Where is Ryobi Forum?

[WestofLongBeach]

I get a lot of good advice when I visit this forum, and I'm glad it's here.

I usually, though, go also to the Ryobi forum to get as many perspectives as possible. Since I have a lot of Ryobi tools. Haven't been to either, for a while though.

It seems the Ryobi Tools forum died? It isn't where I used to find it, nor anywhere to be found on Google.

Anybody got any intelligence on this situation?

Thanks.

Don.

[LCHIEN]

i hadn't gone there in a couple of years probably. Pretty pitiful when I did.
I guess it died a lonely death.

No sign of it. Search www.ryobitools.com website for forum, and BT3000 and BT3100 got no matches for any.
Guess they value their loyal customers.

[cabinetman]

Didn't find an exclusive Ryobi forum, but this may have some interest for you.

.

[dbhost]

The forum on www.ryobitools.com/dc/dcboard.php no longer exists. It seems Ryobi took it down. I haven't been there in about 2 years and for good reason. It was a dead board back then. I assume Ryobi took it down due to lack of use.

[Black wallnut]

My guess is that when Jim Frye retired from admin they were unable to find a new admin and it fizzled.

[Stytooner]

When I was checking some of the links when updating my site, I found the Ryobi Forum link was dead. Dead links are no fun, so it's history now along with a lot of other cool places and things that used to be around. I am glad to have found the Ryobi Forum when I did way back. It was very cool around 1999 or 2000.

[Cochese]

I wonder if there's still a market for one. It would be really cool to have a subforum. I have at least 60% of all the One+ tools.

[dbhost]

Not sure if a Ryobi Tools sub forum would work all that well / generate that much interest. But then again, it might. I don't own any cordless tools unless you could human powered, but aside from my BT3100, I own quite a bit of Ryobi equipment.

Biscuit Joiner, quarter sheet sander, recip saw, corded clutch driver / drill, buffer, detail sander, belt sander, planer, bench grinder, the speed load drill bit set, buffing / polishing set among other misc Ryobi tools.

I have a couple of intended Ryobi additions yet to go. The scroll saw for one, the One+ LiIon combo kit, and a second BGH-827. (I have plans for it...).

[cwsmith]

The Ryobi forum was (as I understand it... pretty much first hand), that Jim Frye was "the man", handling it quite nicely as the principle administrator/moderator on a volunteer basis. Ryobi handled the technical stuff though, providing the space and taking care of keeping technicalities of system management, etc. It wasn't the participants, lack of interest, or in any way Jim's or the forum members lack of interest.

Problem appeared to be that they (Ryobi's technical support) updated the software at some level and lost something and the technician behind the scenes walked away, leaving the company, and nobody could get it fixed. (I hope I'm remembering that right; if not, I apologize to Jim.)

At the time, Jim was retiring out of the project and I was on the recommendation list to be the new moderator or at least one of the new moderators. I did get a couple few e-mails from the marketing manager, but they never seemed to be able to get the forum back up and running. (that was well over a year ago, at least).

For awhile, they just had it down and I recommended that they at least put up a note saying that it was under construction, which they did. But after several months and a few contacts with them, everything just seemed to die and finally they took down any reference to the forum.

My last couple of e-mails to the Ryobi person went unanswered and I'm under the impression that she is no longer with them, but I don't know that for sure. In any case, another name is now on the "marketing" spot and they've got their Facebook and Twitter accounts working as far as I know.

Personally, I enjoyed the Ryobi forum and there were a handfull of loyal supporters and a heck of a lot of good information. Jim Frye did a great job and I'm sure he would have been an extremely "hard act to follow". I just think that Ryobi just couldn't figure it out on their own and decided to throw in the towel in face of the challenge. (MHO, anyway.)

I hope this helps,

CWS

[Stytooner]

Thats about what I recall as well in hearing about it. Jim is also a member here and posts sometimes. He did a great job over there for sure.

In my twitter thread the other day, someone stated that Forums are rapidly becoming antiquated. I don't think I share that sentiment because of the archives. I suppose they may have searchable archives in Twitter etc..., but the forum I do most of my searching in have vast amounts of information and you can check out the entire conversations rather easily in a forum format.

Also heard that desktops were going on the back burner at Microsoft in favor of the newer stuff.
I can say without a doubt, what I do on my desktop would be excruciating to me on a laptop, netbook or dare I say an Ipad or whatever the next thing is at the moment.

[TB Roye]

The Ryobi Forum is what led me to BT3 Central 7 years ago. Right after I got my BT3 I joineg the Ryobi Forum and then followed a lead over to BT3. Learned a lot from both.

Tom

[Black wallnut]

The Ryobi Forum is what led me to BT3 Central 7 years ago. Right after I got my BT3 I joing the Ryobi Forum and then followed a lead over to BT3. Learned a lot from both.

Tom

The vast majority of the "old" crowd did the same. That would be those of us that joined in the first year of the forum. In the month of this forum starting Ryobi was having forum software issues or hardware issues. Sam was already in the process of launching this site as a beta test for a different site that he was planning. This one took off, the otherone fizzled and died. Ryobi got their act back together but by then much of the old crew had moved on to here or elsewhere.

Thanks CW and Lee for filling in the details that I was unaware of. Jim was a great hand, (still is just not for Ryobi Forum) always helpful.

[WestofLongBeach]

There were many responses which were quite informative, even though the story of the Ryobi forum is a bit painful to hear.

Kind of like Ryobi's terminating some of their best products, e.g. the BT3100 and the 21" variable speed belt sander, which cannot be found anywhere now, to my regret (my own was stolen and I never bothered to go get another, until it was too late. I had to settle for a slightly older, rebuilt model).

In any event, there were too many answers to thank each one or respond individually, but please know that I am grateful to hear the truth. I will be on these forums from here on out, more frequently.

Don.