Am I alone on here?

It is most unfortunate, really. There is much to be learned and disseminated regarding the Sherman and derivative vehicles, and here seems the logical place for that to occur. I am equally disappointed that my questioning has not resulted in any of the moderators either responding to this thread or to me via a PM on the site. Quite depressing, really.

I'll get there eventually, but for the works in progress I'll keep posting here. I would have no clue how to migrate the threads to another forum, and guys get a better sense of the scope of the build if they can read it from the beginning. I just remain mystified that there aren't enough dedicated Sherman guys out there to keep this forum functioning.

Not entirely alone, but we do seem to be accompanied by tumbleweed and the occasional dull bell ringing somewhere in the distance ..............

I must admit that I had expected a more active forum, especially bearing in mind the breadth and complexity of the subject matter. Perhaps the name needs some work? Does it give a misleading impression? It isn't a shop.  

I monitor and use a number of modelling forum sites, and many are very slow so this one is not alone.  The only ones I really rate are Armorama, Britmodeller, Missing Lynx and perhaps Track-Link.  But I still look at this one and others every day.  Ideally, this site would become THE place to post Sherman-related questions and topics because members would know that here lies authoritative answers and reasoned discussion.

Has anyone considered a tie-up of some sort with Sherman Minutia? I don't mean a merger, but that's an excellent information source with no means of interaction whereas this is an excellent means of interaction without an information source other than contributions - intending no disrespect to the contributions herein.

I see many discussions about Shermans on other modelling forums, like a current ones about the glacis inaccuracies with Tamiya's "mid production M4" and M51 configurations on Britmodeller.  So why not here, apart from the fact that no-one knows about it?

What is the USP here?  Do we, for example, have renowned Shermaholics on the forum to whom others might be persuaded to flock? (No disrespect intended to any renowned Shermaholics here present).  There seem to be people who seem to know Shermans on other sites who aren't members here.  Do we advertise on other sites, noting that not all are happy with cross-publicity?

If we post Sherman-related posts on other sites and forums to which we may belong, do we copy-post them here?  Even that step would increase the value of the information resource here.

An idea I like on IDF Modelling is subject and vehicle-specific research/information sub-forums where members post threads, links, photos etc.  Much of the content is publicly available but having it collected together certainly saves research time and aids discussion.  There is a lot of material on there about IDF Shermans.  But there are still many people who model IDF subjects who aren't members at IDF Modelling - not that it's very easy to join that site.