Facebook Groups VS. Forums

[Snoopy]

I posted this on KCUrbEx, but thought I'd get some interesting responses here as well.

I've had this debate in my head many times before and I want to hear some other opinions because that is how we grow and better the community. If 2018 has taught me anything, its that I really don't like these exploring and abandoned places groups on Facebook. They are directly responsible for the downfall of at least 4-5 good spots around KC. I think they are a terrible idea and could lead to legal ramifications against its members if something were to happen. Now, I'm not going to sit myself on a moral high-horse; I admit I waste an hour or two everyday looking at family posts, memes and dog photos but every time I see great locations posted in a Facebook group, it just makes me cringe. Like a dad who knows when someone fucked with the thermostat, you can feel the spray paint going on the wall the very moment that post gets made.

#1 The Content:
Urban Exploring forums have been slow/dead for awhile, mainly because people have become impatient and want everything instant and simple. YouTube Vloggers, Instagram Whores, and Facebook Groups have taken over the landscape of urban exploring. Most people just find forums confusing; as soon as they create an account they get cold feet and never come back because it looks like Chinese. But when it comes to Facebook, no need to search when you can just ask the same shit that was already asked 2 years ago. Too bad we can't go back and look at a post 1-year ago because of Facebook's ass-backwards semi-chronological feed. Posts constantly get buried on Facebook. Hell one group on there gets maybe 10-50 posts a day and Facebook will skip all the stuff you want to see and show you shit you missed from 2 days ago just because it has 200 comments on it. The un-experienced and those who want instant gratification make/use these groups, that is my thought on it. My other issue is with owners that haven't realized they don't even own the content. You can't move it or export it and everything can disappear in the snap of a finger.

#2 The Search
Searching for something in a Facebook group is impossible. The search bar might as well not be there. I can't think of one person that uses the search bar on Facebook. They just scroll for 6 years until they find what they are looking for. They just don't like the search bars on forums because they're not like Google. People want to be able to type questions, not keywords as it used to be. That being said, a lot of these people don't know how to search public record databases or even do simple research at a library which I think is still an extremely crucial part to being a contributing member of a community. KCUrbEx is full of great explorers who go the extra mile to find hidden gems and could tell you the entire history of a place.

#3 The Users
These groups don't stress enough the importance of keeping a place secret and people get on there and just say, "here is *insert building name* in *insert city and state* on *insert highway*". They do a mild job at protecting places and not too long ago a great location in Joplin was trashed due to a post that someone made not being vague enough. Lets say a building gets trashed after its posted; in a forum setting it might be easy to tell who was there recently and we can take proper procedure to make sure it doesn't happen again as with Facebook, you might as well be talking to a brick wall because no one cares. No one knows anyone personally on these platforms!

#4 Security
Let me start by saying a forum is not invincible to a warrant unless its hosted overseas. Facebook isn't much better, they just hand it over without question, in fact I have seen court documents for a recent case where the heat could monitor a large amount of private groups across different platforms without group members even knowing. Even if it isn't the law, a moderator/admin on Facebook can see everything you post in a group without even being in the group, even if its secret. This is why I value forums so much over Facebook Groups, they are much more anonymous and secure. Only the paranoid survive.

In conclusion, Facebook Groups is not a forum substitute and people should stop considering it as such. This year, I'm wanting to not focus as much on Facebook and Instagram groups and instead focus my energy into the forums. These are only a few of my thoughts, I'm sure I will have more to add later.

[SubLunar]

Literally everything you said is spot on.

With social media, people seem to have become willfully blind to the fact that they're friending everyone (so their stuff can get max exposure naturally), sharing locations with anyone and everyone and getting spots infiltrated by vandalizing assholes with the maximum quickness. Lots of people don't seem to be doing it for the love of cool old grimy stuff, they're just doing it for the likes.

I myself have instagram/youtube (and my blog) and I always stress over what's ok to post and what's not. I've always been very careful in how I handle it. Sometimes I'll post a location using a made up name and I carefully prune out any identifying information. Years later, and only when a given location's situation has changed enough to warrant it, I'll go back and update the post with correct information. Some stuff, I've never updated and other spots I've never even posted.

Hell, I didn't even post anything to my blog in 2018 and barely posted anything on instagram last year despite the fact I was still exploring and getting into some juicy new stuff. If something is mind blowingly awesome, my initial reaction is to sit on the pics for a while and definitely obfuscate the true location. With social media, the opposite is true.

Before facebook/instagram took over, I think everyone used to be a lot more careful. Now, it's pretty much a free for all. On top of that, people seem to forget that actual "urban exploration" is like 1/3 exploring abandoned buildings. The other 2/3 are research and driving around all day without getting inside anything good. People try to bypass the work and just ask for handouts. The facebook groups are full of people who just lurk to ask "WHERE IS THIS?!". I tend to avoid active instagrammer types who are often the ones begging for handouts just to get instafame. I don't even remember the last time I was on instagram.

