Hymer Aktiv?

[booster]

Originally Posted by markopolo

I'm a proponent of publicly available information when discussing things like Class B Vans. To me, the private groups are like information black holes. What you post in there will never be indexed by a search engine. Your efforts to provide information on a subject will have a very short shelf life when hidden away in a private group. It won't help someone in a months time let alone in a year or ten years.

That's why I describe it as an information black hole.

I understand the technical reason for making groups private. Facebook is setup to share everything you do with friends and family. That's great but your friends and family would quickly get bored with the minutia we get into about Class B vans. The reaction is to make the group private. The response should have been to find a better platform for the discussion group.

The manufacturers probably love that you keep those discussions private and hidden from search engines. I doubt very much that the goings on in private groups warrant the need for such privacy.

That's just my two cents ..... I've tried to make as much info about Class B's public as I could over the last decade so please understand my disappointment on the decisions to hide and bury information in private groups.

I would totally agree with Marko. By using the Facebook type information sites, they can limit the exposure to only those that are compliant, or they are trying to sell the product. By being protected from search engines, they can hide many of their "worts". Roadtrek, early on in their social media entrance, tried to push their cause on the Yahoo forum and here to some extent, and I am sure some other places. Hamill and his troop of "consultants" quickly disappeared, though, and huddled in the closely guarded Facebook environment, as they didn't want to, or weren't able to, address the tough questions they got. I think Yan Seiner is the only one that ever posts anything on the Yahoo site anymore, and it is very rare.

I am sure Roadtrek hates the B forum, because all the information comes up on searches, good, bad, or ugly.

[wincrasher]

Originally Posted by markopolo

I'm a proponent of publicly available information when discussing things like Class B Vans. To me, the private groups are like information black holes. What you post in there will never be indexed by a search engine. Your efforts to provide information on a subject will have a very short shelf life when hidden away in a private group. It won't help someone in a months time let alone in a year or ten years.

That's why I describe it as an information black hole.

I understand the technical reason for making groups private. Facebook is setup to share everything you do with friends and family. That's great but your friends and family would quickly get bored with the minutia we get into about Class B vans. The reaction is to make the group private. The response should have been to find a better platform for the discussion group.

The manufacturers probably love that you keep those discussions private and hidden from search engines. I doubt very much that the goings on in private groups warrant the need for such privacy.

That's just my two cents ..... I've tried to make as much info about Class B's public as I could over the last decade so please understand my disappointment on the decisions to hide and bury information in private groups.

LOL. People use the search feature? I thought people just posted and expect you to cough up some answers for them!

I do wish that facebook could be searched and give you some excerpts so you could decide if you wanted to join a particular group. Once you are a member of a group, all that group's content is searchable to you then.

I debated a while about public verses private. Ultimately I decided (and the members agreed) that private was better because of everything being posted on everyone's walls. My friends and family could care less about Class B vans, that is certain.

One thing that I like about the way Facebook works is that it encourages participation. If you have to join something, you are more likely to participate, unlike out on public forums you can just take info and not put forth any effort to build on the site. Posting something, or a picture is about as easy an experience as it gets online.

The other thing I've found, and other's may agree with me, the Facebook thing is not really a deep discussion on any particular topic. If it gets too hairy of a subject, you usually end up posting a link to somewhere where you can get deep in the weeds. Mostly our Facebook stuff is light topics, and heavily pictures. It not meant to be serious techncial help - that for other platforms in my view.

[booster]

I was referring to a general Google search, which I think is the starting point for many of us as we contemplated getting a class B. The Yahoo Roadtrek forum, RV.net, and the classB forum came up immediately when I started researching, and the information was extremely useful. All the Facebook stuff will never be seen that way.

I would agree that is very uncommon for folks to actually bother to use the internal site search features, as it appears to be easier to just ask, and get the links to past discussions.

[markopolo]

Yes, any major search engine.

We'd sometime see this one Roadtrek on our walks. We got curious enough to find out about it and that search led to a forum. Lot of good, bad and ugly as they say. We were able to make an informed decision when buying a Roadtrek.

------------------

People use public forums to promote private groups. You'd likely never find the private group otherwise.

I hope that it's not a one-way street. If you want forums to do the grunt work and bear the companies ire make sure to promote forums in the private groups.

