Or deleted 
How is traffic on the board?
Virtually nonexistent. Maybe 10 threads a day get comments.
Given that a single John Lahart post has a Dickensian quantity of text, that’s really not fair. 
LOL.
Just goes to show, being a jerk does not work.
On the contrary; it worked precisely as they had hoped. Shame.
I agree shame; it was a great board and used by professionals and wine lovers, a fantastic resource open to everybody. A real asset until Squires screwed it up.
I doubt that they like the end result.
Winning! ![[wow.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/7/7d450e9830889c8943b674446a21b7254cad657e.gif "wow"){kind=small}
Honestly, I think they do. Neither Squires nor Parker are particularly receptive to criticism, and when it was open, it was both the most widely used bulletin board in the field BY FAR, and a continuing magnet for Parker-haters (which, of course, he and Squires further fueled by being dicks). It was like Wal-Mart building a comfy spot for the UFCW to leaflet in front of every store.
Putting up the wall excluded most (but not all) of the critical voices. They obviously do not believe that the board had a beneficial impact on subscriptions when it was open, and I really don’t think they care that it is now a graveyard. Much easier to administer.
How much advertising revenue could you generate from a busy site like that with seriously high end demographics? Probably not that much.
I think Neal is correct.
What’s weird/sad is that it seems like Squires knows what he is talking about when it comes to the regions he covers. I’ll confess to having bought some Ports based on his comments.
How is that weird? He knows how to rate wine, but not how to run a BB. Seems simple enough.
FIFY. I tried to help him a couple of times and he communicated with me very poorly (trying to be kind here…). That was the last time I went to his site.
And I agree with previous posts, I’d bet that the forum adds extremely little revenue, so why bother with all the effort?
this is somewhat revisionist. squires was running a great board and did it quite well. yes, there were dustups, but that’s inherent in the system.
it wasn’t until squires became officially associated with parker/TWA that conflicts arose that were perceived (incorrectly imo) as threatening to the value of TWA. i believe for a time that squires was stuck in the middle. wanting desperately to be taken seriously and therefore star effing parker and trying to climb that ladder, but realizing that he also built a nice community and needed to do right by them. in the end, he chose what he thought was right for him which completely demolished the board.
squires was way ahead of his time in developing an online community and that contribution should never be minimized or ignored. parker is, and always has been, a bull in a china shop. and that works fine when you have a dominant distribution channel to broadcast your ideas. that entire notion evaporated with the evolution how people embraced the internet and community. parker had zero clue, or desire, to be part of that.
Let’s not forget that the increased ‘nastiness’ of posters helped change the nature of that board as well. I can still remember some threads that got downright nasty - whether it be directed at Parker or other posters. And this was well before this board was ever conceived.
Yep, I was not a fan of some of the ‘censorship’ that took place there, but some of it, perhaps much of it, truly was deserved IMHO.
A lot of truth in what Yaccov says. I can’t really recall the timeline, but things did spiral out of control after a number of years of relative success.
There were a lot of different causes. Start with Parker being deliberately insulting to people who disagreed with him, creating a caustic sort of “you’re with us or against us” atmosphere. This, predictably, led some of the insulted (and a number of pure haters/provocateurs) to return the favor. People divided into tribes and what resulted was not discussion but trash talking “you suck; no you suck” childishness. Then the whole Dr Big Jay fiasco, which both added fuel to the haters’ fire and gave Parker legitimate concerns about the good will of his business, and the entire thing escalated.
Meanwhile, Squires’ own penchant for vindictiveness – which he had kept more or less in check for years – was unleashed. And the man could be (and was) petty. That lead to numerous exiles – some of which were warranted, most of which were not – and the whole thing just devolved into a giant pissing contest.
I miss the days when that board functioned; I don’t miss those last couple of years.
I tend to agree with those that point to the conflict that arose on e-bob, between free and frank discussion, and the need to promote the Parker brand.
There aren’t many commercial organisations that have a free and open forum, where criticism (of the organisation) is welcomed as much as praise.
I think Squires did an excellent job setting things up, creating a community, etc. Until they started charging for admission, I was a big fan and participant. Then I came “here” to WB. But…Squires was a visionary for such things…and…his product was the result of that vision.
Yes…it became an ugly place…for many reasons, maybe including Mark Squires. And, then they started charging for admission…and it wasn’t worth the effort or expense.
Is WB all that different? A genuine question…as I haven’t analyzed the similarities/differences…and am not that interested.