Seems like either you care about finding and exploring cool shit and sharing it with people who respect the history/location or.. you care about being popular. Pretty much one or the other.

This could be a "Damn kids GET OFF MY LAWN" situation,

OR

It could be that we simply have respect for the locations and for the history and everything that it means to us collectively and we don't want them getting ruined by assholes.

[Nicotti]

I don't use Facebook for anything due to it's lack of security for personal data.

I don't think forums are as difficult for peeps as you say. Forums are fairly close in format to Reddit, and that site seems to be doing fine.

Honestly, a lot of what you are talking about is just getting jaded from being in the game so long. When peeps first start most come in asking about the location of some particular place they heard of and all the old timers are quiet, unless it's a well known/travelled spot. Or the answer is: the location has already been posted, find it.

When peeps are still new, they're all about sharing locations and exporations.

Then they go to a few places, get some favorites, and watch them deteriorate or see the results of them getting trashed and they get wary of sharing location info.

And as mentioned in other threads here, Urbex seems to be primarily a younger person's game (with some exceptions) since the older one gets the more one can lose if they get caught by the law. Also a reason old timers are less sharey with their explorations.

Speaking of search bars... this topic has been covered before... find it

[Nicotti]

Sometimes I'll post a location using a made up name and I carefully prune out any identifying information.

And they are hilarious...

The Girl Scout Cookie Factory

The Girl Scout Cookie factory was constructed in the 1940s and was consistently upgraded over the years until its closure about 5 years ago.
From the earliest beginnings of the organization right up until 1973, under-performing Girl Scouts were sent to forced-labor camps. By around 1917, the most profitable labor program was the production of the new Girl Scout cookies. The highest producing laborers in the cookie camps could easily erase several years off of their sentence as long as they met the quality assurance guidelines for cookie production. The lowest producing Girl Laborers as they were called, however, were not so lucky. At the end of each shift when the numbers were counted, the lowest-producing 5% of the workforce was punished. The punishment was often so severe that many of the laborers, allegedly, chose to jump into the boiling vats instead of facing the harsh penalties. The facility managers, being under extremely tight scrutiny by the organization, didn't have the resources to stop production on account of unexpected additional "ingredients". Eventually they, allegedly, worked it into a new recipe and stopped issuing extraneous punishments altogether, in favor of streamlining the process by simply forcing the lowest 5% into the vats directly. The cookies produced from this modified recipe were known as "Soylent Green Mints" which were supposedly named after the primary ingredient which was "high-energy plankton" found in the ocean. The Soylent Green Mints were far and above their most popular cookie for decades.
In 1973, however, an escaped Girl Laborer (who was presumed dead after going missing during the third shift) turned up at a hospital with serious allegations against the organization. The most notable allegation was that Soylent Green Mints were not actually plankton but were instead a combination of flour, various artificial mint flavorings and human remains. The Girl Scouts naturally denied these allegations. But a disgruntled maintenance worker by the name of Frank Thorn stepped forward with promises of damning evidence. Unfortunately, Mr Thorn's body was found floating in the river days later and his apartment was burned to the ground. The case was brought to court but it was deemed a mistrial because none of the mint cookies were ever made available for testing. The criminal case was dropped and the civil case was settled out of court without the Girl Scouts ever publicly admitting the ingredients of Soylent Green Mints. Bad publicity, however, did force them to change the name of their most popular cookie to "Thin Mints".
Despite the controversy and the years-long legal battle, this facility continued producing cookies around the clock. It wasn't until the dwindling numbers of local Girl Laborers made it increasingly difficult to maintain production levels at this now outdated facility. A new factory was built at a non-disclosed location near a major urban metropolis and is now the world's sole producer of Thin Mints.

[Snoopy]

I feel reddit is more of a Facebook Group hybrid, maybe thats just me. Its still a popular platform mainly because of the amount of users on it and the number of sub-reddits. I'm more of a fan of reddit because at least I can search the damn thing unlike Facebook. Its definitely more of a forum feel though.

I totally agree with the second point you made. After sharing things with our group's facebook, bad things happened to some of the locations almost immediately, watching them spread like wildfire on Instagram, I just hesitate anytime I want to post anything exploring related. Our forum has a little over 50 trusted members, our main kc fb group has about 270.

I don't use Facebook for anything due to it's lack of security for personal data.

I don't think forums are as difficult for peeps as you say. Forums are fairly close in format to Reddit, and that site seems to be doing fine.

Honestly, a lot of what you are talking about is just getting jaded from being in the game so long. When peeps first start most come in asking about the location of some particular place they heard of and all the old timers are quiet, unless it's a well known/travelled spot. Or the answer is: the location has already been posted, find it.

