[Ccass]

If you are reading this topic, I am kind of preaching to the choir but we're sending my blog out to the entire membership Monday. There's a lot to absorb here. It may be a little bit long winded but I feel it is very important topic. I would like all your collective feedback.

****************************************

Here we are in the middle of 2018. 2018! Say that out loud to yourself. Two Thousand eighteen! For most of us growing up in the 50's, 60's and 70's and beyond, watching Sci-fi movies of the obliteration of the world in a variety of ways from an errant asteroid, to launching Nuclear weapons, to alien invasions, was normal. But in reality we're way past the time even real life prognosticators like Nostradamus and false Prophet Harold Camping thought we'd ever make it.
In contrast to all that doom and gloom, the world has experienced some incredible advancements especially in medicine and technology. Life expectancy is a lot longer. Who would have thought that there would be 2.5 billion 'personal computers' in everyone's pocket (smart phones). Electric and driverless cars are just around the corner from being the norm. So even if you are a cynic about the world today, at least you have to admit if we are going down, we’re going down with guns blazing!

But for all the apparent impressive technology, there are potential hidden traps. We're living longer, but look at all the quality of life financial health care issues living longer has created. We have the world at our fingertips but, look at the challenges it has presented in the way our young people interact with each other. There are plenty more examples, but I think these are two good examples.

Well, by now I may have lost you and that would be a shame because I'm just getting to my point! Alas, I do not have the answers for these monumental issues. However, I have clearly uncovered a piece of technology that is doing a real disservice to our Pontiac hobby. Our hobby is nose deep in one of those hidden traps I mentioned.

Facebook!

When you see that word it may conjure up visions of a 9 foot tall bear dancing to Pit Bull's song Fireball or maybe Walmart people or a hilarious photo caption. You might also think about what great therapy it is to have so many 'buds' supporting and pulling for you when you've hit bad times. And for these reasons and many more, we can thank Facebook.

So if FB is great for social and entertainment purposes, how on earth is FB hurting our hobby?
It is a poor way to store, organize and preserve information!

There are at least 100 disconnected Pontiac sites on FB. If I looked hard enough, there's probably a Linden Green 1967 GTO owners site! Once I found it, I'd be able to share good times with my 4 other Linden Green GTO owners from around the world! Oh, but wait..... 8 hours after a member took an hour to post an interesting story about his uncle at Pontiac being the guy that was in charge of selecting the car colors for 1967 Pontiacs, it's lost in a sea of posts never to be found again! And even if you could find it, it’s only being shared with a tiny part of those who would be very interested in seeing it.

FB is NOT the place to store and organize valuable information! By now, surely we've all noticed this? Collectively, as enthusiasts, we all have something to offer the hobby. We have experiences, knowledge, hunches, advice, pictures, drawings, stories and more. Imagine if you could put all of this in your own time capsule. Now take that capsule and add it to a landfill of thousands of other capsules just like it. Is anyone starting to get the picture? We're sharing valuable information, but we're throwing it in a landfill where nobody can come back and find it! I'm not going to sugar coat it. As an automotive enthusiast, using FB in this way is downright selfish and short-sighted. not to mention, extremely inefficient.

One could argue that, 'Well, I'll just post my information again the next time somebody needs it'. The last I checked, none of us are getting any younger any time soon. Are you telling me we all have so much free time in life that we're ok with going to dozens and dozens of FB locations to post valuable information? It sure sounds like we're living out our personal versions of a Pontiac Groundhog Day to me.

Since the invention of papyrus, in order to preserve history, man has spent millions of hours trying to properly store and organize information. FB comes along and in a couple of years that activity seems to have been pretty much been abandoned when it comes to preserving our Pontiac information!

Ok, so by now, I've either lost you completely and you are not reading this sentence or if you are still reading, maybe you are starting to get my drift. But what's the big deal? The big deal is that anything worth saving and preserving, demands gathering, organizing, and storing.

So what can we do? It's quite simple, the internet gave us an amazing way to share, organize and store information and ideas. As the internet evolved, forum communities with more and more sophisticated software emerged and flourished. In these communities, whether we noticed or not, a literal encyclopedia of knowledge was being gathered, organized, categorized and stored for all time. Interactions between consumer and manufacturer helped many new products to get developed. Most of this would never have happened if it weren't for these communities. We were BUILDING something really good. But if you really look closely at the current internet landscape, a huge majority of our communities have unknowingly been caught in the “FB trap”.

