Comment by m3047

Comment by m3047 7 days ago

The "friendly online world" was a reflection of people's willingness to meet in meat space in a civil fashion, even if it was uncomfortable at times.

Purely anecdata, but a recent personal experience which seems pretty unremarkable:

I have a 1991 pickup truck; good truck, I still drive it and use it as a truck. The two local mechanics I would have taken it to for some needed work both sold out in the past few years and the new owners don't want to work on anything more than 20 years old. (Their reasons belying their inexperience, but I digress.)

There used to be auto and bike clubs around here, where motorheads got together to wrench and talk about their vehicles, and share personal experiences with mechanics, machine shops, etc. Now the clubs are (still) focused on the (same) 1930s-1960s cars and they've been upscaled into a high-roller venue and fundraising channel.

I'm not the only person driving 25-50 year old metal around here.

I put an ad on Craigslist seeking a suitable group or birds of a feather to form one; I got six responses. I put my phone number in the ad, and there's no escaping Craigslist's anonymous remailer.

No phone calls. Two of the responses were duds, leaving four people who demonstrated that they wanted to have conversations using CL's anonymous remailer: that doesn't scale. Sent a boilerplate response to all four once again providing my phone number, and also my real email address; offering to drive my truck to some local public place if they drove theirs.

No takers.

20+ years ago, online communities existed to complement other means of communication whether that was private chat / email / telephone calls, or meatspace meetups.

DontchaKnowit 7 days ago

Are their not car shows near you? Where im at even the smallest towns (talking like, less than 1000 people) have car show meetups where people gather to display their cars and discuss the work theyve done on them

Reply View 3 replies

m3047 7 days ago

That's the 30s-60s car people primarily. They charge admission "for a good cause". Show me a picture from your local car show with a 1985-1995 working pickup truck in it; honestly I'd like to see it, and know Santa Claus lives somewhere. But we're off the track.
So about this car show: does it have an internet presence, or is it AOL^H^H^HFacebook? A mailing list? IRC? Slack? What's it got? Is it actually "alive"?
Calling (phone calls, not internet) around, it became apparent that there is more interest around vehicles like this in "farm country": if I'd wanted to drive 50+ miles I'd have several mechanics to choose from.

Reply View | 2 replies
- Loughla 7 days ago
  
  The car shows in all the small towns around me (populations less than 750) have entries for early, mid, and late model classics. So 20's through 90's. Most have trucks in every year.
  They're also run by active shade tree mechanics clubs that get together once or twice a month to talk and get greasy.
  I guess the reason I'm saying this is because sometimes the things you want aren't where you are, and that's just how it goes?
  
  Reply View | 1 reply
  
  m3047 6 days ago
  
  For whatever it's worth I live in South Tacoma, Pierce, WA, USA. You're not going to find a working, greasy auto club at the flagship Lemay Museum (although it's worth a visit, as is Blackhawk in CA). However, the Lemay family is a local fixture / institution.
  I drive by the family compound in Parkland maybe once a month. They own / owned Marymount, the former military boarding school; for lack of a better characterization they use it as a garage. There are auto and motorcycle shows there annually (and also gun shows). Walking one of those shows and talking to people is certainly on the table, but it's not a "need to do something now" option.
  Meanwhile, talking to people (Burns Towing, the good people, as opposed to the sh*tshow on Hilltop which the City contracts for impounds) and making phone calls has generated some promising leads on the mechanic front anyway. I went and visited a guy a week ago who has a lift (and his old race car) in his garage and wrenches older US metal as a semi-retired pastime. He might find time to help me out if along with paying him decently I provide him with some home brewed beer.
  We talk about "free beer", but in fact beer is not fungible on the internet.
  
  Reply View | 0 replies