Anyone know what happened to SubChat?

[Wallyhorse]

Was just wondering:

SubChat (from whom someone noted this board to me years ago) has been down for much of the past four weeks.  It seemed to go down all of a sudden and still has not come back up.

Anyone know why that happened? 

[Amtrak41]

I do not, but it's long overdue. It gave NYC area railfans and advocates a bad name.

I suspect the antiquated software combined with the owner's refusal to do any needed moderation to throw some nasty trolls off who wished harm on others on a regular basis if not just cussed them out, which would get them thrown off any other reponsible social media. Larry may have simply decided to finally throw in the towel and not babysit a bunch of nasty, overgrown 3rd graders. Subchat became the last refuge for such people, and many others have quit using it over the years due to some behaviors. What needed doing was to get rid of OTChat, whose hostility and grudges spilled over to Subchat board, throw 3 or 4 people off entirely, and it might have been far more civil. 

[GojiMet86]

52 minutes ago, Amtrak41 said:

I do not, but it's long overdue. It gave NYC area railfans and advocates a bad name.

I suspect the antiquated software combined with the owner's refusal to do any needed moderation to throw some nasty trolls off who wished harm on others on a regular basis if not just cussed them out, which would get them thrown off any other reponsible social media. Larry may have simply decided to finally throw in the towel and not babysit a bunch of nasty, overgrown 3rd graders. Subchat became the last refuge for such people, and many others have quit using it over the years due to some behaviors. What needed doing was to get rid of OTChat, whose hostility and grudges spilled over to Subchat board, throw 3 or 4 people off entirely, and it might have been far more civil. 

 

Olog-Hai was LITERALLY a troll. I mean, the name refers to a race of trolls from the Lord of the Rings.

[BM5 via Woodhaven]

OT Chat should've just been named Political Chat, because that's what it overwhelmingly was. I know that the word gets thrown around a lot, but that section of the board was legit toxic. Nothing productive came out of that section, people foaming at the mouth and itching to argue over politics (and you could tell who). Then you would have posters more recently also post political threads onto the subway and bus boards, and there would be arguments over that (on top of whatever subject the thread was about). If there's one good reason to not bring up politics, it's that. 

Sad part is a lot of those people too are well up there in age, and saying they acted immaturely is an understatement. And that's without even getting into the petty arguments and personal attacks that come out from those discussions. I can't stand people that revolve their entire existence/identity over their political beliefs and I don't care where you lean. I have very strong beliefs on a lot of issues but like goddamn, go get some fresh air outside for a change. I personally know people like that (who can't wait to bring up politics knowing we disagree) and over time it's just gotten more irritating.

A lot of those people would not survive on virtually any other forum. 

Edited August 16, 2022 by BM5 via Woodhaven

[Amtrak41]

Traindude was the most mean-spirited, angry, stupid, egomaniacs there, and evidently felt emboldened and superior to everyone since he was once a mucky-muck at the TA.

Besides cussing out political opponents on OTChat, he would wish death to left winged politicians, and did so almost daily. That should have put entire website on a FBI or DHS watch list. He would then carry his grudges over to Subchat board dropping F-bombs on posters he disliked, wished cancer on one of them repeatedly.

Larry the site owner lacked any sense of responsibility to moderate and throw these people out. He should have been embarrassed for condoning it for years, but evidently lacked any common sense.

The civilized posters will Google around and find other places to obtain information, exchange proposals, and ask questions without the vitriol they think is macho.

 

 

 

Edited August 16, 2022 by Amtrak41

[trainfan22]

3 hours ago, Amtrak41 said:

I do not, but it's long overdue. It gave NYC area railfans and advocates a bad name.

I suspect the antiquated software combined with the owner's refusal to do any needed moderation to throw some nasty trolls off who wished harm on others on a regular basis if not just cussed them out, which would get them thrown off any other reponsible social media. Larry may have simply decided to finally throw in the towel and not babysit a bunch of nasty, overgrown 3rd graders. Subchat became the last refuge for such people, and many others have quit using it over the years due to some behaviors. What needed doing was to get rid of OTChat, whose hostility and grudges spilled over to Subchat board, throw 3 or 4 people off entirely, and it might have been far more civil. 

O/T chat was a mess but the two on topic boards were fairly civil in recent years. Little to no drama of reefed threads compared to years past. Not to sound morbid but I wonder if the subchat webmaster is even still alive, maybe he passed on and that's why the site's down.. no one to maintain it. That site lost a lot of members due to death (boomers and older is the average demographic of that forum)

 In 2022 subchat is pretty irrelevant in the NYC railfan scene, Facebook seems to overtaken it in popularity. 

 

 

Would be a shame if the forum is gone for good. Lots of great historical disscussion and such.

[Amtrak41]

There is a reddit board also that seems pretty civil, though not too active.

Which FB group are you referring to ?

[trainfan22]

3 hours ago, Amtrak41 said:

There is a reddit board also that seems pretty civil, though not too active.

Which FB group are you referring to ?