I'm not saying for all of us to abandon FB, but I never saw a successful Encyclopedia set that didn't have the current year's update. Our hobby grew because everyone came together. There is power in numbers. Having all that great knowledge get lost in a sea of endless instant gratification threads on endless FB sites is a tragedy.

It is time for all of us to collectively be more responsible and return to the places that helped make our hobby what it is today and to insure that all of it will be there in the future. Support your online Forum community!

The PY Online Forums- Bringing the Pontiac world together since 1991.

The PY Forums spans all the way back to 1991. Data has been categorized and organized since 1998. Literally millions of posts have been preserved forever. It may not be as fun as FB to use, but the entire community is fairly well organized by category and when it is not, the software has very powerful search options that can yield 20 years worth of very valuable information. And it's also pretty much all the same people you are seeing on FB anyway.

Also, within a year, expect a major announcement of a merging of the PY Forums with another very valuable Pontiac site to combine resources to be bigger and better than ever.

Come back, give back and make the Pontiac hobby better.

Chris

[Stuart]

Fine with me. I never signed up for Facebook anyway.

[4zpeed]

Hell to the yea!!! What Chris said!!!

Edit: Matter of fact I came here today for electrical advice, knew the question had been asked before and rather than have someone re-hash, used the search engine.

Sure enough there it was, a very complete and extensive step by step explanation on how to replace the idiot lights with rally gauges by Peter Serio.

I don't know Peter personally but given the opportunity would be more than happy to thank and repay him for taking the time to help a fellow Pontiac family member.

Which in return answered my question, this is what Chris is talking about, a wealth of diverse information gathered by very knowledgeable people and collectively shared.

I am fairly new to this forum but can see at a glance from the past that, "there is strength in numbers", we can all share, help, learn and prosper from this forum.



Frank

[Jerry H.]

I was thinking the very same thing about all the different Pontiac sites. I'm guilty, I'm signed up on several of those sites (but I can never remember which ones) and am constantly getting bombarded with posts where someone puts up a picture of his uncle's brother's wife's GTO, etc. It takes a lot of our time to figure out which posts are legitimate and which are not. I've met with more ignorance on those sites than I can remember. Now I've just decided to just not waste my time anymore. All my Pontiac time will be spent here.

[60sstuff]

I have never used FB.

Yes, I’m a dinosaur, so my daughter jokingly says.

I grew up in the 1950’s, 60’s and I wouldn’t trade it for any other time frame.

Muscle cars, Elvis, Beatles and Playboy just to name a few.

This PY site is Awesome! I learn from it all the time and I try to contribute whenever I can.

Someday I won’t be here and my cars and knowledge will move on.

But for now, let’s do it. Never know what tomorrow will bring.

Big Thanks for this wonderful site !!

Regards, Chris.

[68 461 Bird]

I never liked Facebook, also I have never seen so much Religion and Politics rammed up our butts in my life as you see on there.

PY and Ames have been the leaders in the Pontiac hobby for over 30 years, why go anywhere else but here for information and great people! I am a firm believer in supporting the companies that support our hobby.

[Baron Von Zeppelin]

phooey on FaceBook
the women and children can have all of it.

And please stop using links for photos and documents from 3rd servers.
Post Your Attachments straight to the Site when you make a post.

If you post them here, they will Always Be Here.
Even after you are gone.

5-10-20-maybe 30+ years from now , it will make a difference to future users.
Broken links are worthless , remember what P-Bucket did ?
They all will in one way or another.

We will be the old school real deal overlords of Pontiac to future gens.
Get used to it.
Leave them some good stuff. Not broken links.

[Hikin Mike]

Facebook has it's place. I like it for re-connecting to long lost friends, but not so much for communities. I prefer forums (like this) to share info.

[brut4s]

I use both. It's true it is hard to find info on FB if you don't save it first. From time to time old saved threads I saved on here have disappeared.

[BOB VIDAN]

Man Chris and others, I couldn't agree more. Too much technology to fast is a lot to handle much less learn and absorb. Facebook, not so much for me. Never understood why it's so important to tell the whole world how many sheets of TP it took to wipe your tush this morning and have it before the world forever.
Off subject a bit but was at a stop light on a busy street a few weeks ago and watched a gal walk across the street with her nose buried in her phone in her left hand. As she got to the curb, she stepped up and walked into a telephone pole with her right shoulder. Phone never left her left hand as she rubbed her right shoulder with it, still talking on her phone. She rotated her right shoulder and arm a couple of times, then proceded to turn left and walk into the corner of a bus shelter. Can't even commit suicide right.
Py forums need to be kept THE source to lookup and add to the Pontiac info already here.

