Colt Case Ingersoll Garden Tractors

Been around on these forums since 2008... I guess my question is ...have you?

Ever start to get frustrated and wonder when our hobby will be left alone by the idiots that just want to make money on our knowledge and shut down our hobby. Want to fight back?

For me I have been in "our hobby" for at least since 2008, yeah 14 years plus. I have friends that have been in this space up to 10 years more. I guess my question to everyone here is "why do we take the abuse and let our hobby, our knowledge, our fellowship, be stolen by others that just want to make a profit from us? Any ideas why we don't say "bugger off" why don't we , with the chance we now have with fellow hobbyists just come together and pay our dues to keep our hobby private. Yeah I am a Brit too! and I for one want to work, no demand, a site that stays loyal to it's base .. what about you? No more moving to the next site, lets just make this our site?...I will stay if you will...

To me it is very sad when a forum like this which is built on the actual knowledge contributed by members, and it constitutes an actual virtual community, does not listen at all to what the community wants. Though it seems fine or acceptable for many people who did not join us here.

I honestly don't know the whole history of the old site, from three founders somehow only one was left, who needed money for some upgrade at his house? Maybe he also lost interest too? Would've been different if the site was "purchased" by someone who actually cared about this hobby and the community built around it.

However, let's look ahead, we will not allow anything like that to happen to us. Our site here is clearly growing.

I would say most of the time I'm good and people don't get under my skin much. There have been times when people write things and I'm not sure what they meant. If I respond most times, they don't reciprocate so I just forget what they said. It's only happened a few times, so it doesn't bother me!

Keep the Peace
Harry

Hey guys,

A few years ago "Successful Farming" Magazine had a real good site for dial up chat sites. More recently, they decided to allow advertising and the site started to slow up. Then they decided to allow scrolling advertising, and no body with dial up could get the site to load anymore.

At that point, some forward looking people (15 years ago) decided they were going to start their own site (NewAgTalk.com) and not allow advertising. That allowed them to start on a frugal budget and grow. As it grew the need for more powerful servers became apparent, and they went to a donation system. Once a year, donation screen goes up, and needs are met in less than 24 hours. This money raised is used for upgraded equipment and repair. No salaries are paid, moderators are volunteer.

I think we are around 50,000 posters on there now, if i remember correctly. If you go to the "Successful Farming" site it looks like a ghost town compared to the days past.

I actually posted something to that affect on the old site we are discussing, a couple years back when all the changes were being made. I have been on our old site recently, and have been regularly, to see if there is something of value there. And there is, but not nearly as it was in the past. People are going to keep joining that site because of search engines sending them there. There are certainly glitches continuing on that site that are not being handled promptly, if at all.

It is nice to see this site growing like it has. I often check in here, just to see what has been posted since I was last here, but may check out quickly if I am in a hurry. My habit has become to check here if I am in a hurry, and check the other site, if I have time.

Keep up the good work!

Bill Moyer

The old site was the best. Yes, there were 3 owners. 2 of the 3 had regular duties and the 3rd was rarely involved. But, that was working fine. One owner was the moderator, Tom Arnold aka cannot remember Hilda. That is really bad since I helped him form and moderated his new site. He created an orderly site and enforced the rules strictly. Some did not like that or him. Snotrocket was the tech guy and kept the behind-the-scenes server stuff in order. Snotrocket is the one of the 3 that sold the site. He claimed he did not want the burden any longer and sold the site without any warning. Many members tried to buy the site and it was obvious that did not work. The other owner was Jack. I am horrible with names. All this created a seismic split in the forum. Some got over it, others left or were banned because they voiced an opinion that was not in line with the interest of the sale.

That forum had a full library. It also had very searchable past threads that one could use to learn all you would want to learn and even more that you did not realize you needed to know. The member agreement even said in essence to try to help yourself before asking the same question that 100's, many 100"s have already asked. But, having said that if you quoted a post showing you read the thread your full understanding was the goal of those on the site. This did not make some happy. Facebook is horrible for this. I get flamed all the time for saying "have you ever heard of Google?" Their question of the group would be all over the internet. I no longer respond to many posts that I could.