I'm not on Facebook lol but I always see it being referenced on here. I just assume that's where most NYC transit fan disscussion takes place these days. This hobby seems more popular than ever, all these buffs gotta be discussing transit somewhere 

[Amtrak41]

Well it is back up. Came back some time on 8/16 afternoon. Of course, it could crash again. This has happened before. 

I do not intend to lower myself and return to it. 

[B35 via Church]

On 8/16/2022 at 6:28 AM, Amtrak41 said:

There is a reddit board also that seems pretty civil, though not too active.

r/nycrail ?

On 8/16/2022 at 10:04 AM, trainfan22 said:

I'm not on Facebook lol but I always see it being referenced on here. I just assume that's where most NYC transit fan disscussion takes place these days. This hobby seems more popular than ever, all these buffs gotta be discussing transit somewhere 

Not for nothing, but I do ask myself from time to time where folks nowadays is discussing transit at..... I assume on reddit moreso than FB, but on either of those platforms moreso than on any quote-unquote internet forum....

[Amtrak41]

On 8/21/2022 at 1:20 PM, B35 via Church said:

r/nycrail ?

Not for nothing, but I do ask myself from time to time where folks nowadays is discussing transit at..... I assume on reddit moreso than FB, but on either of those platforms moreso than on any quote-unquote internet forum....

Yes - https://www.reddit.com/r/nycrail/
 

The same jerks with no life are back flaming away again on a Subchat like nothing happened for the 4 -week outage.   

[Travis Mcnonald]

On 8/24/2022 at 7:52 AM, Amtrak41 said:

Yes - https://www.reddit.com/r/nycrail/
 

The same jerks with no life are back flaming away again on a Subchat like nothing happened for the 4 -week outage.   

Just my 2 cents, the website is dated.....as in it looks as though it's last update was in late 2001. I know this website created around summer 2004, a spiritual successor to an even earlier verison, but still. It needs a major overhall. 

 

Also, as other mentioned on here, it's pretty toxic.

[Wallyhorse]

On 9/30/2023 at 1:08 AM, Travis Mcnonald said:

Just my 2 cents, the website is dated.....as in it looks as though it's last update was in late 2001. I know this website created around summer 2004, a spiritual successor to an even earlier verison, but still. It needs a major overhall. 

 

Also, as other mentioned on here, it's pretty toxic.

OT seems to have always been, but I have rarely ventured there.  Usually I stick to the main SubChat there.

This has been out AGAIN for about 10 days or so which is why I brought this back. 

[GojiMet86]

Ahh, so it's not just me. It only shows as much as the main page, but the threads are unreadable.

[Cait Sith]

I'd argue that if SubChat were to ever disappear for good, it'd be better for everyone else....what a cesspool that place is.

[NoHacksJustKhaks]

I don't remember the discussion side of subchat that much, but the "age" of that site never fails to amuse me. Seriously, I think the last time I ran Windows XP in Virtualbox, I opened up subchat in internet explorer for the hell of it. It ran on that 20 year old browser without a hiccup.  

[Wallyhorse]

On 2/17/2024 at 8:42 PM, NoHacksJustKhaks said:

I don't remember the discussion side of subchat that much, but the "age" of that site never fails to amuse me. Seriously, I think the last time I ran Windows XP in Virtualbox, I opened up subchat in internet explorer for the hell of it. It ran on that 20 year old browser without a hiccup.  

Yes, it's a relatively old board.  There are some others I read that never changed from the late 1990's as well.  

[Kamen Rider]

After all, we are talking about a site that still required you to type out HTML commands to insert things...

 

I mean... this place has a moderator who tries to keep an eye on us... Subchat is/was full on anarchy. speaking as someone who was the occasional recipient of homophobic and transphobic statements after I made the decision to come out, often for simply stating my opinion...

 

 

[zacster]

There seemed to be more historical talk on Subchat than this board, which focuses on current items.  But it has been down now for 3 weeks or so and my guess isn't coming back this time.  Or if it does, somebody is trying to update the platform and convert the history, which can be difficult.  Upgrades are a PITA even when you are just going to a new version sometimes.

[CenSin]

Yup. The barrier to coding your own forum is pretty low. It’s the migration work that’s often the hardest.

[B35 via Church]

On 3/5/2024 at 9:30 AM, zacster said:

There seemed to be more historical talk on Subchat than this board, which focuses on current items.....

There's far more of a younger crowd here.

[zacster]

Still down.  Going, going....

[TheNewYorkElevated]

Subchat became too toxic of a website to be in. I myself went on SubChat a bit for a time, but eventually I just stopped because it was filled with so much negative energy. Constant fighting and arguments. 

[zacster]

I just tried again and there was actually one new post that showed up from Monday before it errored out.  That's as far as I could go.  But somebody actually got to post something.

[Wallyhorse]

On 3/13/2024 at 12:44 PM, zacster said:

I just tried again and there was actually one new post that showed up from Monday before it errored out.  That's as far as I could go.  But somebody actually got to post something.

I got it a week ago to where it tried to come back, but I saw no posts nor the ability to do even a test post.

I suspect it's down for good this time.