Topic: Autos.ca moves to autoTRADER.ca

[JacobBlack]

I hadn't been posting the Feature articles like that one, but I can if you like.

[sailor723]

I hadn't been posting the Feature articles like that one, but I can if you like.

I always liked the road trip type articles although I usually only found them if there was a comment that showed up on the forum. I have the forum bookmarked and almost never go to the autos.ca homepage. the last one i saw here was about the 370Z in europe.

[G.Bombay]

To counter your point, while I'm a huge fan of our forum and advocate for it actively, the Birth of a Baby Hellcat story got 47 comments on here. The same story on autoTRADER.ca's Facebook page got over 2000 likes, 1000 shares and over 300 comments.

This forum is envied by our entire industry, and that's why we will continue to support it. But Facebook also delivers.
quoted]


Hi Jacob. I have been a long time reader of Canadian Driver/Autos. I also love the conversations on the forums although I don't post often. I'm a little confused with the changes happening. I checked out the Autotrader.ca / expert and there is literally zero comments on the articles and no link to a forum. Did you decide to switch to Autotrader because the site has more traffic? I have a feeling the Autotrader site is more for people looking for new/used vehicle ads and not reviews. Anyway I hope the Autos.ca forum  continues especially if it's the "envied by the industry". Personally if you are after "shares" and "likes" can you not ad that component to autos.ca? I hope we can still read Canadian auto specific journalism with insightful conversations in a forum (non Facebook) format. Other sites that provide Facebook comments are usually spam about how much money they make in a week.... no thanks. Thanks for the work you and your team do I hope Autos.ca is kept up or passed on to someone who wants to keep it up.

[Hannibalsmith]

They are leveraging the review content to generate Facebook comments, which once you use Facebook on the site, their adds will follow you. Follow the $$$.

[G.Bombay]

Um, has anyone looked into Facebook usages in Canada?? It was popular 10 years ago. Now not so much. Even my parents stopped using it since it's full of ads and tracks your every move online. Can't Autos.ca just link Facebook from their site to generate $$$ and still allow a proper forum for real conversations? I'm still confused by this whole thing

[sailor723]

Um, has anyone looked into Facebook usages in Canada?? It was popular 10 years ago. Now not so much. Even my parents stopped using it since it's full of ads and tracks your every move online. Can't Autos.ca just link Facebook from their site to generate $$$ and still allow a proper forum for real conversations? I'm still confused by this whole thing

In a way this forum is going back to what it was, just an independent forum. It's really the articles that have  been moved over to autotrader.  I won't be using facebook ever, so I expect that this forum will begin to just detach itself from the articles unless they intend to just close the forum altogether.

It's my understanding that by replying to the article link on this forum we will have a discussion/comments separate from the facebook comments that will be on Autotrader.

[dougjp]

Um, has anyone looked into Facebook usages in Canada?? It was popular 10 years ago. Now not so much. Even my parents stopped using it since it's full of ads and tracks your every move online. Can't Autos.ca just link Facebook from their site to generate $$$ and still allow a proper forum for real conversations? I'm still confused by this whole thing

In a way this forum is going back to what it was, just an independent forum. It's really the articles that have  been moved over to autotrader.  I won't be using facebook ever, so I expect that this forum will begin to just detach itself from the articles unless they intend to just close the forum altogether.

It's my understanding that by replying to the article link on this forum we will have a discussion/comments separate from the facebook comments that will be on Autotrader.

I will never use Facebook, but I don't need it to sign on to anything that has any importance whatsoever. Including autotrader. Also as Jacob said a few pages back about the future, that it won't be necessary for here. I don't see how Facebook has anything to do with this change?    Unless we want to read the meaningless trolls' and spammers' comments on Facebook for some unimaginable reason, and probably get your computer ground to a halt via hundreds of tracking cookies that have had their links banned, then nothing lost there.

I vote for returning the name of this forum to Canadian Driver. All my links have always used this name anyway! autos . ca....never liked it.

[ArtW]

CanadianDriver.com (or .ca, I can't remember exactly) used to be my first favorites in the "Canadian car sites" folder. Now Driver.ca took the spot. For more than a year... The articles in "CanadianDriver" used to be interesting and the newsletter (e-mail) used to show what it WILL be posted in the next week, not what it WAS in the week before. In a few words, the website's quality went down. I used to check it every day. Now it's once a week... Tops! Pity!
I think something has to be waken-up in there.

Good luck. 

[sacrat]

I vote for returning the name of this forum to Canadian Driver. All my links have always used this name anyway! autos . ca....never liked it.

Same here Doug. I'll wait to see if the link back here works. I suspect the crucial sense of "community" here has already suffered a fatal blow. Time will tell...

[sacrat]

Just tried searching on used car reviews at AUTOTRADER. No luck. Not sure if that part is still BETA.

[Wildsau]

I'm going to chime in as one of the writers. I have to say, I really miss the banter, constructive comments (good and bad) and general camaraderie that followed nearly every post on autos.ca.

a) needing to go back to the autos.ca forum to see if there are new/any comments is irritating for me
b) there is a very obvious withdrawal from this commenting process since the shift - the numbers are clear
c) I have never used FB commenting myself because I do try to maintain an iota of anonymity in forums and I don't want people following me to my FB page - I know there's more to that, but that's just my general approach
d) I don't appear to be alone in this - I'm not seeing a fraction of the comments on the expert reviews, whether we're talking about the FB business underneath, or even back here
e) I have no issue with the new layout at autoTRADER, although the expert reviews (which is what interests me) feels buried 

All of that makes me sad. It doesn't change what I do here, but it does have me longing for some of that chatter. I note that someone mentioned a fatal blow to the sense of community. I certainly hope not as it was that which brought me here as much as the expert content.