--------------------

It wasn't that long ago that Roadtrek supported forums. Jeff Hanemaayer was supportive of this forum. There were direct links to Class B Forum, RV.net forum and the RT Yahoo Group right on Roadtreks website. That changed at the around the time Yan and Campskunk got involved doing work for Roadtrek writing the owner manuals. I noticed the links in the draft manuals were missing and queried this with Jim. I have the email for reference. He said they would consider adding Class B Forum and he also said they might focus the support of Roadtreks to one forum, manned by Roadtrek technicians. Some of you might remember that now defunct Roadtreking forum. It was shut down and all the efforts and information is gone.

[gregmchugh]

We are up to 900+ members in the Facebook Roadtrek Owners Group and we get a lot of prospective buyers joining the group, many are new to Internet RV groups and they have the usual reaction to seeing so much discussion of problems that you find on most of the groups besides Roadtreking. Some buy anyway, accepting the potential for problems, and others simply decide not to buy or to wait for things to settle out with the problem areas. Many realize that it makes more sense to buy a used one with less potential for the current problems. I do think they appreciate the unrestricted discussion of real owners experiences they find on the group.

There are a couple of Roadtrek employees on the group and they provide some help to people but they are not dealing with any detailed technical support. We have a lot of owner experience and customer assessment info that I expect they may be providing back into the company, at least I hope they are. While the group represents a very small cross section of owners, they surely get more honest customer info from our group than from the 7000 member group.

[markopolo]

Greg - You've definitely used this forum to promote that group to new forum members here. I hope you also promote Class B Forum as an information source on that group.

I'm sure there are some folks that would have benefited from reading private content prior to purchasing. It's too bad it's hidden from search engines. And it's not private from the companies because as you pointed out they have employees on the site.

Don't be too influenced by member numbers - I've joined several forums and groups over the years just to see or download one thing that I was interested in. I added to the membership count but hardly could be considered as such. I doubt I'm unique in that regard.

I noticed somebody I know who showed up as a member of the Roadtreking group that has never mentioned any interest in RV'ing at all. I'll have to ask how that came to be.

Everyone is free to do as they choose and what feels right to them of course.

I guess we probably should get back to the Hymer Aktiv discussion. And a big thanks to George for sharing photos here.

[booster]

Originally Posted by markopolo

It wasn't that long ago that Roadtrek supported forums. Jeff Hanemaayer was supportive of this forum. There were direct links to Class B Forum, RV.net forum and the RT Yahoo Group right on Roadtreks website. That changed at the around the time Yan and Campskunk got involved doing work for Roadtrek writing the owner manuals. I noticed the links in the draft manuals were missing and queried this with Jim. I have the email for reference. He said they would consider adding Class B Forum and he also said they might focus the support of Roadtreks to one forum, manned by Roadtrek technicians.

My guess would be that at that time they decided that participating in the discussions wasn't giving them what they desired, and the questions were getting harder, so they decided that they would be better off to control the discussion rather than participate. IMO, that was a bad decision, but it was theirs to make. Well run companies with good products have nothing to fear from the forums.

[gregmchugh]

Originally Posted by markopolo

Greg - You've definitely used this forum to promote that group to new forum members here. I hope you also promote Class B Forum as an information source on that group.

I'm sure there are some folks that would have benefited from reading private content prior to purchasing. It's too bad it's hidden from search engines. And it's not private from the companies because as you pointed out they have employees on the site.

Don't be too influenced by member numbers - I've joined several forums and groups over the years just to see or download one thing that I was interested in. I added to the membership count but hardly could be considered as such. I doubt I'm unique in that regard.

I noticed somebody I know who showed up as a member of the Roadtreking group that has never mentioned any interest in RV'ing at all. I'll have to ask how that came to be.

Everyone is free to do as they choose and what feels right to them of course.

I guess we probably should get back to the Hymer Aktiv discussion. And a big thanks to George for sharing photos here.

I know the number of members in the group does not mean much and I really didn't care if the group was made private or not but that is what the majority of the original group of members wanted since that initial group was mostly people who had been booted from the other group or left themselves because they wanted a place for free discussion and thought a private group would promote that. We are well past that point now but I doubt that members want to open up the group but who knows...

