UKAR

[Kenny]

Is UKAR not as busy as it used to be? I remember about 5+ years ago there'd always be posts and topics going on on this board, especially after 5:30pm when everyone left work/school, etc. Now it seems to be quieter than a Has there been a steady decrease in posts and topics on here?

[DanO1978]

Is UKAR not as busy as it used to be? I remember about 5+ years ago there'd always be posts and topics going on on this board, especially after 5:30pm when everyone left work/school, etc. Now it seems to be quieter than a Has there been a steady decrease in posts and topics on here?

It's the off-season Kenny. Always slows during the winter. Though most forums would kill to be as busy as us on a quiet day...

[Kenny]

Ah I thought there must be a reason. Remember in the old days of post count score keeping, there used to be hundreds of posts a day

[ianf]

Ah I thought there must be a reason. Remember in the old days of post count score keeping, there used to be hundreds of posts a day

We also still had an airforce 5 years ago I also think another reason for quieter times is ukars own success. So many people have seen all the venues, so many times, it is hard to be fresh all the time.

[DanO1978]

Ah I thought there must be a reason. Remember in the old days of post count score keeping, there used to be hundreds of posts a day

We also still had an airforce 5 years ago I also think another reason for quieter times is ukars own success. So many people have seen all the venues, so many times, it is hard to be fresh all the time.

There's probably a lot in Ian's first sentence. Personally I have far less enthusiasm for the modern military scene since the classics such as the Canberra, Harrier and Nimrod were binned. Typhoons and Hawks ad nauseum don't really do it for for me when it comes to base or Loop visits. The hobby has changed massively, and not for the better.

[Russ]

Things are never particularly busy in "off season" as Dan has said. I would agree it's not been the best airshow season (Yeovilton aside of course) and certainly the disappearing numbers and types have not helped at all. Also, I think having to pay £40-50 in fuel to get to either a good base or the Loop (both of which you could score a blank or be a victim of the British weather) makes it hard to motivate yourself.

Big changes in my own personal circumstances have left my aviation "mojo" at an all-time low. But I'm sure it'll be back for next year - nothing a good day with VC10's or F-15's probably won't cure.

[CH2]

Kenny

There are a number of reasons; I don't buy so much into the out of season reason, look at the quality of light and the number of people who have been at LN over the last week. But when you see a couple high quality posts from Rob and Nigel, that's almost the week nailed for coverage, why bother posting you were probably stood next to them anyway! On the flip side it has a positive effect in that it gives people something to aspire too and drives individuals own quality and personal satisfaction up, which is no bad thing.

You might argue at Airshows that plenty more people will post because there are far more angles and locations to be had.

There is a far greater range and choice of aviation websites than what there was 5 years ago, and some of the people who have created those sites started off posting here on UKAR. The gap created when the great Airscene ceased due to its owner moving to Key, had been filled by the excellent GAR, whilst Fox 2 seems to have taken up the mantle from the old Warplane for the posting of great low level action, FC finally seems to have got it's act together and there is no better place for seeing what's going on around the country.

You could also argue that there are plenty of other ways enthusiasts can post their pictures on the web; through blogs (for example the Hangar), Facebook or personnel websites.

In some ways UKAR is a product, without change all products, grow, plateaux and decline, it's natural cycle and perhaps in some ways Forums in some forms may have had their day. Only time will tell.

Finally time is just that, and for some of us we just don't have much of it.

However it would be nice if UKAR was around for a few more years yet!

[LN Strike Eagle]

I don't buy so much into the out of season reason

Well, the stats tend to back it up.

Here's a graph of forum traffic on UKAR for the 12 months of 2010: July's traffic is essentially double that of November.



That just comes down to the nature of this site - airshows are a seasonal event, and so the traffic follows. We're at our busiest at the height of the airshow summer, wtih shows like Waddington, Legends, RIAT, Farnborough etc all following in quick succession and sustaining interest with all the discussions and photo posts. At this time of year, there's very little airshow related news for us to be talking about.

Traffic for 2011 is up on 2010 - in the case of July, it was up by 20%.

There are various other reasons too though, as you and others have touched on - if you go back just five or six years to when Kenny first joined, we had Jaguars, Harriers, Nimrods, Dominies, Jetstreams, Tornado F3s, more Hercs, more VC-10s, not to mention the loss of the spotting locations along with the aircraft. Coltishall, Cottesmore, Wittering all gone. Waddington hardly gets a look in these days etc.

Airshows are also dropping - Biggin Hill has gone, Rougham next to follow, no proper Kemble show in 2012 apparently...

A lot of members take their discussions to social media sites like Twitter too - I only see the discussions from those we follow on the UKAR account, but there's a fair amount of activity on there in terms of photo and camera chat, heads up, airshow discussions etc that would have been posted direct to the forums five years a go. The site is still growing, even with these distractions - more members than ever before, and a further 915 have joined us since the middle of May.

I disagree with the idea that forums have had their day though - it still remains the best and most efficient way to bring a community together IMO, and sites like this and FC are testiment that that. I've not seen an alternative format that comes anywhere close, primarily because the beauty of a forum is in its simplicity - information is easy to share and easy to access.

[DanO1978]

Dan's right, UKAR continues to grow, just as our friends at Fighter Control go from strength to strength too. There's still plenty of life left in the forums yet - run by enthusiasts for the benefit of enthusiasts. Both the established forums are still extremely busy, especially considering how moribund the state of British aviation is at the moment.

