Yellow Bullet versus Bangshift versus SIM Forums

[38P]

Here's a serious question . . . why is it that the Yellow Bullet forum is so huge?

It appears to me (an outsider) that YB is now bigger than Bangshift and the morbund Source Interlink Magazine (SIM) forums.

Is it the no-holes-bared, uncensored approach of YB that keeps it on top? After all, is there any topic that cannot be discussed somewhere at YB?

Is it the failure of SIM's cube hivers to pay any attention to the SIM fora what keep them lagging behind. Or are they just too restrictive? Why have many, if not most, quit the SIM fora for BS and/or YB?


How 'bout it? Any thoughts (and please, try to keep this one from the dreaded thread lock)

[kyhunter89]

Yellowbullet is old, BS swapped through several sites.

[Brian Lohnes]

The Bullet has been bigger than us from the get go. They have been around for years and it is certainly the defacto place to go for drag racing chat/info/etc. No idea about the SIM forums. Was never a member there or a lurker.

[38P]

Getting a head start certainly is an advantage . . . until you get passed by a more adaptive or better-perceived product (i.e. Camaro versus Mustang sales in the mid-70s and 2010 through present).

But SIM had a huge head start over BS . . . which seemed to evaporate during DF's absence.

I suspect that if SIM supported their fora more with quality daily front page content and more staff/reader interactions, perhaps they'd have been more competitive. That seems to work here and at mainstream places such as Autoblog and Jalopnik.

[Orange65]

I would say the no holds barred thing helps YB. But so does the in depth technical sections broken down into specialties and moderated by leaders in the industry. Neither SIM or BS has a place where you can post a question to nitrous specialist or a tire specialist- YB does. And that is very helpful to racers and street car people alike.

[bulletproof]

YB reminds my of pirate4x4...kinda rough..only thing i dont like about BS is the picture loading...not as easy as other sites,

[DanStokes]

I think it's a different thing. BS is like a big, extended, disfunctional family. I've only been on YB a couple of times. It was OK but just felt too big to me. Also, there was too much drama and at my age drama has NO appeal. SIM shot themselves in the foot and I'm sorry for that. I've been reading HRM since probably 1960 or so and I want to like what they offer but they really killed themselves.

I feel like I KNOW the BSers and many I have actually met in real life. It's always a pleasure. I'm stickin' here where I seem to fit.

Dan

[Ron Ward]

I was a member of the SIM crowd before they changed their forum format. After the change, it just went downhill. Gawd, what a fuster cluck...

I frequent the Bullet on occasion, but it seems to me the political and religious content clutters up what would otherwise be a great site.

I'll stick with BS.


Ron

[Manifestospeed]

YB is a religion

[Monk]

BS is like going into your neighborhood bar and shootin the bull.

YB is going into a large biker bar with pole dancers.
I'm just a lurker there.

[JeffMcKC]

The Yellow Bullet is the Cutting edge of Sportsman racing at a Sportsman level. I has some of the best minds in this kind of racing. I caters to a different croud. Its has been overwelmed and dumbed down a lot of the last couple years by people trying to advertize there engine builders and shouting down people enough where some very smart people no longer help or post. They are not what it once was but as far as little guy racing its still the best there is at what it does. Most of the real stuff goes on in the PMs back and forth. Lots of people go to the trashed section and get put off, the tech forums have a lot of info and you have to sort threw and know peoples agenda and who to listen too.

[Manifestospeed]

YB is going into a large biker bar with pole dancers.

Politics, religion, bikers and pole dancers? Sounds like a remake of "Easy Rider" with Bill Clinton and Jimmy Swagart.

[Ron Ward]

Politics, religion, bikers and pole dancers? Sounds like a remake of "Easy Rider" with Bill Clinton and Jimmy Swagart.

... and guns. Don't forget the guns.

Probably should add Ted Nugent to the aforementioned cast of characters.




Ron

[dieselgeek]

Not to bag too hard on the Yellow Bullet forums, but that place was great 5-7 years ago. Now it's become "huge" only because 99.999999% of the people there are entry level or guys who like to watch and read about racers, but don't race themselves. The best things happening on the bullet are, as Jeff once said, happening only via private message.

The best and brightest in the industry often get tired of frequenting forums when they get "shouted down" but haters, hecklers, bullshitters, know-it-alls with no experience, etc. That happened to the bullet a long time ago.


And the Source Interlink forums - those went to crap when SIM decided to write their own forum software from scratch - you can tell that they didn't give a crap about user experience, but they spent all their development time and money making sure they can plow 800 advertising popups in the first 9 seconds of your experience there. I feel like I'm trying to claim a $1000 wal mart gift card my email says I am being awarded, every time I went there to see what's new in the forums. It's not built as a neighborhood hangoug like this place, it's built as a place to lure people to pump sponsor/advertising into them as long as they'll stay. Lohnes and Reynolds and Freiburger's vision of a good auto forum is exatly what this place is now - first and foremost about the people here, then adding decent and vetted sponsors that are appropriate for the audience and help keep the lights turned on.

Plus Lohnes is a content machine, it's always fun reading what he has to say.

[Loren]

Followed YB a few years ago...it was like being at the street races, with some interesting things happening repeatedly doused by inane trash-talk and teen-girl drama until it became insufferable. I wouldn't have it on the screen with a family around. I wonder if it's different now? As Jeff McKC says, I should check the tech section. At any rate, the craziest goings-on always draws the most onlookers, something I'd notice as I'm passing on by.

Remember the Hot Rod forum in it's day? A thriving place, which SIM couldn't have done a better job of killing and making sure it stayed killed. After they make those changes, it was like going out to your garage to get your actual hot rod and finding a Camry parked instead (and it was and is the same with CC and PHR...we should check the Motor Trend forums and see if the SIM mold worked there.) It felt like disrespect to all their members, although I don't blame them if they didn't have the stomach for the religion, political conspiricy-theory and space alien bullsh*t that periodically ran the board and just wouldn't die. (We of-course would be getting that here, and from the same small handfull of paranoid-deludeds, if not for the active effort to keep it off.) So, does that SIM we're-all-in-a-cube-farm formula help sell magazines, or move advertiser product? I suppose they know but it doesn't for me, although I do like being able to check in and reference an old article now-and-then when I'm looking for it.

BangShift is a good middle ground.