The forum search still works at casecoltingersoll.com and is the go-to place for getting to know what you need or want to know. The library recently got destroyed by about the 5th new owner to buy the site. I cannot use the site directly because I am banned for life. Those that did not like Tom Arnold did not like me after I was part of his new site. That site got hacked. It is suspected Tom reused his password. That password was known by some who had a falling out with Tom. But, back to the topic of searching the original site, Google searches forums better than even the search bar of the forum. The forum is preferred by the site owners to keep you in the forum. But, Google searches all sites and returns results that are far closer to the question or query. I can read the Google results of all sites.

I am self-taught expert on how these tractors work and fix the unfixable all the time. My way is to teach you how to fish, even if you hate fish, even though I have plenty of fish and I rarely just give you the fish. Having to read for even hours is learning. I assume most Case owners plan on keeping their tractors for a long time. Readding the wrong topic on the way to the right one is still useful. By getting this type of education you get to know why something is doing or not doing what it is doing. This is better than just buying parts and hoping for the best. Many people have spare Onan coils for instance. I stay away from the cheap made in China parts and only search for small engine parts sellers on the web or some of my regular sources. But, there are some parts that are made by branded aftermarket parts that are fine. No eBay or Amazon unless it is the OEM part.

@ssmewing I agree with you.
I have not been around the forums from the beginning, but with hundreds and hundreds of hours of searching, I have a very good idea of how things use to be and how good it was. I believe there is still a ton of great information there that would be a shame to be lost. Though the changes to the site have taken there toll, the last seeming to be the worst. The loss of pictures and attachments in threads has made many threads useless. I know tech keeps changing and doesn't always mesh well. I'm not a computer/tech guy, but trying to avoid the loss of data sure seems important. To me it doesn't seem VS tried very hard.

I think the dynamic of users is changing, many people don't want to do the homework to find the answer. They want to just ask the question and get an immediate answer, why I think Facebook is popular. It doesn't matter if the "what oil" question has been asked three times in the last two days. I think they miss out on the challenge of finding out on your own and what you may learn along the way.

I believe the forum is still the best way to preserve information and help people. Having friendly, knowledgeable people is important to keeping the CCI world going. Realizing that everyone's skills and abilities are different, all we can do is our best for the good of these little tractors and the community.

If you’ll allow an outsider/new guy to comment on this topic, I’d like to share my reasons for requesting a membership to this site and not CCI. For full disclosure I have been a member of a Yeaterdays Tracor forums since 2013, so I’m not new to tractor sites. When I brought our 648 home this site and CCI were both mentioned to me as sources of good information, and they both are, but I wanted to join this site for a few reasons.

1) The layout and use of this site made more sense to me. CCI wasn’t as intuitive to use, (maybe that’s just me or some of the changes you guys have talked about).

2) In looking at both sites I saw a lot of complaints about CCI in reference to the changes made. Here I saw a group that recognized the issues of their site and decided to do something about it by creating this site. That spoke volumes about the people here. Hats off to you for taking the initiative to make things better for the GT community.

3) The sence of community here, and having a chance to be part of that. I’m my opinion would most of us really need to be part of a forum? Probably not. As stated most everything you need to know is out there on the web and can be searched out. For me I doesn’t really matter what size tractor we’re talking about it’s the sense of community and the sharing of experience and knowledge, and the discussions that come from that.

It doesn’t seem right to me to just do your research with out trying to give something back.

Anyway, that’s my 2 cents for what it’s worth. Glad to be here and hope it continues to grow.

@JSinMO you have become, in my opinion, an insider the moment you started to participate. Everything you said resonates with me, and I am glad we have a bunch of us who seem to think along these lines. There's a proverb where I come from which translated word by word is something like "Man sanctifies the place" but I found that in English a better translation is "A good farmer makes a good farm". This place will be the way we make it.

