!

There’s a decent Forum over with Finescale RR Magazine, by Russ at Westlake Publishing. Geoff Ringle, a master modeller, puts his creations over there. There was the sslivesteam email group, but it migrated over to MLS Live Steam, so thart may explainb some of the activity there.

LSC is invaluable.

It is the “train store” that no longer exists whereby “how-to inquiry” is made, product evaluations discussed, “here’s how-to-do -it” explanations given, and the discussion of the status of our hobby is sorted within a myriad of categories. And there are the sharp, and well-spoken readers and writers on all of the topic categories.

Me? Yes, as you can tell from my posts, I personally favor inquiry as my use of LSC. However, no matter, our personal interests are what keeps the site so valuable.

Wendell

Fred Mills said:

I wonder what would happen, if a section of the forums was reserved for Morse Code/Telegraph users…and their club decided to move here. I guess my still in use rotary telephone is a bit of a classic. I still use it, but I often have to remember how…!!!

I have a regular phone on my desk. It works just fine, thanks. Last week my daughter’s friend, whom I asked to call her parents to come and get her (her phone battery was dead, the horror!), picked up the receiver and looked at it with a blank stare. My daughter had to show her how to use it.

Fred Mills said:

I wonder what would happen, if a section of the forums was reserved for Morse Code/Telegraph users…and their club decided to move here. I guess my still in use rotary telephone is a bit of a classic. I still use it, but I often have to remember how…!!!

It may surprise some to learn that the Medford, Oregon Garden railroad club belongs to a park operated by them and the ride-on live steamers, the HO/N scale clubs and the 1 to 1 restoration group as well as the speeder club. Also within this group is the Morse code/ telegraph club that has a small museum set up at the park. They also set up booths at the annual show and let children and adults send telegrams back and forth, it is quite the attraction as most children have no idea of what it is or how it works.

Rick Marty said:

It may surprise some to learn that the Medford, Oregon Garden railroad club belongs to a park operated by them and the ride-on live steamers, the HO/N scale clubs and the 1 to 1 restoration group as well as the speeder club. Also within this group is the Morse code/ telegraph club that has a small museum set up at the park. They also set up booths at the annual show and let children and adults send telegrams back and forth, it is quite the attraction as most children have no idea of what it is or how it works.

Putting this on my bucket list ! I have no idea on how to send a morse code telegram either!