MTB Tech Rumors and Innovation

understand the desicion and happily adapt to the new way! as a constant reader and non-participant, i don't see a disadvantage with the "new format"

long live vital tech!

So after six years of Sspomer and other users redirecting non-tech rumour talk to individual threads (brake discussion, chain stay circlejerk, etc), Sspomer has now redirect ALL talk to individual threads. Damn. 

As someone who just doesn’t have the time to scroll through the front page of the Hub for new and interesting posts/threads all the time, I can’t say I’m overly excited about this decision. 

I really liked having the most interesting topic all neatly packed up into one single thread, which I could follow and catch up with the discussion every once in a while.

Won’t be as easy and convenient for me to follow under the new format.

What about monthly threads as a compromise?

I agree I really enjoy being able to follow along in one spot especially since these things often build on each other 

Crabification, forum edition.  I'm honestly just thankful that there is still a place to discuss things that are meaningful, that are not facebook groups.  Thanks to all for staying committed to the  gen x/millennial form of endangered internet discourse that is the forum.  

format changes, even slight, at this point of the forumcycle (cycleforumcycle?) are to be avoided as well. 
Bro I know what the MRI was on and the whole system is extremely fragile…

Should start a thread tech thread or thread rumour thread?

Theres already MTB Tech rumors v2

@sspomer I totally get your decision from a web resourcing point of view. Things get really expensive really quick when you need to tack on more power. A lot of cloud hosting providers price exponentially instead of linearly. 

That being said, I think not pinning a v2 and keeping this way of chatting about rumors is a mistake. This thread works because it allows for banter along side rumors I wouldn't ever care about. Prime example is the Santa Cruz Vala, a bike I have negative interest in. However that did prompt the carcinization of bike suspension discussion (that prompted my Horst to Crab link chrome plug in). I firmly believe I wouldn't have ever waded into a form post about an Santa Cruz ebike, and therefore miss out on something fantastic. 

So with that, I highly encourage you to pin the V2 and continue to let vital's rumor thread be a silly string of posts.

The downvotes on the previous page agree... V2 thread for the next 5-6 years.

New thread each year like the race thread. Pin it to the top section. Jan 1 each year force the start of the new thread and un-pin the old thread. Seems simple. 

Kinda scratching my head how one thread with 1000 pages is more resources than 10 threads with 100 pages. Content is content and traffic is traffic is it not? 

I took us (well, you mostly) 5 years to reach 1000 pages... I'll be back in 2030 to check the v2 thread

Don't worry everyone:

I already had a meeting planned with @sspomer this afternoon, so I'll be sure to tell him on all of your behalf what a terrible person he is and how we're not mad, just disappointed.

please look at him like this when you tell him:

This change would be moar acceptable if it were possible to make e-ntire threads disappear.

@sspomer I will join the other users who are disappointed with the closure of this thread. I get it from the logistical side of things, but not pinning a V2 seems like a miss, as many others are also arguing. It is significantly easier and more interesting to follow a single, banter-filled forum with an integrated community rather than dozens of much smaller forums that are in a constant cycle of dying out. This unique style of forum was the breeding ground of countless discussions and inside jokes, which I doubt would have taken place in a universe where it was split into hundreds of 5-15 page threads. We appreciate all you do, but I hope you reconsider. 

Isn't 5 years basically an eternity in the life of a forum topic? 

This is what I logged on to suggest as well. It seems like a solid compromise, no?

Honestly the best format was the yearly. I think the single thread is ideal for rumors to start the discussion, then have it break out to individual. The BIG thread got bad, but the yearly thread was dialed. Just like race talk and team rumors.

I get the web resource thing, so swapping it every year works. 

Also great for a recap every year/5/10 to see how bikes have developed.

So my vote is yearly generic thread for discussion to break out to other subjects.

This is the way. Rename the v2 Tech Rumors thread to 2026 Tech Rumors, pin it, close it on Dec 31, 2026. Rinse and repeat.  

Kinda similar on the MTBR NorCal forum that I also inhabit, there is a monthly thread dedicated to ride reports (and all their tangents and side conversations). Works really well and is easy to navigate/manage. 

Let's face it this thread was the ebike of forum threads (easy, doesn't take any actual effort to follow). 

I welcome the individual threads 😎

This. And in light of this, a different suggestion. 

One thread to follow for us email notification addicts. In said thread we, the people, post links to other interesting (tech related) threads. A notification thread basically.

So we can be reliably notified about notifications for interesting threads to check out and subscribe to to get notifications directly to them later. 

Now the question is how many chainstay length debate can we fit here before the end of the year? 

I think the real question is "What's the next geometry number to be debated? " I think they have all been covered at this point..  Maybe we can debate the 1.8 ratio?

Not much to debate. 1.8ish works pretty well. 

This might be an unpopular opinion but I like the idea of individual threads for different topics. In the current format I have to sift through posts about crab links and knock off brakes when what I'm really looking for is info about the new 1.21 gigawatt e-bike. 

The counterpoint to this, is that having giant threads declutters the forum. I like the balance of the "The Hub" showing the ten(ish) large but active threads and then the rest being smaller ephemeral topics that are based on news or more specific topics. For example the tire nerd thread is split between real tire discussion and then posts from people asking "which tire should I use for X bike in Y location?" - if those turn into individual threads I certainly won't be reading & engaging in them. I like that I can open Vital, get to the threads that I care about via notifications and then take a peek at the rest of the forum (if I want) and know that the threads are generally high value discussions. There's definitely value (for me, but probably not in # of clicks) that the vital forum is not a facsimile of reddit where 98% of the threads are irrelevant after 48 hours. There's a healthy amount of self-enforced gatekeeping where users here generally don't start new topics or even post in threads unless there's actually something that can be contributed.

Agree with others, closing the thread with no alternative is hard to wrap my head around. 

Alternatively, and I'm fully ready to get downvoted for this, but the "Crab" thing was getting really overplayed, I'm ready for that to chill out. Funny joke while it lasted, doesn't need to be repeated every day in response to every topic. 

Quick question @sspomer not that I want to delve into vitalmtb's business here... but is thread qty important to vitals business/website and a contributing factor to this?  I think all of us would agree that this website/community is important to us... so if there are things that need to change or things we're doing that are impacting the site's success, we would want to play by a rule set that facilitates that.  

Otherwise, if there is a way to have annual, or monthly tech rumors threads and that cuts down on resource consumption, and still achieves the business goals/metrics for the site, sounds like that would be a good happy medium.  

I just don't want to have the masses off to the races on solutions, if those do not solve the problem you are trying to solve.  Said another way, we're invested and we want you to be successful.  That being said, let's call a spade a spade here.  The seasoned mtb community has always proven to be lone wolfs that don't color inside the lines well and historically, have had issues with authority figures of any kind. 

100% agreement.

Vital is awesome and anything we can all be doing to make the whole service more viable - especially things that don't fundamentally change the site's usefulness - is something I (and I'm sure most others) would be on-board with.