I deal with farmers a lot. I am a crop consultant and have been for 40+ years. You are correct: A good farmer makes a good farm!

Bill

On the old site Lionel had put in a bunch of work awhile back to get the library working, but sometime after that some of it crapped out again. He has been back at it The last time I was there the old format was there with unclickable links, but if I scrolled down below that the new links were there.


Gordy

@Gordy some of those links redirect to this website. Look at some of the links closely and you will find ccigt

Spike188 wrote: ↑Thu May 26, 2022 1:17 pm @Gordy some of those links redirect to this website. Look at some of the links closely and you will find ccigt

I had noticed that. When rebuilding, sometimes you have use what you can find. The point is that there are still good people on the other site trying to make it work.


Gordy

Gordy wrote: ↑Thu May 26, 2022 12:45 pm On the old site Lionel had put in a bunch of work awhile back to get the library working, but sometime after that some of it crapped out again. He has been back at it The last time I was there the old format was there with unclickable links, but if I scrolled down below that the new links were there.


Gordy

Lionel at cci is a great guy!!! All admins are and I personally invited them here, not only as regular users, but as admins as well. I have great respect for them and many of the users. The ownership should take care of them, you don't just find good people growing on trees.

Harry wrote: ↑Fri May 27, 2022 8:09 am the new owner VS seems to not care. They just want to make the advertising money from the advertisers.

Keep the Peace
Harry

Harry,Thanks for your help on the other site you are awesome too

I am on a Chromebook and have the free "Ad Guardian" addon. Just wondering if I don't see the ads, do they still make money when my PC blocks them?


Gordy

I'm not sure about that Gordy. I don't see ads either being a moderator. Ads are a PITA!
Keep the Peace
Harry

Gordy wrote: ↑Fri May 27, 2022 9:22 am

Harry wrote: ↑Fri May 27, 2022 8:09 am the new owner VS seems to not care. They just want to make the advertising money from the advertisers.

Keep the Peace
Harry

Harry,Thanks for your help on the other site you are awesome too

I am on a Chromebook and have the free "Ad Guardian" addon. Just wondering if I don't see the ads, do they still make money when my PC blocks them?


Gordy

I think your premium membership gets you less or no adds. But if the blocker is working that may be helping.
I get them, seem to be getting more. When I can just scroll through it's not so bad, but when you start reading something and it jumps to one and I gotta figure which way to scroll to get back.

Gordy wrote: ↑Fri May 27, 2022 9:22 am
I am on a Chromebook and have the free "Ad Guardian" addon. Just wondering if I don't see the ads, do they still make money when my PC blocks them?


Gordy

My understanding is that, with Google ads, one makes money only from clicks on the ads. However, you can make money with a website only from showing someone's ads, and then it will depend on whether the site software can detect that you use ad blocking, and some do. From what I've seen the parent company, VS, is quite sophisticated and their business is making money on established forums of which they purchased lots of. They bought most tractor forums, and most car forums too (my Honda Ridgeline forum for instance). It's funny to me, they're a Toronto based company, with offices downtown.

In all honesty, sometimes ads don't bother me, but it depends on how they're integrated in a website. However, as I said from the beginning, we will not add ads here. You may be asking, should we charge various vendors something? I don't think so. In my opinion we are a small community, and the vendors that carry Case parts are not big commercial companies. Word of mouth and personal experience with our vendors, not to mention their technical expertise and involvement in the community will carry more weight than any ad.

We don't have staff to pay, our site runs on a very inexpensive web site hosting, no need to bring in moneys yet I've been asking myself lately, is growth really necessary? Not sure. We have very good technical discussions here, in my opinion you are great people to hang out here in the virtual domain and chat about tractors, share experiences. Most new users will go to the other site, and it's understandable. As I said before, both sites have something to offer. I do like very much that THIS is our playground and we make it any way we like it. And I say WE, and include you in it. This is your site as much as it's mine, as long as you are involved and care about it.