Being in the process of making the jump from the oilheads back to the thumper I've been perusing the thumper forum the last couple of weeks and I've got to say a split in cc's would be the best way to go. Splitting by make really kills the cross brand comparison. For example I would think most people know what size bike they are contemplating buying, be great if you could then go to the 250cc or less forum and see what bikes are out there, how they compare and what people can do with them. If that's too small and you crave a bike that can be raced as well as adventure ridden, well then look into the 251 to 599 cc forum. And finally if like me you want a big thumper, then look in the 600 and up club forum.
It's not a hardware/software problem, but a human problem when the campfire gets so large. What prompted the thought is I had been seeing threads like this one http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=860379 and complaints from inmates about they can't find anything in the megathreads. In the past, breaking up forums like Jo Momma to create Church, State & Money, or dividing the regionals has been like poking a hornet's nest of protests. But a year or two later and we usually look back and say it was the right thing to do. It's led us to great forums like Old's Cool and Hacks where people know each other and share a specific passion. Having said that, it's been fascinating to read through this and think about how guys put forks from one brand on another brand's frame, etc. Kinda like hacks. Also fascinating to hear the worries that we'll become like other places and lose our uniqueness if we organize by brand like everyone else does. So the brainstorming is great. I definitely like the idea of keeping a general thumpers forum. I'm pretty warm to the idea of breaking out two smokers. I thought the suggestions for <450 and 450+ and Asian/Euro were interesting. Let's keep talking.
I hadn't read this before I wrote my last post, but that makes a lot of sense to me. What does everyone else think?
At first I thought split to Asian and European (+ all else) But I have owned a BMW650 and my other thumpers and would prefer seeing size grouped together rather than region. So my vote is an over/under at whatever cc is deemed the median. Thumpers and Thimbles or something.
Split out KLRs into their own area and you'd reduce the thumper traffic by 30% I vote for a split based on cc, crossbrand rivalry is part of ADV's appeal.
I vote for no split at all. There are "informative" and entertaining threads like: EXC450 vs WRR vs Husky Terra... That is a cross brand, cross cc debate. I would hate to see those go.
I like seeing all of the various makes/models/sizes of thumpers mixed together. Its a great way to find out when a new model comes out for a make you may not normally ride....suddenly you see a flurry of activity in the new "ACME 799 Dominator" thread, and it draws you in.
Size is starting to make sense. I'd make the numbers farther from existing bike displacements though: up to 280, 281 to 560, 560 up. Yes there will still be bikes that are near the line, but fewer I think. I don't have a problem with a single Thump as it stands.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm My first impression is to leave things the way they are, but just add a better tutorial/FAQ on how to search threads using google. Have the link to the: "here's how you search ADV tutorial" in the ADV 'search this forum' pull down menu. My rides are old Honda 500 cc RFVC and I would argue that they belong in the same forum with the 600s and 650s since they share the clutch/bottom end and also the valves/cam specs. I don't think anybody will suggest that discussion of my 83 & 84 XR5s needs to be in "old's cool" There are practically no engine parts interchange between my bikes and the XR400s. So just be careful about where you set the split if its going to be based upon displacement. It would suck to split bikes that actually share a bunch of tech. But then again, I've been treating the Thumpers forum primarily as a tech forum. Maybe I'm wrong about that? I do agree that there should be a separate forum for 2 stroke MXers and Enduros. I could never figure out if the '2 smokers' category in old's cool should include my 77 IT400.
I think I may have been the first to suggest a 450cc split, but after reading some of the other suggestions, I think it should be bigger. I bet the KLR/DR/XR 650s, LC4's, BMW 650's, Husky 610,630,650's plus the other random 600+cc bikes make up about half of the posts. 600cc is too big because most 600's are actually 598ish and the popular Husky 610 is 577cc. That coupled with the true deffinition of a thumper being 500cc and up makes me think it should be 500cc. The problem is that while an old out of production Japanese XR/XT500 would belong in the upper group, the increasingly popular Euro sub 550cc bikes being built right now are more based off of 450 competetion machines. We have the older KTM RFS 520,525,530 and newer 501 which are all 510's, Husky 510 (501cc) and several others that do not belong with the heavyweights that are very popular. I'm going to throw out a 550cc split for thumpers and seperating the two strokes, makes sense as well. Or how about doing it by weight? no, never mind!