I got the impression from your comment that you feel I have been promoting the owners group too much on this forum. I do recommend people come to this forum for info when it would be appropriate. The only reason I promote the owners group to current owners and prospective buyers is that I have found no other place, including here or the Facebook Class B group, where they will find the info and discussions that are found on the owners group.

If you have suggestions of better places to find the info that are more open to google serches then let me know. Most of the owners group members are not interested in doing anything besides Facebook so the Class B Forum or other forum groups are not going to work for them. The Yahoo Roadtrek group surely has more members but there is not much active discussion and not much coverage of current models.

I am not even the creator or administrator of the Roadtrek Owners Group and really have nothing to gain personally from more members. I do my part to simply get the group to the size where there are enough owners that people can easily get the information they want from actual owners.

If promoting the owners group is an issue on this forum then I will surely stop doing it but I did was not aware that it was an issue...

[markopolo]

I'm talking about fair play - not rules. I'm trying to encourage private group members to see the value in open and public forums.

[markopolo]

And I shouldn't have mentioned you specifically like that.

I think we'll all agree that it is not too much to hope/expect that the promoting is a two way street.

[booster]

I most certainly am not a Facebook or other social media expert, but the private groups I have seen ( I have joined some just to see some paricular item, like Marko, and have also seen quite a few that others, who are members, have showed me), seem to be heavily to biased towards very like thinking folks, who have little tolerance for any questioning. The Roadtrek owners group could be different than that, but I wouldn't know because I can't see it. I have never had a lot of time for insular groups of anything, as I prefer open discussions, but that is just me. Just being around people just like me would drive me nuts (even more than I already am).

As far as the altruistic aspect of it, the private groups do very little to contribute to the "greater good" of the RV community and knowledge base, unless they, as Marko has stated, refer folks to the open discussion sites to share knowledge with everyone.

I understand the social aspects of Facebook, as I know a lot of very social people who absolutely love knowing everything about everybody, and having everyone else know what they are doing every minute. I don't fall in that category, and many others don't, too, but that is just differences. When you take the discussions about "things", rather than chatter, private, all that information is lost to the general public, and future learners. I would bet that many of the private site users go to the public sites to get information to take back to the private sites, but it doesn't go the other way much.

I think the "fan girls" and Roadtrek plants on the Roadtrek site, for instance, are an example of how the social media method of discussion can severely warp the discussion by limiting dissension in a private group. They have come here, I think we all believe, to push the agenda, but haven't lasted long because the folks here don't like KoolAid.

There is certainly a place for both types of sites, but sometimes the private groups sure start to look like the "cool kids" in junior high that shunned everyone else because they weren't up to standard. That is fine for social groups, but RV discussions just don't seem to be a good place for that kind of thinking.

[gregmchugh]

Originally Posted by markopolo

And I shouldn't have mentioned you specifically like that.

I think we'll all agree that it is not too much to hope/expect that the promoting is a two way street.

No problem with mentioning me specifically, I personnally have no intent to do anything other than promote as much information being available to as many people as possible but you work within the constraints of each group.

I am not really a big fan of Facebook but I put up with it since that is where the owners seem to be congregating. The Yahoo Groups and the Forums are not where you will find them these days...

[gregmchugh]

Originally Posted by booster

I most certainly am not a Facebook or other social media expert, but the private groups I have seen ( I have joined some just to see some paricular item, like Marko, and have also seen quite a few that others, who are members, have showed me), seem to be heavily to biased towards very like thinking folks, who have little tolerance for any questioning. The Roadtrek owners group could be different than that, but I wouldn't know because I can't see it. I have never had a lot of time for insular groups of anything, as I prefer open discussions, but that is just me. Just being around people just like me would drive me nuts (even more than I already am).

As far as the altruistic aspect of it, the private groups do very little to contribute to the "greater good" of the RV community and knowledge base, unless they, as Marko has stated, refer folks to the open discussion sites to share knowledge with everyone.

I understand the social aspects of Facebook, as I know a lot of very social people who absolutely love knowing everything about everybody, and having everyone else know what they are doing every minute. I don't fall in that category, and many others don't, too, but that is just differences. When you take the discussions about "things", rather than chatter, private, all that information is lost to the general public, and future learners. I would bet that many of the private site users go to the public sites to get information to take back to the private sites, but it doesn't go the other way much.

