Rob1 I still pop by from time to time, mostly to catch gems like this and see how long they go unmoderated. https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/topic/63889-i-feel-so-lucky-to-know-this-app/

Theres loads Rob

https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/topic/57660-mycotoxins-mould-in-my-coffee/?do=findComment&comment=872597

https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/topic/45326-artificial-grass-anyone-got/?do=findComment&comment=867795

https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/profile/33507-ameliasolis/ (this ones just waiting to spam the **** outta the forum)

https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/gallery/image/1409-eureka-mignon-specialita-burrs/

https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/topic/63823-coffeeshop-owners-and-managers-needed-for-research-on-running-a-smb/?tab=comments#comment-872295

https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/topic/63819-coffeefriendcouk-special-offers-promotions-and-more/?tab=comments#comment-872281

https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/topic/63807-coffee-shops-with-website-need-some-help/?do=findComment&comment=872331 (probably spam)

There are loads more, plus username spam as well. Vscrote know nothing about coffee, and never even tried to learn….it’s not surprising they can see it. They have no real interest. They were, however, interested enough to remove my signature, remove me as a mod, and set my account to no e-mail confirmation. This effectively bans me, because they (mistakenly) thought banning me would show me as banned against my profile and posts, and might have looked bad.

This didn’t surprise me because their admin has not exactly told the truth about anything….and really doesn’t give a rats arse about anything but his job, managing many many forums.

P.S Be funny if their (inexperienced) admin is reading this….and deals with the spam

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    6 days later

    This has been an interesting read. I knew nothing of this.

    I have spent some time over the last few months on the Home-Barista.com forum. Seems like many knowledgeable folks on that site. But it is clearly monetized with lots of appropriate ads from the local companies including Clive etc. But it seems pretty innocuous. What are your thoughts about that site? I sure prefer this one, I must say, and I am glad I found it.

      dndrich Greetings, it is a bit hard to comment as the structure of the US and UK systems are so vastly different. It appears, that the whole US system is based around $ and everything is maximised to that purpose. In the UK, not quite so much. So, this explains partly why this forum is a non commercial forum. There is nothing wrong with adverts and especially ads that have some relationship to the nature of the forum.
      But, and it is a big but, the VS system appears simply to use non tailored ads through Google. I for one absolutely detest sites that do that. I go onto a site called Newsnow to look for specific Football info, and every few seconds ads that obscure most of the page randomly pop up and it annoys the hell out of me! If I visit HB, I consider myself to be a guest and therefore accept the advertising policy.

      https://www.suddencardiacarrestuk.org/2024/02/thank-goodness-for-madeira-cake/

        dndrich I have spent some time over the last few months on the Home-Barista.com forum. Seems like many knowledgeable folks on that site. But it is clearly monetized with lots of appropriate ads from the local companies including Clive etc. But it seems pretty innocuous. What are your thoughts about that site? I sure prefer this one, I must say, and I am glad I found it.

        The site has always run as a business, it’s not been sold and monetised multiple times to end up in the hands of a faceless corporate who don’t care about coffee. The people running Home Barista are clearly interested in coffee and if they want to monetise it, that is their choice.

        This site isn’t monetised because the small community has gone through enough and don’t deserve to be subjected to a profiteering corporate with zero interest in coffee, or the community. I’ve had enough and clearly so have they.

        Interestingly, VS migrate all their forums (the one forum they have not migrated (Vbulletin), because I believe they own the Vbulletin system now. As I was saying, they migrate all their forums to Xenforo running on their platform. They do this because it’s all cookie cutter forums so paid admins can easily manage multiple forums and they are all arranged to data share and show adverts everywhere (the cost recovery model, after all they need to get 50-60K back). They announced a day or so ago they were going to Migrate the UK forum they took over for

        • Benefit of members (yeah sure)
        • Move from an old out of date system (the current forum system, used Invision was up to date)
        • New features and functions (I think the opposite will be true

        I’m glad you like this site…the UK coffee forum scene is small and fragile….we needed to show there is another way when VS come knocking, and anyone can do it. If a community wants to badly enough, it can go its own way for free. No advertisers or commercial interests to upset.

        P.S. I thought VS wouldn’t care, but they did…now I would just like all the forums that are left to notice.

