Gene Posted August 31, 2011 Share Posted August 31, 2011 For reasons unknown the excellent weathering site, Modeltrainsweathered.com has closed down. Unfortunately all the great information,weathering tips and photos that were on the site are now almost impossible to access. This is a great loss to the model rr community. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold 57xx Posted August 31, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted August 31, 2011 Where there's a will, there's a way http://web.archive.o...sweathered.com/ Not sure how much content will be accessible from this though. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gene Posted August 31, 2011 Author Share Posted August 31, 2011 been there done that...thats why I wrote "are now almost impossible to access" in my original post. Some content is still available that way but only a small percentage and its not easy to troll through. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allegheny1600 Posted September 1, 2011 Share Posted September 1, 2011 That is a shame they're gone, I would hope the site can be ressurected in some form. I was a member there for a year and learnt some good stuff but it was a fairly expensive proposition for me (down to my not using it enough!). I hope they didn't price themselves out of the market but what do you do in these situations? You either have a wealthy site owner who can fund the entire thing themselves, have a paying membership, masses of sponsorship/advertising (ugh!) or, like on here, have a large following with some sponsorship and a good deal of generosity from the members (which works well, IMHO!). Cheers, John E. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Piszczek Posted September 3, 2011 Share Posted September 3, 2011 The cyber squatters have moved in, makes me wonder if someone forgot to renew the domain name with the internet registrar, and the address has simply been hi-jacked. What's the going rate for this internet crime these days, for a free forum, $1000? A model shop out in California forgot to renew in time and the squatter wanted something around $10,000 to give it back, and that was about five years back. The model shop decided to change their on-line name... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
F-UnitMad Posted September 3, 2011 Share Posted September 3, 2011 The cyber squatters have moved in... It came under attack from quite a few Spam 'Members' posting garbage in the last few days, and there was a thread somewhere about how the guy who's Forum it was never seemed to bother visiting it anymore, and never did anything about any problems. I only joined when membership became free, I must admit, but the tips were great and the standards of some stuff just incredible! As that's one less Forum, maybe I can consider joining another one, now... I'm on 3 regularly/daily, and this one was a fourth 'weekly'- any more is just impossble to keep track of..!! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Ray Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 Some (now third hand) information for you from a different message board: "A guy over in the gauge posted that he had communicated with the site owner, and learned from the site owner that the site had just gotten too expensive for him to maintain. The site owner had tried a membership fee for a while, but it didn't really work out, and the site was free again for the last year or so of it's life, according to the guy I heard it from. Second hand information, not independently verified with any primary sources" This site was recommended in that thread as being an equal to mtw.com, but I have not registered myself and cannot vouch for it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 I occasionally visit this site: http://dieseldetailer.proboards.com/index.cgi? Best, Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pennine MC Posted September 10, 2011 Share Posted September 10, 2011 ...The site owner had tried a membership fee for a while, but it didn't really work out, and the site was free again for the last year or so of it's life, according to the guy I heard it from. That's the chronology that I recall, I sent Rich Divizio (site owner) a couple of emails recently about reactivating my membership but got no reply. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gene Posted September 10, 2011 Author Share Posted September 10, 2011 Some (now third hand) information for you from a different message board: "A guy over in the gauge posted that he had communicated with the site owner, and learned from the site owner that the site had just gotten too expensive for him to maintain. The site owner had tried a membership fee for a while, but it didn't really work out, and the site was free again for the last year or so of it's life, according to the guy I heard it from. Second hand information, not independently verified with any primary sources" This site was recommended in that thread as being an equal to mtw.com, but I have not registered myself and cannot vouch for it. Thats pretty well the actual situation Sir Ray...and the alternative site you mention is excellent. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenton Posted September 10, 2011 Share Posted September 10, 2011 It takes a lot of time and effort to run a forum, though the outlay is relatively. However, the basic rule in any business/charity is to protect the assets - and that includes the domain name. It is very easy to do and if "stolen" can be fairly easy to retrieve (I have done this with a .com). Most hosting companies will do this as they are the ones also loosing business. Once a forum becomes really visible - due to content or membership - it becomes more difficult to run and manage and the more attractive it becomes to that element of misfits on the web who seek anarchy and destruction. RMWeb, I am sure attracts such attention but it is due to the vigilant attention of the admin team and the dedication of Andy to the site that we do not see this. Other site owners do not have this time resource to devote to a site and there becomes a point when you just give up. There can be many reasons why such a site can fall be the wayside but when a non-profitable and principally altruistic venture becomes more about fighting the attack (however formulated) than simple maintenance and it is simpler to walk away from it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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