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The Life & Death of Golf Forums

bkuehn1952

Entry posted by bkuehn1952

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Many people start golf blogs or forums with good intentions of maintaining the site for an infinite period of time.  The sad truth is most rarely make it for more than a year or two.  

I first became acquainted with the idea of a golf blog/forum when a site called “Last Minute Golfer (LMG)” existed.  Really, the forum was just an afterthought.  The main reason for LMG was to sell spots 24-48 hours prior to the tee time.  They must have done reasonably well because eventually GolfNow swallowed them up. 

While LMG was rolling, they had forums for each part of the country in which they operated.  I discovered the Michigan forum one day and was excited to have an outlet to discuss golf.  Sadly, the rest of the LMG-Michigan users rarely engaged in this forum so there was not much discussion taking place.  The Atlanta area forum, however, was quite active.  I enjoyed reading what our southern golf brothers had to say and would occasionally participate.  It was the first time I encountered an internet “troll.”  At the time, I did not understand the process and just marveled at one particular poster’s ability to get all the Atlantans really worked up.  He adopted the role of a well-heeled, educated northerner who had transplanted to Atlanta.  He would constantly irritate the other posters with subtle and sometimes unsubtle jabs at the rest of the forum. 

Once GolfNow took possession of the site, they slowly dismantled LMG and I had to find a new outlet for my desire to read about and discuss golf.  At that point I stumbled upon Golfblogger.  This gentleman has maintained a golf blog for 10+ years.  Mainly centered upon Michigan, it was an interesting read but there never was much participation in the forums.  I finally stopped trying to create discussions and went in search of another outlet.  Fortunately, someone had mentioned “oobgolf.” In that site, I discovered an active forum plus the ability to capture one’s statistics. 

Oobgolf had a pretty nice run.  The forums were active and everyone maintained stats so one could see each poster’s “game.”  In fact, they did so well that SkyGolf purchased the site and used it as a model for their own offering.  Eventually, SkyGolf killed off oobgolf’s site and we were all faced with another internet forum diaspora. 

At this point I have become a golf forum vagabond.  My participation in forums extends to several sites along with a mostly private site run by a former forum participant at oobgolf.  With golf websites having such a high casualty rate, one can’t afford to get tied down to one place.

 

So what is everyone else’s story?

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7 Comments

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rehmwa

Sandtrap has legs, and the best forums I've encountered.  I think it'll last for quite some time.

Too bad about OOB - I liked the handicap tool, but didn't really participate in much else....

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Mr. Desmond

Over 18 years, I've seen a few large forums grow and then die a slow death, or they reach a certain activity level and/or evolve to suit the needs of their members.

TST holds a unique position with instruction, equipment, and commentary in meeting its members' needs.

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newtogolf

Forums are only as good as the people running and moderating them.  Finding the right mix of moderator intervention is tough.  If it's too loose, posters tend to get very personal and people start to get alienated.  If moderation is too tight, the feeling is that you can only post what the site owners want you too.  In either case, once key posters start to leave, it's tough to get them back and to stop others from following them.

I'd say the moderation on TST is just right, we have a lot of room to express ourselves but if we do overstep, the moderators are quick to intervene and get the thread back on track.  The site caters to a lot of different interests with more emphasis on instruction than equipment which is intentional based on past comments I've seen from Erik.

OOB would still be doing well if it didn't get acquired.  Other Forums I've been involved with changed after acquisition too, such as DPReview.   DPReview was acquired by Amazon and the moderation of the site changed significantly after it was acquired, especially some of the Pro Forums.

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