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          8 days later

          SiblingChris They seem to be getting quick at it. Not had much spare time lately, so only just got round to sorting an account over here and mailing them to remove my data and anonomise my account. They’ve already responded and checking my posts just show as a number now.

              Ad_G Well they have what they really want….the database of posts, not because of it’s technical value to anyone…that’s perishable. It’s because it’s a fantastically fine meshed net of coffee keywords, crawled by the search engine bots/spiders.

              As for activity, they really only need a minimum keep alive activity to maintain the search engine rankings and usually get that by attracting new fish who make a few posts. They sometimes manage to convince people to keep posting, but in general that dies away after a while…because a community can only take disinterest for so long.

              I looked around at the various forums they run and for the more specialised ones, might still have members posting who run side businesses etc…even that dies away eventually as VS usually stamp on it…..unless those members can become mods.

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              • Ad_G replied to this.

                  DavecUK Yep, I realised I’d been bitten by VS before. They took over another forum I’d been on to sort some stuff on my car. They killed that one and also had a nice data breach of everyones details (2016 I think).

                    8 days later

                    Dear me! It looks absolutely terrible! Seems to be 100% aimed at phone users. I suppose they are counting on an average user being totally intone with forums and sites that are reaped by Google ads. The older users that are left, may drift away. The one hit wonders who pop on to try and fix a problem with the built in machine will not care…..good luck to them I say

                    https://www.suddencardiacarrestuk.org/2024/02/thank-goodness-for-madeira-cake/

                      DavecUK CFUK is now just an advertisement billboard and cash cow for a corporate that cares nothing about coffee.

                      The same can be said for the previous owner, in my experience: Not a clue about coffee.

                      dfk41 Dear me! It looks absolutely terrible! Seems to be 100% aimed at phone users

                      I checked last night. It feels very cluttered, and doesn’t lend itself well to mobile web either. But like anything, it’s a change and people don’t like it. Eventually users (old or new) will get used to it.

                            MediumRoastSteam But like anything, it’s a change and people don’t like it. Eventually users (old or new) will get used to it.

                            I hope not 🤣 unless they love loads of advertising everywhere.

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                                DavecUK - Yeah I noticed that yesterday. The advertising in the middle of threads are unappealing.

                                OMG! I just checked again, on desktop. Blimey. It’s a lot worse than on mobile web. Adverts everywhere.

                                PS: Adverts targeted at me: “Floor to Walls”, “AVS Forum” and “Hipster Coffee machines” 🤣

                                I have not even logged in!!!!!

                                PS: We should move some of this discussion (which started yesterday) to the “What Corporates do to Forums etc”

                                https://coffeetime.freeflarum.com/d/83-what-corporates-can-do-when-they-monetise-a-forums-data

                                (Otherwise looks like we have derailed this thread)

                                    Norvin My adbocker reports four blocked ads on every page I have looked at.

                                    I use two adblockers which target different things they show about 7 hits per page, some of those are gifs with rotation. In long threads there are adverts even between the threads, which is fairly awful. It’s also super difficult to navigate on a mobile (even a desktop) as screen space on a smartphone is precious and it’s cluttered with read this and that thread, which is usually complete garbage onlinking.

                                    Obviously it’s not going to be a great experience, because it is not done with that in mind…it’s done to make the most money possible from google and others ad revenue, site referrals (so they own the back and forward links (helps rankings). The recommendation for posts some, over 7 years ago brings those back to the attention of the webcrawlers, raising rankings when people click on them to be greeted with “ooooh that looks fantastic, for something that was obsolete 5 years previous”.

                                    What will be surprising is if any long term members decide to stick with it, especially after public statements about greedy owners, corporate monetisation, freedom of speech, far too many adverts, owners who know nothing about coffee. I guess there are 3 types of people who will stay.

                                    1. Those who want to use the site to make money or promote their businesses, hidden or otherwise
                                    2. Those who want to sit on the BIG forum for whatever reason, even though most of the knowledge has left and those running it don’t care about coffee. Or perhaps it’s just inertia for some
                                    3. Those who join and never realise there is something better and completely non commercial with zero adverts and a completely clean look.

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                                      Just had a peep on that site. One is greeted with 360 degrees view of ads. Great job! 😉