What is the Omega Forum story?

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As a relative newbie I am really enjoying the forums - Lots of people with excellent knowledge / mostly well behaved, fun and polite people....very useful searchable archive... and all free

It got me thinking when did it start and who runs it now. Also who do we thank for paying any hosting fees?

Whatever the answer many thanks to all involved past and present - it is a great resource and free of all the usual advertising rubbish … and I don't take that for granted these days / this is something to be grateful for.
 
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Rumour has it that a bunch of WUS members got so fed up of all the crap going on there that they left and set up this forum. 😉
 
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As I recall, a certain member who had been banned from numerous forums, sent an email to a group of like minded watch afishionados and suggested "why don't we start a forum where I can't get banned?".

A couple of other members decided that it was a good idea (at the time) and did just that, thus Omega Forums was born.

The "certain member" has been banned from ΩF a couple of times, so history repeated, and after a farewell tour, he eventually retired (but his ghost may be heard as you scroll through some threads).

So there, that's it.
 
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As I recall, a certain member who had been banned from numerous forums, sent an email to a group of like minded watch afishionados and suggested "why don't we start a forum where I can't get banned?".

A couple of other members decided that it was a good idea (at the time) and did just that, thus Omega Forums was born.

The "certain member" has been banned from ΩF a couple of times, so history repeated, and after a farewell tour, he eventually retired (but his ghost may be heard as you scroll through some threads).

So there, that's it.

Thanks - I thought it must be something organic.... vive la revolution!!
 
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Hmmm. I’m almost afraid to ask what got him banned?

A caustic sense of humour with a powerful engine but no brakes.
(but his ghost may be heard as you scroll through some threads).

(singing you'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me)
 
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It actually came from Rolex Forums not WUS, one of the most active Omega communities at the time back in about 2009 was TRF and Trev and I met there as I had a 1680 sub and Trev had I think a 116200 Datejust.

It was a bit embarrassing at times being Omega fans in a corner of Rolex forums but the people were great and we enjoyed it. One of the difficulties though is we had people posting their new Planet Oceans and replies from people like “no bad but it’s a shame you didn’t save up and get a Submariner” as the perception of many people there was you only buy an Omega if you couldn’t afford a Rolex.

There was actually a thread like that I relied to saying something like “you know a lot of people just want an Omega and prefer it to a Rolex especially with the new Calibre 8500 being more modern than the Calibre 3135” and I ended up getting a pm, not rude necessarily but basically a mod asking me if I was trolling or trying to start trouble. This was in the Omega sub forum I might add. Trev was a very talented creative designer and I was a backend / server guy so between us we decided to start work on a dedicated forum and registered the domain.

A guy not long after suggested creating an omega forum and did, while we were still doing development and design work in 2010 but it was a bad service covered in ads and quickly died off.

We launched in March 2011 and it was initially just a group of around 30-35 of us from the TRF Omega subforum and very slow with repetitive what is my watch worth questions and I’d often be googling like mad to help answer them as there were no others at the time. It actually makes me laugh sometimes when people say what is my watch worth threads are too common now because the first 100-200 threads on this site from early 2011 were nothing but that!
 
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It's a " Down-Under " based forum... and we're looking forward to the 2011-2021 " Ten years OmegaForums " LE Speedmaster chronograph 😁
 
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It actually came from Rolex Forums not WUS, one of the most active Omega communities at the time back in about 2009 was TRF and Trev and I met there as I had a 1680 sub and Trev had I think a 116200 Datejust.

It was a bit embarrassing at times being Omega fans in a corner of Rolex forums but the people were great and we enjoyed it. One of the difficulties though is we had people posting their new Planet Oceans and replies from people like “no bad but it’s a shame you didn’t save up and get a Submariner” as the perception of many people there was you only buy an Omega if you couldn’t afford a Rolex.

There was actually a thread like that I relied to saying something like “you know a lot of people just want an Omega and prefer it to a Rolex especially with the new Calibre 8500 being more modern than the Calibre 3135” and I ended up getting a pm, not rude necessarily but basically a mod asking me if I was trolling or trying to start trouble. This was in the Omega sub forum I might add. Trev was a very talented creative designer and I was a backend / server guy so between us we decided to start work on a dedicated forum and registered the domain.

A guy not long after suggested creating an omega forum and did, while we were still doing development and design work in 2010 but it was a bad service covered in ads and quickly died off.

We launched in March 2011 and it was initially just a group of around 30-35 of us from the TRF Omega subforum and very slow with repetitive what is my watch worth questions and I’d often be googling like mad to help answer them as there were no others at the time. It actually makes me laugh sometimes when people say what is my watch worth threads are too common now because the first 100-200 threads on this site from early 2011 were nothing but that!


Great story; thanks for sharing it Ash!
 
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@dsio Thanks for the reply. An inspiring story and the team have created a great forum environment. It is how the internet should be more often. Long may it continue!
I also like the fact other brands are well represented / there are robust views.....but no surprise this projects format was thought up by Omega enthusiasts....:0)
 
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Great thread and interesting to find out the background story. Long may the forum continue and well done to all those who facilitate it’s running.😀
 
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Wow. Such a cool history. And it's amazing how OF has amassed so many members in such a short time period.

Since we are in this topic @dsio , I am curious to know the demographics of the members here. Location, age, gender etc. Which regions are most members from. If you have that data and if it's allowed, can you please share the same?
 
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I am curious to know the demographics of the members here. Location, age, gender etc. Which regions are most members from. If you have that data and if it's allowed, can you please share the same?

I don't think anyone was asked for age, gender and so on when they signed up - at least I wasn't.

For location, have a look here - thanks to @trackpad

Cheers, Chris
 
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It actually came from Rolex Forums not WUS, one of the most active Omega communities at the time back in about 2009 was TRF and Trev and I met there as I had a 1680 sub and Trev had I think a 116200 Datejust.

Thanks, it was Interesting with a bit of backstory! I am not trying to score easy points, but I can honestly say that OF is the most well-run, well-functioning and aesthetically pleasing forum that I have ever been a part of.
It truly is a delight to use! 👍
 
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Wow. Such a cool history. And it's amazing how OF has amassed so many members in such a short time period.

Since we are in this topic @dsio , I am curious to know the demographics of the members here. Location, age, gender etc. Which regions are most members from. If you have that data and if it's allowed, can you please share the same?

Age is randomly spread, it’s about even from early 20s and even teens up to old farts.

Nationality wise the US hovers around 36-37%, Australia is about 8% but the biggest cities are London, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Gender wise it’s pretty much all blokes, we have some terrific female members and I both welcome them and wish we had more to balance it out a little but it’s drastically male dominated demographically.
 
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Age is randomly spread, it’s about even from early 20s and even teens up to old farts.

Nationality wise the US hovers around 36-37%, Australia is about 8% but the biggest cities are London, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Gender wise it’s pretty much all blokes, we have some terrific female members and I both welcome them and wish we had more to balance it out a little but it’s drastically male dominated demographically.

Wow. Age is understandable. Interesting to see that location is skewed towards US, but makes sense as USA was one of the biggest market for Swiss watches before China took over but again less likely Chinese will join these forums because of language barrier.
True, it is very much male dominated but I will try and recommend OF to my lady friends! 😀
 
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I don't think anyone was asked for age, gender and so on when they signed up - at least I wasn't.

For location, have a look here - thanks to @trackpad

Cheers, Chris

Wow. Thank you @ChrisN