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

[Benjamin Grimm]

We had everyone recreate their accounts when the site moved to ultimatemets.com in December 2018. Any email addresses from earlier than that are no longer available.

[Centerfield]

Hey Brock. Welcome to the CPF.

Love that you are trying to keep small forum communities alive. Certainly beats arguing on social media.

[metsmarathon]

I thought he was related to Tim Kohler, based on the avatar.

Welcome abordick.

It’s interesting prospect to consider wrt opening up the gates to a wider audience, seeing as historically we’d secreted ourselves away from a larger forum that had grown unwieldy (and decidedly least common denominator).

I’d love for this forum to be more lively - and to become a home base for even more interesting and intelligent metly discussions and analysis.

But how would we ever get the rabble caught up to all of our inbred hill people history? Will there be a mandatory onboarding process? We’d need people to understand where the hell all of us came from - and why the hell we are the way we are. And, of course, they must be forced to hold us in the required high esteem.

[metsmarathon]

Quite coincidentally, the other day my kid - ummR for the record - asked me what the cranepoolforum was and why I was so often on it.

And in the process of explaining what it is and how it had come to be I marveled quite a bit that it has managed to persist as long as it has, however small and concentrated it’s current membership is.

[Lefty Specialist]

So I took a stroll over to Brewersfanatic.com. It's a nice clean professional site, well laid out with articles and forums and such. There's advertising, but that's to be expected. The look and feel are very similar to Amazin' Avenue, an SBNation site I glance at occasionally.

I guess my question is, what do you want with US? This is a small forum of 'inbred hill people' Met fans. You could probably stand up a Mets site on your own without our help. Just curious. Are there other groups of inbred hill people you're looking to merge us with?

In something with 4000 visitors daily, we'd quickly be swallowed up. Sounds like a (Butch) Hobson's choice, either this forum withers away or becomes a part of MegaMetfans.com.

If I'm reading any of this wrong, let me know. Not looking to bruise any feelings, just trying to figure out exactly what's going on.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Love that you are trying to keep small forum communities alive. Certainly beats arguing on social media.

 

I've come to LOATHE social media. It has lowered discourse across the entire planet. What could have been an amazing tool has turned out to be vastly inferior to what it replaced. These cool little communities are rich with their own history, and culture, and instead we've all been railroaded into yet another sprawling behemoth that only wants our money.

[Brock Beauchamp]

I guess my question is, what do you want with US? This is a small forum of 'inbred hill people' Met fans. You could probably stand up a Mets site on your own without our help. Just curious. Are there other groups of inbred hill people you're looking to merge us with?

 

1. I like preserving the old internet of the early 2000s. It's sad to see how many sites have died since Facebook and Twitter started dominating our lives around 2010.

2. No merging, this is about this community, not multiple communities. Yes, we want to bring in fresh blood, but we also want to keep alive what's already here. I'm pretty zero-tolerance on mouth-breathers and loud *******s; this place survived this long for a reason while so many other places faltered. Keeping that is core to the idea.

3. And frankly, it's EASIER to start a site with an existing population. We've also started sites fresh (PadresMission.com), and those do fine, but it's both easier and more fun to work within an existing group.

4. I think TalkSox.com is an apt comparison to this place. It was much smaller than BF, and we've brought in new users, but not all that many. Just enough to keep things lively in the forum. And we've certainly shown a few the door for being... well, idiots. We took over Talk Sox in August of 2024. Forum posting is now up maybe 10-15% year-over-year. It's a nice boost, but hardly community-shattering.

[Brock Beauchamp]

We had everyone recreate their accounts when the site moved to ultimatemets.com in December 2018. Any email addresses from earlier than that are no longer available.

Oh, interesting. I didn't realize that. What was the name of the forum before 2018?

[Benjamin Grimm]

It's always been The Crane Pool Forum. It's just bounced from host to host from time to time over the years. I don't remember what domain it resided at before December 2018. I first encountered the forum in 2002 when it was on ezBoard.

