Click here to skip down to my thoughts... All of the rest of this is the messages that lay out the groundwork here...

Posted By: walter

i think we should welcome all discussions about heuer and T-H regardless of production date.

Posted By: Derek Ziglar (zOwie)

Date: 7/2/03 05:23 GMT It's not a cut-off as much as a *focus*...

Opening the forum to all TAG sounds good in theory. But realize that TAG owners outnumber vintage Heuer owners by about 1000 to 1. So encouraging TAG discussions in the exact same forum would potentially open a floodgate that would overwhelm the smaller volume of vintage discussions here. Have seen this before in other forums and want to avoid making the same mistake.

None of us have anything against TAG. But to preserve the quality of discussion here in the vintage Heuer forum, it would be best to divert the potentially larger TAG discussions to a separate TAG forum. Curiously, I know of *no* watch enthusiasts website with a TAG forum. One might presume that the amount of TAG-specific discussion is already covered simply by the generic watch discussion groups at timezone.com, watchuseek.com and so on.

If anyone here wants to take on the effort of opening, supporting and maintaining a TAG forum, I'll be glad to help.

and:

Re: Perhaps the masthead should be modified to...

Posted By: Derek Ziglar (zOwie) Date: 7/2/03 06:03 GMT

In Response To: Perhaps the masthead should be modified to... (Chicagoland Chuck Maddox)

I don't see the need to play political correctness-type games trying to not offend TAG owners with a lot of baby talk around why our vintage-Heuer Forum isn't the best place for them to go to meet other modern TAG watch owners and experts. It isn't and it is not doing anybody a service to pretend otherwise.

So how about this:

For enthusiasts of 1985 and earlier Heuer wristwatches, chronographs and dash-mounted timepieces.

Looking for discussions on TAG or TAG-Heuer watches? Try the forums at timezone.com, pmwf.com and watchuseek.com

Posted By: jeff stein Date: 7/2/03 05:59 GMT

Simple change to the masthead?? instead of "For discussions on 1930-1985 Heuer wristwatches, chronographs and dash-mounted timepieces", maybe it should read " Focusing on 1930-1985 Heuer wristwatches, chronographs and dash-mounted timepieces"??

Here is the sctick as I see it...

1. The wording of the masthead conveys the inference that we're exclusionary.
   1. When if you look at the guidelines we're really not.
2. We don't want to turn away TAG-Heuer people (by scaring them off).
3. But we don't want to exclude them (by opening up the floodgates).
4. There is no dedicated Heuer or TAG-Heuer forum aside from this one.
   1. There was a TAG-Heuer Forum at "TheTimeSource.com" but it's apparently hasn't had it's domain name renewed. It was mainly a buy and sell forum anyway.

I think that covers the main points.

I can't speak for Watch-U-Seek, as I don't hang out there, but as for TimeZone, they have been singularly against the creation of a Heuer or TAG-Heuer forum for nearly four years now. Believe me I've tried and tried and tried and tried... While they've added Bruget and Blancpain (What I call Haute Horology brands), they have been very slow to add other "moderately priced" brands at all until recently adding a Chronoswiss, "German Brands" and Seiko forum. This is dispite the claims that one the best features of their "Beta" forum engine is how quickly and easily they can add a new forum.

I can tell you what will happen to any post about Heuer or TAG-Heuer on TimeZone. The person making the query will post it in either the Public or Vintage Forum, someone will say something of the effect of "The best person to talk to is Chuck Maddox, and he hangs out in the Omega Forum" the post will be made there (fortunately every TZ Omega Forum Moderator thus far: Ross Feinberg, Bill Sohne and the newly added Damon Michau have been very tolerant of Heuer/TAG-Heuer posts) and I will have to answer it in the Omega Forum.

So what ends up happening is that I end up answering, or trying to answer the question over there, while having to stretch TZ's guidelines about " 6. Do not post links to or URLs for sites where watches or related items are offered for sale, or to sites offering watch discussion." to their limit and beyond if I need to point to something over here for reference... So far I've pretty much been doing the lifting on this one. And don't think that TZ doesn't delete posts that the moderator think are over the line... Take for example this post I found:

---

HomeÊ>ÊAdvanced SearchÊ>ÊSearch Results - "maddox"

---

Forum Search Results

Subject	Posted By	Forum	Relevancy	Date
Best Heuer Vintage Chronograph site	k	Public Forum	12%	6/25/2003 6:05 PM

All I know is my name was mentioned and I never got a chance to read it before it was pulled. So regardless of My/Our intention to keep to the high road about maintaining cordial and good relations with other watch interest sites, we can't expect everyone to reciprocate.

Frankly I don't want to be spending my time walking on eggs trying to answer Heuer or TAG-Heuer questions over at TZ. If we exclude TAG-Heuer or have wording that appears to exclude TH I'll be doing that more often than if we simply rework the masthead slightly. Regardless we could use some more traffic on the forum anyway.

Ok, with that overly long preamble, let me get to a couple of specific quotes: Derek mentions "I know of *no* watch enthusiasts website with a TAG forum", "our vintage-Heuer Forum isn't the best place for them to go to meet other modern TAG watch owners and experts",

I did post these out of sequence, but within a topic or sub-topic... There is currently no other Heuer Forum I'm ware of and no TAG-Heuer Forum (at all if one wishes to consider OTD Pre-TAG only). In fact, OTD's forum may be the only place that would seem like a shelter to discuss TAG-Heuers. (Some people have very pointed views about the brand.

"potentially open a floodgate"

I guess that I don't necessarily see that opening the floodgates a crack as necessarily being a disaster... Here's why... If there is a slew of posts on TAG-Heuer we say "OK fellows! You folks have enough traffic to warrant your own forum! Who among you wishes to moderate... Nominations?" and Derek can provide the assistance he offered in his post.

"don't see the need to play political correctness-type games ..."

As for ,,political-correctness type games,,... There are more and less polite, cordial and diplomatic ways of accomplishing what we feel is best....

I'd like to walk the fine line between trying to accomodate as many T-H queries as reasonable with the provision that we may not be able to answer them adequately without either flooding the forum or having a boring static nearly forgotten forum where no one posts.

Jeff suggests "Focusing on 1930-1985 Heuer wristwatches, chronographs and dash-mounted timepieces"??" as a potential masthead title. I've never understood why we would limit ourselves to post 1929 Heuers. Can we drop the "1930-"?

How about this...

Focusing on pre-1985 Heuer wristwatches, chronographs and dash-mounted timepieces. (What about TAG & TAG-Heuer? Click Here!)

and the "Click here" would go to an anchor on the Guidelines page: What about TAG & TAG-Heuer? Click Here!

I think this is the best compromise as it:

• states our focus
  • without seeming exclusionary
• doesn't slam the door if visitors are interested in TAG-Heuer
  • they'll read the paragraphs in the guidelines and know that we'll try our best to accomodate them, no promises.
• is the minimal amount of change to the masthead/guidelines
  • doesn't change previously posted guidelines or our past post's acceptability
• doesn't send people away to other sites
  • after all, we do want people to stick around, don't we?

What do you think?

-- Chuck