Treasure Depot

[rled2005]

Treasure Depot is shutting down tomorrow.

Detector/Prospector may get an influx of people wanting to join, to trade and sell detectors.

[Steve Herschbach]

I got crosswise with Larry early on. I can’t remember if he banned me or I banned myself, but end result was the same.  I don’t hold grudges though... I hope he is doing well.

[dogodog]

Disagreements are free, grudges cost a lot.  Good on you Steve. Hopefully we get some new members to share with. I always welcome new thoughts and ideas.

[RickUK]

Alas socially media sites like say FaceAche are gradually killing off the older detecting sites and in 5 years or so only a few forums will be still around.Detecting forums have either got to adapt or be more specialised and then they have a much better chance of surviving.

Detectorprospector i think will be one of those that will survive for sure,one of my favourite forums infact one of only a couple that i still post on.

[Steve Herschbach]

It is a little more complicated than that. Many of these forums are pretty old, and the people running them even older. A lot of them got started with the goal of selling banner ads to manufacturers and dealers, which used to be "the thing" for making money off websites.

Now many of the owners are getting old enough they don't want to deal with the constant work anymore. This is accelerated by the fact that selling banner ads directly is not near as lucrative as it once was. Some of these guys were coining some pretty good change. Now manufacturers are cutting back on that kind of advertising in favor of their own Facebook pages, and sponsoring YouTube "stars."

I do think poor moderation did not help as many users found behavior on some forums enough to drive them away. Add it all up, and many of the forums are running out of steam. It does not help that many are running on old software not up to modern standards, and the difficulty of upgrading may be the thing that causes them to throw in the towel.

I took a different tack here by using Google ads to cover my costs. So I do not need manufacturer or dealer support. And I try and keep the place more focused and civil. I also upgraded to modern software that can support new devices. The forum has been growing gangbusters, so it shows there is a way for that to happen, even in the world of Facebook and Instagram, etc. A forum serves a different purpose - long term accumulation of organized information, that Facebook simply cannot equal. There is still a place for forums, but the old ways don't work. You have to keep up with the times.

Forum pageviews per day since this forum started in 2011. The three main spikes at release of the SDC 2300, GPZ 7000, and Equinox. New detector releases are traffic drivers, especially gold detectors.

[rled2005]

Facebook seems to be made up of 60% Voyeurs, spies, gossipers, vanity, trouble starters, keyboard warriors, and keep-up with the Jones' types. There's a bunch of good to it, but a lot of unnecessary BS. I mainly use it to keep in contact with family myself.

[Detecta]

Social media, never been there and never will go there.

[rled2005]

4 hours ago, phrunt said:

This site is like an encyclopedia of detecting information, Facebook can never match that.  If I have a query or want to know about a  detector or how to do something I google it and more often than not the search result turns up DP forum with a bunch of useful information on my query.  Social media doesn't work that way, I'd never even think to use Facebook or another of those new nosy websites to learn something.  I call them nosy as they seem to be more about seeing what people are doing than they are about information.  "Oh I went out for dinner, here is a photo of my meal, and the waitress and the table we sat at, and so on and so on". I don't care about that stuff.

I have seen so many use FB as their own personal diary. It’s irritating. Anyway it could have potential with the right layout and rules, I suppose. But there’s too many ways for persona non grata’s to get your information.

[Northeast]

5 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

A forum serves a different purpose - long term accumulation of organized information, that Facebook simply cannot equal

Amen to that!

[Steve Herschbach]

And poof, it is gone. Only to live on in the Internet Archive, but only some old saves.