[whippoorwill]

I’m not telling you my mothers maiden name

[kcmets]

Everyone here knows your mothers maiden name is Coobster.

Geez...

[Edgy MD]

I would encourage Brock to share a few links to communities under his umbrella, and you all can taste and see what you like.

I have every reason to be suspicious of Brock, as he told me, without prompting, the three things I long to hear — the communities in his group have (1) no AI slop, (2) no #maga ********, (3) no internet gambling linkz. It's like he's catphishing me.

I have a lot of reviewing to do myself, and we don't have to do this, but we probably do need to collectively find a way forward. This may not be it, but I certainly appreciate Brock taking the some of the initiative I have told myself for five years I wake up and find tomorrow. And Fman is running out of cousins to hump.

I am (a) the last administrator (though Ben still steps up when he can if I make the right sort of sad eyes at him), ( really tired of trolls trying to burn this place down, and © trying to get my life together in other facets and forced to acknowledge I kind of suck at a lot of things. So either way, some feedback would be helpful.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Sure, here are some links to the forums to our existing sites. Feel free to poke around and see what's within, should the interest strike. On a few of these sites, most notably North Side Baseball, there is a hidden politics forum that is VERY active. No MAGA garbage in there at all, the community is very left-leaning, and I didn't want to disrupt that. There are conservative communities out there (but not many, take what you will from that information), but I intentionally steer WAY CLEAR of them. That's a deal-breaker for me personally. If my kid reads the site and is embarrassed I'm their parent, I'm doing things very very badly.

1. Twins Daily: the first, and the biggest:

Forums - Twins Daily

TWINSDAILY.COM

2. Brewer Fanatic: first site we pursued (I was a Brewers fan back in the 80s), acquired this in 2022: https://brewerfanatic.com/forums/

3. North Side Baseball: our managing editor is a Cubs fan, acquired this in 2023:

Forums - North Side Baseball

NORTHSIDEBASEBALL.COM

4. Talk Sox: this forum was dying on the vine, so I snatched it up, acquired this in 2024:

Forums - Talk Sox

TALKSOX.COM

5. Jays Centre: a prominent Jays site, unfortunately revenue on it is killing me, still we're sticking with it, acquired in 2025:

Forums - Jays Centre

JAYSCENTRE.COM

Those are all the existing forums we've adapted into the super-site model.

We've also started two sites from scratch, which are pretty new:

https://royalskeep.com

https://padresmission.com

[Benjamin Grimm]

If you want to roll the dice on this, I'm all for it. After all, the worst thing that could happen is this.

[Brock Beauchamp]

If you want to roll the dice on this, I'm all for it. After all, the worst thing that could happen is this.

 

Ouch. Brutal. So I take it you're not a fan of what's happening over there...

One thing I haven't mentioned is that we've tried a similar thing to what UMDB did, but we called it the players project. It has *really* struggled to get off the ground, and is perhaps my biggest frustration of the past five years. I LOVE the idea of a fan-centric database of players, but I can't get any buy-in.

The Minnesota Twins Players Project - Twins Daily

TWINSDAILY.COM

[whippoorwill]

Everyone here knows your mothers maiden name is Coobster.

Geez...

 

Aaah you blabbed!

[Edgy MD]

Just to be clear, I am in no hurry to cede control, I just realize that I suck at it and the community is dying around me.

On the other hand, I hate what the UMDB has become. I can't navigate that place anymore — content is pushed at me rather than giving me easy menus to find what I am looking for — and I feel like I'm 95 years old and living in a world that has passed me by.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I'm sorry. I've had to apologize to several people who have contacted me. I'm hoping that the site will once again be as comprehensive as it had been. I really didn't know that the new guys would gut it like that. I did tell them that they could do whatever they wanted with the site, so I have no grounds for complaint.

[kcmets]

Just to be clear, I am in no hurry to cede control, I just realize that I suck at it and the community is dying around me.

