Hi, my name is Brock Beauchamp, and I'd like to talk to all of you!

[Brock Beauchamp]

I've been speaking to Ed for a few weeks, been trying to get registered here for a few months. I'm one of the owners of DiamondCentric.net, a network of baseball sites.

Like many of you, I'm an internet 2.0 guy. I founded my first forum in 2005 (I think?), and I cut my teeth on the forum era of the internet, when every topic had its own little cubbyhole of enthusiasts. Then came Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc. I spent much of my professional life as a web developer, so my career grew along with the various stages of the internet.

Way back in 2012, I hooked up with four Twins bloggers, and we founded Twins Daily. We did that for years as a hobby, and never thought much of it. Fun side gig, but that's it. I adopted two children in 2017, and had a lottttttt of time at home. I started taking the site a little more seriously in 2019, and it became a real success. But simultaneously, I was losing interest in the Twins. I mean, not LOSING interest, as much as I wanted to do more. So, I went back to my roots (I was born in the upper peninsula of Michigan), and acquired a Brewers forum, much like this one. We turned that into BrewerFanatic.com, which is now probably the most respected Brewers analysis site on the internet. I'm super-proud of that one.

We started having fun with this, and then acquired a Cubs forum, then a Red Sox forum, then a Blue Jays forum. We've sinced turned them all into team-specific super-sites in NorthSideBaseball.com, TalkSox.com, and JaysCentre.com.

Why? Well, it's a pretty fun job. But I HATED seeing all these great communities be swallowed whole by these tech behemoths, because I knew that inevitably they'd all turn on us, which they have. Wrapping these cool legacy forums in a protective bubble of analysis articles, video, and original content keeps these forums thriving for years to come, and preserves some of the cool, old internet I loved.

So if you're amenable to having a conversation about it, I'd love to do that. That's my spiel, so ask questions if you got 'em, I guess?

Edited February 19 by Brock

[Brock Beauchamp]

Wait, I have a toilet avatar by default?

See, that's why I love these legacy forums. They all have their own flavor and personalities.

[Lefty Specialist]

This is a rather small community. I think that people here would like it to be larger, but not sure there's a lot of sentiment to turn it into a team-specific super-community. Just my .02.

How many active users do these sites have?

[metirish]

Yeah, I would be happy if some former members made their way back here , super-site doesn't hold much appeal for me , this forum has had its ups and downs , but has remained a consistent presence for many of us

[Brock Beauchamp]

This is a rather small community. I think that people here would like it to be larger, but not sure there's a lot of sentiment to turn it into a team-specific super-community. Just my .02.

How many active users do these sites have?

 

It depends on the site. Brewer Fanatic has about 4,000 unique visitors a day, but only a portion of them visit the forums. When we started, the old forum was pulling about 1,000 users a day.

Talk Sox has shown the biggest growth. Like this place, it was a really small forum, only about 200 unique visitors a day. Now it's at about 1,500 unique visitors a day, with probably 500-ish visiting the forums.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Yeah, I would be happy if some former members made their way back here , super-site doesn't hold much appeal for me , this forum has had its ups and downs , but has remained a consistent presence for many of us

 

One thing to be clear about when I call it a "super-site". You can literally ignore everything but the forums, lots of our users do. The other features draw in new users, who keep the forum populated. Maybe 1% of new users participate in the forums? It's a small number, but it builds over time.

But we do have some pretty cool baseball-related features, like:

Prospect voting:

Sorry, you do not have permission for that!

TWINSDAILY.COM

Offseason blueprints:

Payroll Blueprint Tool - Twins Daily

TWINSDAILY.COM

User polls:

Polls - Twins Daily

TWINSDAILY.COM

[Brock Beauchamp]

From the forum side of things, there's a HUGE improvement, by the way.

You get basic stuff like reactions to posts, but also a GIF library, simplified editor options, image uploads, attachments, etc.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Ah, forgot something else. If anyone has access to the old forum instances from Ultimate Mets, I can merge those back together and create a single forum again, with all the history of the old site.

But I have no idea if anyone has access to that old site.

[Edgy MD]

Please be welcoming to Brock.

Keep in mind I have long wanted the forum to be part of a magazine site, since we have (had) so many good writers here to contribute far better angles than the other Mets magazine sites, but I have been behind the learning and leadership curve. Also, I clearly created a schism by banning BML, and while a lot of negative and positive energy went out with him, it's not like positive creative energy has filled the void.

That may never come to pass, but please keep in mind, something has to be done to invigorate this place if it is to live. Right now, I am struggling to get the activation link to work. It took me weeks to come up with a workaround to get Brock registered.

[Frayed Knot]

What was the Brewers forum that we had some back and forth with a bunch of years back?

I don't think it was 'Brewers Fanatic' but I can't remember the specific name. They were a good group IIRC.

As far as 'Ultimate Mets' goes, that was in control of one of the members here but was transferred to an outside group several months ago.

Edited February 19 by Frayed Knot

[metirish]

A heads up would have been good so I don't think it's spam , I'm open-minded now that I know it's a thing

Welcome, Brock

[Brock Beauchamp]

What was the Brewers forum that we had some back and forth with a bunch of years back?

I don't think it was 'Brewers Fanatic' but I can't remember the specific name. They were a good group IIRC.

 

BrewerFan.net? That was the forum before we migrated it to Brewer Fanatic.

[Frayed Knot]

That sounds right. We had some good exchanges with those guys.

[Fman99]

This forum currently is like an inbred family of hill people. Outsiders just kind of freak me out. I'm sure Brock is cool but can I still hump my cousin (metaphorically speaking)? That's what I want to know

[Brock Beauchamp]

That sounds right. We had some good exchanges with those guys.

 

Yeah, they're a great group over there. Love that forum.