Personally, I feel Off Topic isn't what it was, ever since it was moved down the forum listing to its current position near the bottom, but perhaps we'll address that one day.

[CH2]

LN Strike Eagle

Can you add annotation to the graphs, it would be interesting to see what the data is actually showing.

If UKAR is growing, perhaps a cut in RAF, FAA and AAC numbers will add further to the forums growth

As you say Airshows are dropping away (shame if that is the case with Kemble), which as you argue provides you with your core audience; going back to product cycle, that, I would imagine tells you something.

[LN Strike Eagle]

Can you add annotation to the graphs, it would be interesting to see what the data is actually showing.

Sure - I'll give you what the colours mean and the numbers that correspond to each for July 2010...

• Orange represents unique visitors (defined as the number of different IPs to reach the site) [99,082]
• Yellow is the total number of visits (number of new people accessing the site who haven't done so within the last 60 minutes) [270,990]
• Dark blue is the number of pages viewed (number of pages viewed on the forums) [6,675,201]
• Light blue is total hits (number of pages, images, and files downloaded/viewed) [18,065,776]
• Green represents the bandwidth used (total data usage in terms of pages, images etc downloaded) [193.36 GB]

Something has gone awry for the stats in March (probably related to some downtime - can't remember if there was a big outage then), but you can see that some of the numbers are pretty huge, and as I said, the 2011 stats are up on these figures (127,000+ unique visitors for July 2011).

Of course, none of those stats count actual topics and posts on the forums, and there may well be a case to say it's quieter this yeah than last, but 12 months ago it must be remembered that there was a mad rush for everyone to get to Cottesmore, so there were lots of people posting photos and looking for information.

[CH2]

Ok, thanks for the explanation.

[boff180]

Alot has to do with the cost of travelling in my opinion.

5 years ago I was making 3 or 4 trips to Lakenheath, 20+ trips to Coningsby and doing 6-7 airshows a year, plus base tours.

This year I did RIAT, Waddo, Leuchars, 2 trips to Coningsby, 1 to Mildenhall and two Northolt Nightshoots....

All because of the cost of fuel, I can't afford to spend £70 worth of fuel on the hobby anymore, especially when 9 times out of 10 the weather will be pants anyway.

Andy

[Mr Flibble]

Alot has to do with the cost of travelling in my opinion.

5 years ago I was making 3 or 4 trips to Lakenheath, 20+ trips to Coningsby and doing 6-7 airshows a year, plus base tours.

This year I did RIAT, Waddo, Leuchars, 2 trips to Coningsby, 1 to Mildenhall and two Northolt Nightshoots....

All because of the cost of fuel, I can't afford to spend £70 worth of fuel on the hobby anymore, especially when 9 times out of 10 the weather will be pants anyway.

Andy

Same reason for me really. If its not an airshows or an arrivals day, or an airport at the weekend, I'm more reluctant to use annual leave and spend petrol money on standing in a field with no guarantee of any action.

I've got my scale modelling mojo back now too so I tend to spend more time on that.

[foxfour]

Now the long winter nights are here it's maybe time to start scanning these old prints and slides and post them in "Golden Oldies"!

[Dragon Rapide]

The "golden oldies" topics are one of my favourites, being a golden oldie!!

[andyxh558]

Yes I have to admit Golden oldies have been one if not the stand out part of the forum to be honest. I now have to get a scanner to put some of mine on here!!

[Dragon Rapide]

I would love to have shared mine going back to box-brownie days but all the photos and negs as well as much else was nicked in a house burglary years ago. So I rely on UKAR!!!

[HOLTY]

Can you add annotation to the graphs, it would be interesting to see what the data is actually showing.

Sure - I'll give you what the colours mean and the numbers that correspond to each for July 2010...

• Orange represents unique visitors (defined as the number of different IPs to reach the site) [99,082]
• Yellow is the total number of visits (number of new people accessing the site who haven't done so within the last 60 minutes) [270,990]
• Dark blue is the number of pages viewed (number of pages viewed on the forums) [6,675,201]
• Light blue is total hits (number of pages, images, and files downloaded/viewed) [18,065,776]
• Green represents the bandwidth used (total data usage in terms of pages, images etc downloaded) [193.36 GB]

Something has gone awry for the stats in March (probably related to some downtime - can't remember if there was a big outage then), but you can see that some of the numbers are pretty huge, and as I said, the 2011 stats are up on these figures (127,000+ unique visitors for July 2011).

Of course, none of those stats count actual topics and posts on the forums, and there may well be a case to say it's quieter this yeah than last, but 12 months ago it must be remembered that there was a mad rush for everyone to get to Cottesmore, so there were lots of people posting photos and looking for information.

Would taking a look at the ratio between views and actual posts over the last 5 years highlite any possible trends? I'm just curious to see if some people are just less inclined to be as vocal as days gone by. I know i used to comment on a great deal of posts in the past, but these days i'm more content to just look at the pretty pictures rather than make any form of contribution..

[LN Strike Eagle]

We don't have any stats for the number of posts etc, so it's unknown.

[Kenny]

Thanks for the explanations. I guess having more time off work now means I look on here more, but it seems/ed like there are less topics and posting going on