yoderjac
5 year old buck +
One of the things that the QDMA bulletin board (forum) really had going for it was the name and advertising of QDMA. Because QDMA was the first place that QDM folks began to organize and relate to one another, it was the one stop shop that dominated all other forums. There were, and are, many web sites with forums that are intended to promote product our use product promotion to fund their site. Many folks just getting started are often duped by these for a while but catch on pretty quickly.
When QDMA made some decisions that many folks in a specific region felt were not in their interest, folks became disenchanted with them and that was largely the genesis of this forum. Most forums die in the first few years because they don't achieve a critical mass of users or they don't have enough funding to upgrade the service as needed to support larger numbers of users and then become sluggish and use drops off. The common interest of folks in that region was enough to sustain the board through those early years.
When QDMA killed their forum and folks had to go elsewhere, the brain trust was diluted as folks started using a few existing but even more commercialized forums or started new ones from scratch. I decided to come her because this forum was not over commercialized and had survived long enough to for me to have reasonable confidence that it would achieve critical mass. John, the forum sponsor, assured me that he has and will apply the necessary financial resources to obtain the necessary server resources to grow this forum to the national level. When I came, I transferred many of threads of particular interest to me from QDMA over to here. While I read multiple forums, I continue to focus my efforts here to help this forum make the transition to a national reach.
This forum did go through some growing pains as I expected when many folks from the QDMA site came over here. There were a few bullies on the playground who were not happy sharing with new kids on the block and were more interested in personal agendas than learning and helping other learn here. The moderators have done a good job of balancing between allowing heated discussions where steel sharpens steel and warning or banning when necessary to keep the conversation from degenerating to ad hominem attacks. This forum has now made the turn where most folks are now sharing ideas freely and helping others. I'm starting to see some folks who where reluctant to post here during the growing pains returning and posting. We are also starting to see the number of folks outside the original region begin to increase making for better balance.
As for other forums, the first place I would look is : http://deerhunterforum.com/index.php
This forum was started by some folks that used the QDMA site regularly and one of the better moderators and quite a few knowledgeable folks went there when QDMA shut down the forum. My biggest hesitation about investing my efforts there was simply that statistically most new forums don't last. I will say they have a great group of core folks many of whom post here as well and they are off to a great start.
Thanks,
Jack