[Brock Beauchamp]

This forum currently is like an inbred family of hill people. Outsiders just kind of freak me out. I'm sure Brock is cool but can I still hump my cousin (metaphorically speaking)? That's what I want to know

 

I... guess?

[metirish]

So , what's the endgame here anyway? Taking over the forum ? Pumping new life into it?

[Brock Beauchamp]

So , what's the endgame here anyway? Taking over the forum ? Pumping new life into it?

 

I'd like to take over the forum, yes. I will update the software to our baseball-specific platform, but will make as few changes to the actual forums as possible. The point is to preserve these communities, not radically change them.

I'll have to do a search to find conversations that are problematic, and remove them, but I've been friends with Ed on Facebook for a few weeks, and see how he conducts himself. I don't think I will find too many "uh-ohs". Basically, I'd be looking for stuff like the N-word, not common swears.

[Marshmallowmilkshake]

Brock, any relation to former Met Jim Beauchamp?

[Brock Beauchamp]

Brock, any relation to former Met Jim Beauchamp?

 

Hah, no. Lots of Beauchamps from this area, and Canada. Maybe we share a way-back relative? Dunno.

[MFS62]

I started out with baseball internet on a site called Fastball. Several team - specific sites spun off . One I gravitated toward was the dickie thon fan club. It was mainly blue jays fans from Canada. But they had non baseball forums, had meetings in different cities each year and was a fun place until political differences and other team fandom turned off some members. A spin off of Boston fans became the Sons of Sam Horn.

After some intermediate sites ( at one I “ met” lefty specialist) here I am.

I know and frequently visit amazing avenue. I don’t like the look and feel and especially don’t like the lack of the variety of forums we have here. ( music, movies , and the politics threads).

Unless those diverse topics were accommodated I might not follow the crowd there.

Later

[Benjamin Grimm]

Ah, forgot something else. If anyone has access to the old forum instances from Ultimate Mets, I can merge those back together and create a single forum again, with all the history of the old site.

But I have no idea if anyone has access to that old site.

 

There are thousands of archived threads, but they're all saved as individual HTML pages. They're not in the phpBB database format.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Ah, forgot something else. If anyone has access to the old forum instances from Ultimate Mets, I can merge those back together and create a single forum again, with all the history of the old site.

But I have no idea if anyone has access to that old site.

 

There are thousands of archived threads, but they're all saved as individual HTML pages. They're not in the phpBB database format.

No one has access to the server that contains the database? I will talk to the developer, and see what we can do with flat HTML files.

Wait, what is the address of the archives? I see Ultimate Mets updated, and now the archives for this forum are missing, maybe?

[Brock Beauchamp]

I know and frequently visit amazing avenue. I don’t like the look and feel and especially don’t like the lack of the variety of forums we have here. ( music, movies , and the politics threads).

Unless those diverse topics were accommodated I might not follow the crowd there.

Later

 

Lots of our sites have political forums and whatnot, but what I usually do is hide the political forum behind registration, and then often add a timeline after registration. For example, the political forum won't appear for anyone who isn't registered and logged in, and then they either have to wait six months, or they have to post 100 times, or whatever.

I've found this helps weed out the kind of nonsense you get on Twitter or Facebook, where any political thread brings the stupidest person in the room out of the woodwork, just to argue and be insulting to everyone else.

[whippoorwill]

Brock, any relation to former Met Jim Beauchamp?

 

I was going to ask that too!

[Benjamin Grimm]

No one has access to the server that contains the database? I will talk to the developer, and see what we can do with flat HTML files.

Wait, what is the address of the archives? I see Ultimate Mets updated, and now the archives for this forum are missing, maybe?

 

The old threads, going back to 2005, have been purged from the database tables. They only exist as HTML files. I have access to them, as well as to the custom table that indexes the HTML files. I think we can probably continue to host them here on cranepoolcompanion.com.

If we were to move to your site, would threads survive forever? Will posts from 2026 still be online in 2036?

[Brock Beauchamp]

No one has access to the server that contains the database? I will talk to the developer, and see what we can do with flat HTML files.

Wait, what is the address of the archives? I see Ultimate Mets updated, and now the archives for this forum are missing, maybe?

 

The old threads, going back to 2005, have been purged from the database tables. They only exist as HTML files. I have access to them, as well as to the custom table that indexes the HTML files. I think we can probably continue to host them here on cranepoolcompanion.com.

If we were to move to your site, would threads survive forever? Will posts from 2026 still be online in 2036?

Ooh, so you have the old files. I bet that will work. Give me a day or so to get in touch with my dev (I no longer have time to do the dev work, and he's a specialist). If we have the HTML flats, I THINK we can make that work.

[kcmets]

This forum currently is like an inbred family of hill people.

 

Klem Clawgrab finds this pretty god damn funny. Good one!

[Frayed Knot]

Brock, any relation to former Met Jim Beauchamp?

 

I was going to ask that too!

 

I was going to ask if he's related to Brock Pemberton ... but, now that I think about it a little more, it's probably unlikely.

[Brock Beauchamp]

No one has access to the server that contains the database? I will talk to the developer, and see what we can do with flat HTML files.

Wait, what is the address of the archives? I see Ultimate Mets updated, and now the archives for this forum are missing, maybe?

 

The old threads, going back to 2005, have been purged from the database tables. They only exist as HTML files. I have access to them, as well as to the custom table that indexes the HTML files. I think we can probably continue to host them here on cranepoolcompanion.com.

If we were to move to your site, would threads survive forever? Will posts from 2026 still be online in 2036?

Out of curiosity, do you happen to know if you have legacy email addresses from users dating back a few years? I see 179 members of the site. I assume that is just the number of active users since the migration, not from 2005.