I like it. If the consensus is that you need a bigger or smaller bike switch categories. It would be rare that every one agrees that a certain brand is better for a given situation. I love the melting pot that is thumpers, and have learned a lot there about bikes I don't own.
The issue I have with the displacement split (logical as it seems) is that wherever you make that split, you will end up with two general Thumper forums. I would hate to miss out on a lot of the discussions in the smaller group because I may spend more time in the bigger group. Ideally, generalized discussion should be in one place. My personal feeling is that whatever you put in a subforum, it should be pretty specific. The DR650 thread has 75K posts, XRL has over 50K, WR-R over 35K, and even the Husky 610 has 25K posts. In five years on ADV, I haven't even looked at some of those threads. And those are just the single threads! ( The KLR and F650 threads are actually much smaller, presumably due F650.com and KLR650.net, etc.) Those are massive numbers of posts, but I would wager most inmates that don't have one of those bikes have spent little or no time in those threads. So turning those into subforums doesn't detract from the general forum. Having bike specific, not make specific, subforums would turn the megathreads into their own subforums, and hopefully make it a lot easier to search for info. But this would only be done for the bikes that need it.
I like that idea. I would be down with the idea of moving the bike specific mega-threads into a subforum. The only one I ever open is the LC4 thread and then only rarely. But they do incorporate tens of thousands of posts. Add a mega-thread for tires and it seems like it would knock the hell out of post counts while preserving the general mayhem of this place. LCQ just started... Gotta go.
I'm new here but the main reason I keep coming back to the thumper section is the wide variety in one section. I'd vote for no dividing.
breaking it up by displacement isn't right.... a hot-rodded KTM RFS bike blown out to 613cc has nothing to do w/a KLR or a DR.... you should figure out a way to nuke the threads w/the least amount of interest, starting from the oldest.... it's not like all this shizzit has to be archived for the good of all future posterity... it ain't the sermon on the mount, dig?....
I have deep scars on my back from the days when we nuked threads that we thought weren't interesting, only to find out later after the rider was killed or something that they were priceless to their families, etc.
Due to the mechanical rather than the.....mmm, cultural nature of our hobby/lifestyle/compulsion/whatever, I'd use displacement rather than brand or hemispheric origin as indexing points. Would work ok for the various endeavor (thumper touring, for example) threads as well, methinks. Thanks for the great work!
boss, have to say that i'm impressed w/your integrity, as for the last statement. i can't say that i agree w/it, but that's just me. i'm a jazz musician, and to me, when the stuff ain't fresh, who cares?..... but this wouldn't be the first time that my thinking didn't agree w/the mainstream, so i'm kinda used to that..... i'm not a computer guy, i barely know how to post any of this stuff, so.... dunno how you manage w/all the info storage.... i've seen other forums that just start the 'new version II' of the same topic, and lock the old, for 'read only' purposes?... i dunno if that would help matters?.... i will say, and it seems that i'm not alone, that i really like the eclectic feel of this forum, and that's why i read it all the time....thumpers are visceral bikes, about gettin' dirty... if this was about polishing your new ducati and wearing tailored leathers, i wouldn't give a shite what you did here.... there's some nutty stuff, and goofball tech that should result in welded toolboxes, but that's why i like it, cause' it's so nutz.....fun to pizz off the monkeys in the zoo.... you get it all logical squared away, and it'll get boring....
+1, Done by displacement you'd have Yamaha XT250's with KTM 250 XC-F!? A Mazda 626 and a factory Subaru World Rally Car both have 2.0 Liter engines.