I think the "fan girls" and Roadtrek plants on the Roadtrek site, for instance, are an example of how the social media method of discussion can severely warp the discussion by limiting dissension in a private group. They have come here, I think we all believe, to push the agenda, but haven't lasted long because the folks here don't like KoolAid.

There is certainly a place for both types of sites, but sometimes the private groups sure start to look like the "cool kids" in junior high that shunned everyone else because they weren't up to standard. That is fine for social groups, but RV discussions just don't seem to be a good place for that kind of thinking.

I wouldn't say that the Roadtrek Owners Group is the antithesis of the Roadtreking group but it might be close. Not much overlap in discussion topics between the groups.

It was started by the non-cool kids who were either kicked out of Roadtreking High or left because they did not like the atmosphere there. It has grown beyond that now but I think it has managed to avoid becoming a homogenized group. I would prefer it to be an open group at this point but I think there are enough of the original members who are gun shy about doing that for it to happen. Not sure why they feel that way since it would be naive to think anything is really private anymore...

I personally continue to participate in any group that would have me as a member, mostly to learn but hopefully to pass along info when I can...

[gregmchugh]

Another issue is that vast majority of Roadtrek owners and probably other brands are not really interested in any detailed technical discussions of how their van operates.

The current groups are pretty well segregated it seems to me into various areas of interest with not really much chance of integrating them. There's the lifestyle group, there's brand specific owner group that restricts itself to owners, there's the brand owner group focused on helping each other but welcoming others, there's the general Class B groups that have detailed technical discussions across brands, etc.

There are a few who participate in multiple groups but I think very few and a more general group would not likely attract too many members. Information overload applies to all but the geek minority...

[markopolo]

Better get all those Hymering Groups started - - (meant to be humorous)

I took this thread off topic but really hoping here to get it back on topic.

Anyone have any new photos to share? Video?

Anyone else see the Hymer Aktiv?

[Davydd]

Originally Posted by mumkin

Why doesn't he post them here?

HE finds it tedious with an iPhone to have to upload and then link photos via BBC Code to a message when it can be done by tapping on a screen on a Facebook app. Using a computer is easier but when actually traveling and using your B where only cellphone service is available traditional message boards suck. BTW, I posted the 18 plus photos sitting at a restaurant after ordering food and before being served. I couldn't do that here.

[markopolo]

Did you notice if it had floor compartments for storage?

[Davydd]

I've been active online since 1984 on various message boards and once ran the most active message board forum on the old AOL. Messaging methods live and die. AOL wiped out the most popular service of the 1980s, Compuserve, with graphics and simplicity. AOL was thought of as barbarians at the Internet gate. I just pointed out why I posted on Facebook. BBC code type independent message boards like this one became feasible about 2000. They are now rapidly losing out to other social media with better input especially with cellphone timely graphics and connectivity.

Wincrasher explained why private. I wish my Facebook group activity would stay private just to unclutter my news Wall. On the other hand I run a group with 3,200 members just based on one sandwich and keep it on topic. You upload a hot dog or a hamburger and you are history.

BTW, I am not a member of Wendland's Roadtreking: The Group or the Roadtrek Owners Group on Facebook. I can read Wendland's open group but not the other. Wincrasher's Class B group got my photos which scooped anyone else because we were there at the opening of the show.

[GeorgeB]

Originally Posted by markopolo

It would interesting to find out if there are any differences to the Grand Canyon model.

It looks like it will make for a good rental unit and could be a real money maker for the rental companies. Europeans would feel comfortable with the brand.

Check their just updated website
Maybe more info on the changes,
UPDATE some interesting specs change: THE UNDERHOOD GENERATOR ! RT is willing to let go it's features!

Go Hymer » Models




Their real expertise (and real intentions for the NA market) in class Cs showcased in the banner on the Equipment page

[booster]

220 amp alternator plus a 280 amp alternator must mean engine generator setup. 2 AGM 6 volts. Also mentioned automotive style windows, so the dual pane plastic ones must be gone.

Very interesting, hope to see one soon if the local Roadtrek dealer gets them.

For us, the side to side sleeping would be a non starter for DW, and don't care for a cassette toilet, but certainly not a bad first out for Hymer.