 

You don't suck at all. If you cede control to a stranger I'll be

joining the two dozen people we all miss.

[whippoorwill]

I'm sorry. I've had to apologize to several people who have contacted me. I'm hoping that the site will once again be as comprehensive as it had been. I really didn't know that the new guys would gut it like that. I did tell them that they could do whatever they wanted with the site, so I have no grounds for complaint.

 

No apologies necessary. You gave us all a heads up so we knew!

[Benjamin Grimm]

I'm sorry. I've had to apologize to several people who have contacted me. I'm hoping that the site will once again be as comprehensive as it had been. I really didn't know that the new guys would gut it like that. I did tell them that they could do whatever they wanted with the site, so I have no grounds for complaint.

 

No apologies necessary. You gave us all a heads up so we knew!

 

And remember, there's still this.

https://leaptoad.com/mets/

[Lefty Specialist]

Looked at some of the other sites including TalkSox and Fish on First, and I have a few questions.

There's obviously a lot of articles being written on a daily or almost-daily basis. I know we have a couple of talented writers on this site, but that's a lotta work. Where would those articles (and videos) come from? I see that some general baseball articles appear on multiple forums, which is stretching your content wisely. I assume you're paying your contributors (and no, I'm not looking for a job).

Does Raptive give you the ability to fund this site or are you eventually going to have subscriptions to access all content? I saw an uncomfortable number of Dulcolax ads, but at least they're not pop-ups that obscure content.

You mentioned that the Blue Jays site is a revenue drag. Any thoughts of shutting it down?

Are you willing to tolerate relentless snarky comments about 'Building the Ultimate Baseball Team with Anime Characters'? Because, dude, seriously...

Back in the day I was on Mets Online. It got taken over by MLB, which turned it into one of its cookie-cutter sites and all the good people fled. I've also been on a Mets site that started promisingly but gradually withered away as fewer and fewer people participated. This site in its current incarnation has lasted a really long time- I've been here 15 years and I'm a noob. Folding it into something bigger (or using it as a base for something bigger) would inevitably dilute what we have here. Maybe if we all put asterisks next to our usernames we could find each other in the bigger Pool.

So I don't know what the right answer is. Might just be my inbreeding.

[Centerfield]

Just to be clear, I am in no hurry to cede control, I just realize that I suck at it and the community is dying around me.

On the other hand, I hate what the UMDB has become. I can't navigate that place anymore — content is pushed at me rather than giving me easy menus to find what I am looking for — and I feel like I'm 95 years old and living in a world that has passed me by.

 

You don’t suck at anything. This place is not dying. And I’ll follow you and the other guys anywhere.

[Frayed Knot]

A couple points here

- to marathon's point about being driven out of the predecessor of this site by unrestrained growth in numbers and a similar loss of IQ points

Sure. But that was also back in Y2K [we broke off in November of '01 ... Two Thousand and Freakin' One!!]* and the ones driving us nuts were

mostly teenagers (of varying ages) and I suspect teenagers are the last ones to be signing onto baseball message boards at this point.

- to the current state of UMDB

A disappointment to be sure but this isn't (or at least we hope not) the final state of the new UMDB. iow: give it some time before we call it a disaster

- and finally to the idea that we all want to grow in some form or another

I think we all believe that we should grow, but I also think most of us realize that we haven't been particularly good at knowing how to accomplish that.

So I guess my bottom line here is:

- keep asking questions. It's OK to be skeptical, but our new friend here is proving himself very willing to answer them.

- and don't be too afraid of change. After all, where is this place heading if we don't change?

* Hell, MFS'62 was still in his eighties back then!!!

[metsmarathon]

I think the real important question is, would we be bringing back the annual song parody contest?

And… these prospective new users that could be brought in to liven things up… are they any good at wordle? Because the competition is already too damn stiff over here. Jeez.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Looked at some of the other sites including TalkSox and Fish on First, and I have a few questions.