[Cardo]

No Facebook here either... actually probably slightly aint-facebook. Never been on it, don't want to be. I really appreciate this forum, probably the closest i'll ever be to social media. I caught what you said about merging with another forum Chris. I really appreciate what you've done here, but i really hope it doesn't get messed up in the merger either, as in diluted. We've got an awesome forum and community here.

[61-63]

I tried facebook for three or four months and then got off it wasn't for me. It won't go away through and there is nothing we can do about, and yes it does dilute this site some I suppose. I log onto this site every day and probably will until I pass on or it does. Best Pontiac enthusiast site bar none.

[Baron Von Zeppelin]

Facebook and Google want to rule the world
or at least the internet - at minimum.

Seems like every other click something prompts you to sign in with your Facebook or Gmail/Google account. Or link this and that to your Fbook or Google/Gmail.

I think Bob is right - even about the toilet paper useage.
They basically want to get in the middle of everything we do.
And they want to log it, track it, exploit it.

They can kiss my toilet paper.

[dhcarguy]

I totally agree with Ccass. I will go even further and say I think facebook is a cancer. It was a neat thing in the beginning, and I can see how people have become addicted to it. When my immediate family gets together(3 daughters, 3 sons in law, and 8 grand kids 10 to 24 yrs old) No one pays much attention to anything except their smart phones. Last Xmas dinner, I finnally asked everyone to put them down until after dinner. The adults (red faced) apologized and put them down. The young ones did not until their Dads told them to. I still have a flip phone and I love it, but this year I will be getting a new smart phone. I will still use it to CALL people and not text them.
I will also bet that in the work place, because of people using them for PERSONAL reasons, productivity is down to close to 50%.

[The Boss]

No Facebook here either although I am afraid I'll have to join as I launch a new endeavor - we'll see.

Chris you have been a valuable part of this hobby for a very long time & we all applaud you for that. I think there are very few people, maybe a handful, who could claim to have done more. Thank you!

[Steve C.]

Facebook ? I don't even carry a cell phone !


.

[ponchjoe]

I’m not a FB’er either and totally agree with you Chris. The message is received. The problem is the younger generation isn’t as into the forum side because they don’t know any better. The “Matrix” is swallowing us all up and only us a old fogies are resisting. How do we reach the next generation of hobby?

[ponchjoe]

I’m also curious about the merge and the benefits.

[critter]

Interesting. I used to run a forum on our car club's web site. I finally gave up. Lack of participation didn't make it worth the work of keeping it updated and secure. I never threw away the DB though. There was some good information in there. I'm not sure what to do with it to this day. Good luck on the merger. As you noted, social media doesn't archive a damned thing.

[bird72]

You asked for input..... To keep a format and website alive into the future, look at what is fine for the older generations and look at what is appealing to the younger generations also. They inherit this hobby, us old dogs are old guard

I agree the format and archive ability and sectionalized areas on PY are king. Tidy and navigate well.

What does facebook have that appeals? For myself:

A lessor level of anonymous. Most people are who they say and visible. I believe it helps with forthright and posting issues a bit. It is nice seeing real people not handles.

Ability to have big pics in posts. And videos with play button, and preview screen.

Link and share ease of stuff.

Networking capability and business page stuff. People seeing my post can see I have a business page and click boom to that site, so it is a business exposure benefit.

The international and even in US crossing more social spectrums, of people that post. I see Firebird owners from all over world posting on FB bird site and that is way cool. I know we have international here, but it seems nowhere near the scope.

What I don't like is the transitory "for the moment" nature of FB. A big scrolling screen where yesterday fades quick. It is more a "social" aspect of hobby than real reference, expert stuff as here. Although I see some same people and some high level knowledge mixed in the huge rookie pool.

You can incorporate some from with worlds. Some web forums allow a posting with FB log in. Incorporate some feature that people like in FB. People are expecting this stuff more and more. Make an anti FB stand and that is ignoring that most people utilize it these days, for business and reference and information look up, in conjunction with Google. I thought FB was silly, was forced into it for business reasons, people asking / expecting it. Now that I am on it I see cool features, also negative aspects. Combine some of two formats (old school website and FB interactive style) and you have a winner, IMO.