Alternatives to RVLife-Backed Sites?

[andrew_]

Is anyone a member of other forums that aren't backed by RV Life?

I'm interested in alternatives that have a good community of W owners that are independent from the corporation. Curious what others are using in addition to WO.

[creativepart]

Originally Posted by andrew_

I'm interested in alternatives that have a good community of W owners that are independent from the corporation. Curious what others are using in addition to WO.

Which corporation are you talking about? Because, there is no RV manufacture connection of any kind in RVLife. Winnebago has zero input or connection here.

As to other Winnebago “forums” as far as I know there are not any other Winnebago forums, but there are Winnebago Facebook groups. Most I think are model specific.

Tell us more about what you are looking for, or to avoid?

[andrew_]

Originally Posted by creativepart

Which corporation are you talking about? Because, there is no RV manufacture connection of any kind in RVLife. Winnebago has zero input or connection here.

As to other Winnebago “forums” as far as I know there are not any other Winnebago forums, but there are Winnebago Facebook groups. Most I think are model specific.

Tell us more about what you are looking for, or to avoid?

RV Life is a corporation, and the forums that are part of their network are backed and administrated by them at the end of the day. (If you use the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of the page, you'll get a reply from RV Life Support) I don't believe I can speak as to the "why" without stepping afoul of the community rules. Would be happy to elaborate in PM if that is allowed. Please do trust that my intentions for asking are noble and good.

Just looking for other forums that folks might participate in that aren't backed by RV Life, ideally not backed by a company at all, and community run in the purest sense.

@Morich thanks for the reply but I think you misunderstood

[creativepart]

It’s no problem that you want RV forums away from RVLife’s parent company. For whatever reason.

There seem to be no other Winnebago specific forums, at least that I’m aware of.

I’ve known Andy, the owner of these forums (there are dozens) for going on 20-years, though haven’t been in touch with him for the past 5-yrs or so. But in 2016 he bought RVLife magazine and rebranded his forum business called Social Knowledge, to RVLife. From there he’s built a bunch of small rv-related businesses into a much larger RVLife “thing.”

As I said I’ve not been in touch with him since about 2018. So, it can’t say exactly but his business was mostly a software development company and quite small. Just him and a few software engineers. It may have changed now, but it’s not some big corporate entity.

Andy has an old Airstream so he started an Airstream forum. Along the way that turned into a bunch of RV forums, and other RV software projects.

All of us mods and admins are volunteers… well some few are doing this as paid jobs. But nothing but small payment to some retired folks that work to control us volunteers.

The only non-RVLife rv forums I know of are owned by Camping World or FMCA, etc.

Hope that helps. I only asked about what you meant was to be sure you didn’t think Winnebago was somehow involved here.

[andrew_]

Thanks for the feedback and for moving the thread to the proper forum. I tried to reply to your PM regarding that, but it seems I'm not a trusted member yet. Given your relationship with the owners, I would like to privately share more details on my motivations.

[creativepart]

Sure you can send me a PM. What you can’t do is reply to a system generated PM that you got when I moved your thread. Click on my user name and choose send PM.