I have no say in what happens at autoTRADER, and so this is way beyond me. But my vote is that things were better before. I completely understand the money model, and that autoTRADER isn't a non-profit organization. But I guess I can still offer up my opinion.

[Ace]

Well boys &girls, it was fun while it lasted. Face book and auto trader aren't for me . Adios amigos

[chignectohead]

I never have and never will use Facebook. Mindless drivel for the most part judging by what my acquaintances do on it when I'm bothered to observe - the dumbing down of the population continues apace just by feeding on itself. Using FB for commentz is what any lazy commercial enterprise does these days. Too bad.

Still, all one needs to do is to come to this main forum page, where all the reviews are listed just as before. Click on one you want to read, then click on the first entry's link to the Autotrader.ca review. After that, things resume just as they did on autos.ca ... I see no difference, other than everyone has gone to sleep and no longer comments. I think it is not very well explained and that has caused the previous readership to disappear in one giant snit. A pity.

[JacobBlack]

Still, all one needs to do is to come to this main forum page, where all the reviews are listed just as before. Click on one you want to read, then click on the first entry's link to the Autotrader.ca review. After that, things resume just as they did on autos.ca ... I see no difference, other than everyone has gone to sleep and no longer comments. I think it is not very well explained and that has caused the previous readership to disappear in one giant snit. A pity.

I don't know how I could have explained it any differently. I've said exactly that.
Reviews will be in the forum, want to comment on the forum? Do so! We want you to, we love this place.
Don't want to comment on Facebook? Don't! Job done.

[CanuckS2K]

I never have and never will use Facebook. Mindless drivel for the most part judging by what my acquaintances do on it when I'm bothered to observe - the dumbing down of the population continues apace just by feeding on itself. Using FB for commentz is what any lazy commercial enterprise does these days. Too bad.

Dude, what an ignorant post.  I love how folks comment on sh!t that they admittingly admit they don't even use.   

[Blueprint]

As a long-time reader and recent-ish contributor here, I want to give big kudos to the Trader team for letting us continue to write as we always did. Nothing has changed in that respect, and you'll see that reading our articles. Those of who saw InsideLine become Edmunds/what's hot were indeed worried at first!

[SaskSpecV]

Those of who saw InsideLine become Edmunds/what's hot were indeed worried at first!

Insideline was the best auto website going....the switch to Edmund's "What's hot" was a cruel joke for internet auto enthusiasts.  I tried to stick it out for a while on Edmunds, but eventually gave up and haven't been back there in over a year.  But of course, Edmunds initially sold the change as an "improvement" to its readers (maybe for their bottom line, but certainly not for the reader!).  Which is why folks are understandably leery when they hear similar statements from the autotrader reps.

That being said, the reviews of autotrader.com/expert are still great (though if the quality starts to decline, you will be sure to hear it!)
I'm not posting anything on facebook, will continue to use this forum instead.  The decrease in traffic over the past few months (even pre-dating the autotrader switch) is disappointing though.  I'm hoping this won't be used an excuse for autotrader to drop the forum.

[PhilGood]

Insideline was the best auto website going....the switch to Edmund's "What's hot" was a cruel joke for internet auto enthusiasts.

Same feeling here...

Autos.ca has a great editorial team, as long as AutoTrader can keep it intact, I can cop with the change.

[Trainman]

So far I am fine with the changes.  It is easy to go to the Article/Review section of the forum, see an article I might like, then click on the "more" link.

I am not a fan of FB, and won't use it for commenting, but I can comment here which is fine.  Trader may want to re-look at their FB comment option as based on my own experience with the local newspaper which only allows comments via FB (and get none now) and my kids telling me FB is for people from the age before dinosaurs  they may want add other options for comments.

[Noto]

If this is true there is little chance the forum will attract new users and it will most likely die a slow (or quick) death as there will be no more business case to have it exist.

a) needing to go back to the autos.ca forum to see if there are new/any comments is irritating for me
b) there is a very obvious withdrawal from this commenting process since the shift - the numbers are clear
c) I have never used FB commenting myself because I do try to maintain an iota of anonymity in forums and I don't want people following me to my FB page - I know there's more to that, but that's just my general approach
- it's true...imagine if saf or rrocket got a hold of your real name 
d) I don't appear to be alone in this - I'm not seeing a fraction of the comments on the expert reviews, whether we're talking about the FB business underneath, or even back here
e) I have no issue with the new layout at autoTRADER, although the expert reviews (which is what interests me) feels buried 

All of that makes me sad.

I honestly haven't been pressed to visit the site since the change.  I'm a creature of simplicity, having only a few minutes each day to read the articles and post while on the bus to/from work now.  I am not a facebook user and am staunchly against the data collection it entails.  I mean, I do use facebook often...typically to find people I intend to sue - I do thank facebook for making my life easier at times in that regard.

I want Trader to do well, and I think the following quote sums up why the change was necessary:

Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!

I don't dispute it, and I welcome the change.  That said, I don't expect that I'll be contributing much, if anything any longer.  I'll do what I can to change that outlook, but the reality is that the extra effort of clicking from the Forum to the article while on a mobile device takes away the small amount of time I can devote to this forum.

C'est la vie.

To any that we lose, you have been some of the best (and mother-:censor: worst!) people I've ever had the pleasure of bantering with.