Haymarket agrees sale of PistonHeads to CarGurus

[Vaud]

SoovyAvant said:

Beginning of the end.

Forums will undoubtedly be heavily redacted and censored.

Good while it lasted.

Why do you think that? Plenty of US businesses allow a pretty free flow of comments providing it stays away from hate speech. Jalopnik, ArsTechnica, etc.

[rfisher]

Are they PBD?

Can we sell it back to Ted now?

I blame Yipper.

Imagine if we all have to actually physically meet in a real pub to slag each other off.

I'm scared.

[Mr-B]

Hope the forums are retained and the changes aren't too drastic, however, I think the US owners will be heavily focused on the $$$ and anything that doesn't pay it's way or is a drain will be cut and the forums may be the first casualty.

[anonymous-user]

funkyrobot said:

CarGurus is an online automotive marketplace with technology at its core, using proprietary algorithms to rank classifieds so that car buyers can quickly and easily find great deals from top rated dealers

Bullst. You just rank everything by price ascending by default.

This ^^^

Everyone i've every met who isn't a "car geek" buys a car with the following process:

1) My friend (insert name here) has a (insert model here). i really like it!
2) What colour should be buy?
3) How much money have we got to spend
4) What's the closest one to us that fits 1->3


That's it really, "Propriety algorithms" is just total bolleux!

[The Hypno-Toad]

I can only go by Cargurus reputation in the motor trade retail sector and it isn't good. We get nowhere near the amount of sales leads that we get from Autotrader and the majority of those that do arrive are of very poor quality.

They have obviously bought PH for the classifieds but as the majority of cars on there are more specialist then the average car so I'm not sure how this will fit in with what they already have.

It will be interesting to see what happens but I find this concerning....

[eybic]

Tj13e11 said:

eybic said:

I really think a lot of the old skool users think there's much more value in the forum than there actually is. The forums make no money other than ads served and will cost to have moderation done etc. I'd be very surprised if in 12 months, the forums still exist

there are always mods who do it voluntarily, the community it what keeps it thriving. it never made money but they kept it here didn't they?

And there are paid mods which were brought in to help the volunteers. The volunteers are primarily people that have been on the site since the early 00's (the good old days). The community was kept for the page impressions or a token gesture to make out like they cared whilst monetising everything. If the forums died for let's say 12 hours, do you really believe that the classifieds traffic would disappear? I've seen both sides of the fence and believe me, HM don't care about the community, their plans were all about monetising the classifieds and increasing "value" which they have done, they have now sold up. I suspect the new owners will be similar and cut the cord, I hope I'm wrong but suspect I'm not.

The time for forums has gone, it's all moved to social media.

[anonymous-user]

Krikkit said:

When buying a site like PH they will be highly aware of the forums and the associated community - that's what makes PH over other aspects.

If they wanted a classifieds only they would've bought AT or Carandclassic.

They really wouldn't care, the conversations will have been about number of ads, dealer contracts, unique visitors to the classifieds, time spent on site, etc

Someone may have mentioned the forums in passing

Also bare in mind, forums are massively old school, FB groups, Instagram are where its at now

eybic said:

I really think a lot of the old skool users think there's much more value in the forum than there actually is. The forums make no money other than ads served and will cost to have moderation done etc. I'd be very surprised if in 12 months, the forums still exist

[InitialDave]

I think people are right to be wary of how the content and populace of the forums will be viewed when it comes to a corporate mindset on presenting an acceptable public face.

The massive Tumblr debacle that's just kicked off this week is probably a good example.

[jet_noise]

Does this mean the search function will be fixed?

[anonymous-user]

eybic said:

The time for forums has gone, it's all moved to social media.

Sad, but true. I was admin on a big VW forum and that has gone now. Other huge ones are a shadow of their former selves. Times change I guess. I remember when this was all newsgroups

[AC43]

Grahamdub said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I am on another forum (yes there is one) that now has US based owners. 90% of the the posts on PH would not be allowed on there now. The most innocent posts now get a pm asking you to reword it in a more acceptable way.

Oh FFS. That's never going to work in the UK.

[irocfan]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

100% agree, think of how much time is spent moderating these forums and trying to ensure that nothing libellous is posted. I admit I know nothing about the current moderation but I assume it is volunteer based? Surely that is not going to fly for Cargurus, and once they realise the effort involved they will close down the forums as soon as possible.

Don't think it will happen, look what happened to the Evo forums one day without warning they were just switched off.

I'm mixed on this one. I really do like looking at CarGurus for potential purchases (I've got a Yank V8 habit to feed!), but I do worry about how the new 'powers that be' will view a lot of the off topic conversations since a LOT of US sites have a no politics/religion rule.... hey, y'know something maybe it won't be all bad!!

[crofty1984]

essayer said:

[essayer likes this]

also a 'original poster only' view, so build threads, or ones updated after many months don't get cluttered

That’s a pretty good idea. I’ve not seen that before.

[anonymous-user]

eybic said:

The time for forums has gone, it's all moved to social media.

Agree with you there, over the last couple of years I have watched the majority of forums I am a member of slowly die due to lack of posts. You only have to look at Scoobynet for a forum that used to be massively busy and now gets a handful of posts a day.

I would say PistonHeads is the only forum I use now that gets any significant traffic anymore. Lets be honest, it is the people and level of (childish) humour that drives this forum, any serious attempt at moderating that humour will kill this forum dead.

[HTP99]

funkyrobot said:

CarGurus is an online automotive marketplace with technology at its core, using proprietary algorithms to rank classifieds so that car buyers can quickly and easily find great deals from top rated dealers

Bullst. You just rank everything by price ascending by default.

We have car gurus currently as a freebie at work supplying us "leads" for used cars that we have for sale, the quality of these leads is an absolute joke.

[Todd Bonzalez]

Hopefully they turn it back into a car forum lol

[Vaud]

AC43 said:

Grahamdub said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I am on another forum (yes there is one) that now has US based owners. 90% of the the posts on PH would not be allowed on there now. The most innocent posts now get a pm asking you to reword it in a more acceptable way.

Oh FFS. That's never going to work in the UK.

On the other hand, Reddit.com has fairly free speech and is actively moderated - owned by Advance Publications (who own Condé Nast)

Typically doom and gloom negativity from PH members... DOOMED we are all DOOMED its the END!

[IforB]

Is it just me that has never heard of Cargurus?

[mrtwisty]

easytiger123 said:

Good luck to the new owners. As long as they leave us alone to argue, bicker, banter, and occasionally even amuse and inform each other I'll be happy.

This all over. I couldn't give a toss what you do with the non-forum part of the site - apart from sotw, it couldn't really be made any worse.

The forums however.... please don't mess with them too much. Obviously there are improvements to be made, but evolution is the key here. No stupid dancing avatars or other such cluttering nonsense!

[anonymous-user]

Did you see that?

My shoulders shrugged

A bit