When peeps are still new, they're all about sharing locations and exporations.

Then they go to a few places, get some favorites, and watch them deteriorate or see the results of them getting trashed and they get wary of sharing location info.

And as mentioned in other threads here, Urbex seems to be primarily a younger person's game (with some exceptions) since the older one gets the more one can lose if they get caught by the law. Also a reason old timers are less sharey with their explorations.

Speaking of search bars... this topic has been covered before... find it

[Snoopy]

YESSSSS. I love putting on some good jams and just researching/driving. I spend entire days doing it and its really fulfilling. I know a lot of the Instafamous people are just driven by the feel-good-high of getting likes. Its a human thing for sure, we love getting gratification for something we did but I find so much more joy in finding places myself and I'm sure others would too if they stopped giving a shit about some gratification from strangers/those they don't even like.

Before facebook/instagram took over, I think everyone used to be a lot more careful. Now, it's pretty much a free for all. On top of that, people seem to forget that actual "urban exploration" is like 1/3 exploring abandoned buildings. The other 2/3 are research and driving around all day without getting inside anything good. People try to bypass the work and just ask for handouts. The facebook groups are full of people who just lurk to ask "WHERE IS THIS?!". I tend to avoid active instagrammer types who are often the ones begging for handouts just to get instafame. I don't even remember the last time I was on instagram.

Seems like either you care about finding and exploring cool shit and sharing it with people who respect the history/location or.. you care about being popular. Pretty much one or the other.

[Pilotoi05]

Even the new business owners are betting big on the marketplace with the help of proper marketing techniques in the online world. Even I have started to get really good results with the help of pay per click and facebook ads management Los Angeles services. I am really happy that these techniques are working nicely for me.

[Headframe Hunters]

Even the new business owners are betting big on the marketplace with the help of proper marketing techniques in the online world. Even I have started to get really good results with the help of pay per click and facebook ads management Los Angeles services. I am really happy that these techniques are working nicely for me.

Can you help me with suck-starting a MWS83F jackleg drill?

[Headframe Hunters]

I don't use Facebook at all, much less for exploring.

Now that I'm out West, 80-90% of locations I explore are either on public land, not posted, or owned by companies that no longer exist. That, coupled with the remoteness of most mines, protects them. If I talked somebody into letting me onto a site, I heavily redact/obfuscate its true name and location, and sit on it for months if not a year before posting anything.

[crazydrummerdude]

Can you help me with suck-starting a MWS83F jackleg drill?

You ever run a jackleg drill? Fun as hell.

[Headframe Hunters]

Can you help me with suck-starting a MWS83F jackleg drill?

You ever run a jackleg drill? Fun as hell.

You bet I have. I'm actually looking at gradually picking up a compressor, jackleg, and some other stuff to fiddle with weekend hard-rock mining

[Folgore_202]

Yeah, Reddit is close in function to a forum, but there's a very, VERY significant difference: it's a platform that encompasses everything, while a forum is specialised on one specific topic. For example, on Reddit, you could talk about urbex, and then about dessert recipes, and then about German politics, and then about your favorite anime, and then read something about the inventor of the cyclotron or something like that. If you were using forums, you'd have 5 different sites for that, with 5 different nickname-and-password combo, 5 different communities, 5 different addresses... It's just easier to use Reddit or Facebook.

Now, that's something I don't really like because it's easy to draw a very accurate portrait of you based on your Reddit subscriptions and post, and because Facebook is Facebook, but that's one of the main reasons, in my eyes, why forums are dying. And it's something that saddens me, because even on Reddit, you can't find relevant posts from 12 years ago about what's interesting for you as easily as on a forum.

[gnomad1]

When peeps first start most come in asking about the location of some particular place they heard of and all the old timers are quiet, unless it's a well known/travelled spot. Or the answer is: the location has already been posted, find it.

When peeps are still new, they're all about sharing locations and exporations.

Then they go to a few places, get some favorites, and watch them deteriorate or see the results of them getting trashed and they get wary of sharing location info.

Really didn't expect someone to just hit my experience dead on like that. But it sounds like that experience is pretty commonplace here.
I found this site and my thought was, "this is a place where people will tell me a bunch of cool places to go." then I quickly realized handouts weren't a thing and I had to actually do some research and boots on the ground work. Then when I finally found the places I was looking for, I realized I didn't want to just give that away to someone for nothing. That search was a huge part of what made the find so exhilarating. So now I have resorted to trading coords only and (unfortunately) not posting much.

[Nicotti]

and (unfortunately) not posting much.

Post more pictures and exploration stories, just less directions and coords!

Gotta keep our interests piqued!

[gnomad1]

and (unfortunately) not posting much.

Post more pictures and exploration stories, just less directions and coords!

Gotta keep our interests piqued!

That's the plan. However, it's been about 6 months since I've posted any new threads.