There's obviously a lot of articles being written on a daily or almost-daily basis. I know we have a couple of talented writers on this site, but that's a lotta work. Where would those articles (and videos) come from? I see that some general baseball articles appear on multiple forums, which is stretching your content wisely. I assume you're paying your contributors (and no, I'm not looking for a job).

Does Raptive give you the ability to fund this site or are you eventually going to have subscriptions to access all content? I saw an uncomfortable number of Dulcolax ads, but at least they're not pop-ups that obscure content.

You mentioned that the Blue Jays site is a revenue drag. Any thoughts of shutting it down?

Are you willing to tolerate relentless snarky comments about 'Building the Ultimate Baseball Team with Anime Characters'? Because, dude, seriously...

Back in the day I was on Mets Online. It got taken over by MLB, which turned it into one of its cookie-cutter sites and all the good people fled. I've also been on a Mets site that started promisingly but gradually withered away as fewer and fewer people participated. This site in its current incarnation has lasted a really long time- I've been here 15 years and I'm a noob. Folding it into something bigger (or using it as a base for something bigger) would inevitably dilute what we have here. Maybe if we all put asterisks next to our usernames we could find each other in the bigger Pool.

So I don't know what the right answer is. Might just be my inbreeding.

 

Fantastic questions. Here you go.

We pay for all our content, yes. I go and find writers and videographers, it's actually the primary role I fill right now.

Raptive ads pay our way. We've considered a metered model for articles, but have yet to make a decision on that. I don't think we will. But the forums will always be 100% free to use. I'm not a fan of paywalls, though in some instances they are necessary. We pay people to go down to spring training, and stuff like that, which is primarily the stuff we paywall (subscriptions also come with ad-free browsing, so that's a thing).

We won't shut down Jays Centre. If revenue continues being a huge problem, we may re-tool it, but there's absolutely no reason to EVER shut down a forum from our perspective. They require nickels to keep alive given our overall server expenses, so why shut it down?

We run a big tent of content. People write all sorts of crazy ****. But that anime piece you mentioned? That was literally written by a SABR award finalist. She's fantastic! But yeah, that piece is out there. But she's a great writer, and she wanted to do it. I'm not going to say no given her writing ability.

But if you want to mock it a little bit, more power to you. I'm not going to shut down that kind of thing unless it turns personal.

[Marshmallowmilkshake]

Just to be clear, I am in no hurry to cede control, I just realize that I suck at it and the community is dying around me.

On the other hand, I hate what the UMDB has become. I can't navigate that place anymore — content is pushed at me rather than giving me easy menus to find what I am looking for — and I feel like I'm 95 years old and living in a world that has passed me by.

 

You don’t suck at anything. This place is not dying. And I’ll follow you and the other guys anywhere.

 

I agree with this! Thank you for all you do!

[Edgy MD]

The truth is that I can't even get that registration link to work.

[Edgy MD]

I think the real important question is, would we be bringing back the annual song parody contest?

And… these prospective new users that could be brought in to liven things up… are they any good at wordle? Because the competition is already too damn stiff over here. Jeez.

 

The Parody Contest is the sort of Crane Pool all-but-trademarked content I would sort of want to waken up. Wifey Watch. Tabloid Cover Contest. And yeah, even the Wordle Golf Tourney could be branded content. These are all great but need a critical mass of participants that we just aren't sustaining.

Again, I would love to get that going on a magazine site managed by me, with the forum as just a featured part, and that's why I acquired cranepoolcompanion as a url — the zine being the theoretical staticky companion to the more lively action of the forum — but it's hard to build a page when I can't figure out a simple kink in the registration hose.

[Edgy MD]

I agree with this! Thank you for all you do!

 

You've got the mad investigative journalism skillz and Michigan connections. If anybody can suss out whether Brock is looking to make our lives better or planning to skip town after tricking us into paying for band uniforms for a bunch of kids who can't play, it's you.