What's happened to the Harris Forum?

[bobsbeer]

Anyone know what's happened to the Harris Forum (AKA The Home Wine & Beer Making Forum)? Since going away for 2 weeks it seems to have disappeared?

 

[hedgerow pete]

i used to be a member of that for six months, i got fed up of the aloof tone and shifted to another wine forum instead before finding this brilliant one.

may be if you look up its backside you might find it, as thats where it was heading rapidly when i was on it some years ago,

shame really, great source of information and one person had some fantastic ideas, i just hated the arragance of some of the people and the way people where slapped down when asking questions.

and dont get me started if you were to mention non grape based wines, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha you were hung drawn and quartered twice and then slapped and shot three times before having your mouth washed out with metasulph and thats before the barage of abusive PM's phone calls and emails aswell as the onscreen negativity and general abuse

good bye and good ridance : : : :

 

[bobsbeer]

I think it must have changed after you left. I have been on it for a couple of years and never found the forum to be as you describe. More concentrated on wine, of every type, rather than beer, but on the whole a friendly bunch. I enjed both this and the Harris as both have their strong points. On balance this forum is bettter as it has a wider participation so you get more contrasting views. And if you brew beer the advice is second to none. Perhaps some of the more enlightened members will move over to this forum.

 

[Moley]

It looks like there was a gremlin in the system but it has been sorted out now: >click<

I understand Pete's comments though.

I joined the Harris forum about a week before I discovered this one. At the time there was very little winemaking content on THBF, just like there is still little brewing content on Harris. As I was returning to the hobby, trying to break bad habits from 20 years previous and discovering the wealth of information now available on the interweb, I learned a great deal from that forum.

I still drop by from time to time, mostly to read Tom's jokes (I know that's a sad admission), but although I've still got an account there I don't think I've logged on so far this year. I can always tell if there's a glitch in their system when ohbeary starts posting on THBF.


Credit where it's due though, without the Harris forum we wouldn't have Wurzel's Orange.

 

[bobsbeer]

Seems to be fine now. Both this and the Harris are great forums. Both have their good and bad bits, which is fine. The world would be a boring place if everything was in one place, and we all agreed with each other all the time. :party: :

 

[hedgerow pete]

i liked and went to them because they were wine orriantated rather than beer, which to me was the selling point, i how ever found it very grape wine and not country ingreadiants and there fore not my cup of tea. i found that by pushing country wines i made more enemys than friends and got fed up of the snotty pm's i used to get.

i do visit but like many forums i go to i dont registrar or sign on.

there must be well over 20 forums i visit as a guest, this one was visited for a year before i decided to sign up, several i have joined ,tried to participate and very very quickly ran away back into the shadows because of the people on it.

maybe its just me but i find almost all forums to has a form of persona and its a case of if it suits me or not to become an active member, say for instance here, i participate alot in the beer section because i am learning but very little in the wine section because it holds no intrest to me, the odd recipe pops up, but most are a clone of one i have already have with some form of "new twist"

my wine making is a changing monster as i have gone from a blindly following the recioe man to trying to work out what make the wines work or not, a form of a more serious wine maker a step down from total wine geek or hardend wine loonatic.

i joined harris, as i wanted to find people i could talk about wines at the Prof gerry fowles level of detail, technical but human , alas i failed to find any help, i have tried several times to participat with discussions with judges and or to find judges to talk to , so i can have acritical eye cast over my wares, but again failed missaberly.

to me personally its where a virtual forum fails compared to a real wine club as there is next to no peer training or stickies on, or about certain subjects and unless i copy the whole of prof fowles works on the internet and lie to say its my own work as a sticky, i dont see it happening some time soon


so that enough of that, i am one the best wine and beer forum in the virtual world and having lots of fun on it aswell, so thanls forum makers :clap: :clap: :clap:

 

[bobsbeer]

I tend to agree with you to a point. I too try to engage in more detailed discussions. I am far from a serious academic but want to learn and understand the different aspects of of the process. Understanding that will, I hope, improve my wine and my ability to control the end product. But as interesting the scientific details are to me, I do find that such detailed discussion on this or the Harris forum tends to fall on deaf ears. I can think of a few subjects that I have raised which draw little or no sensible discussion. Not that I am suggesting that the members are not interested, but merely that most do this hobby for the end result and the technical fine details are of little or no consequense, as long as the end result is reasonable or good quality drinkable wine. I am not a scientist or an academic in the field, but I do enjoy learning and discussing the details based on the findings of technical papers. I would guess that we don't have many wine learned academics on the forum. We do have many very experienced home wine makers though, but also some who think they are academics. But at the end of the day I participate in the hobby and the forums for enjoyment. :

 

[hedgerow pete]

a scientist i am not either , but after reading some of the gerry fowles stuff he managed to explain a very technical subject in such a way that even a monkey like me can understand, and its this explainations that once it has managed to sink into my thick head suddenly opens a great big door as i now know why that works rather than just adding meta sluf blindly

i dont know if you have seen any of the videos from nottingham uni chemistry lab, the proffessor whiles having the obligatory wild white hair do has the ability to explain some of the most cutting edge chemicial processess with ease and grace, garry fowles does the same for me and its that level of understanding/ explainations i would like to see being had in threads about wine :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

but untill then i will just keep one plugging away

 

[bobsbeer]

We can have a good discussion at the Hot Break. I'm looking forward to it. :

 

[oldstout]

Seems to be fine now. Both this and the Harris are great forums. Both have their good and bad bits, which is fine.

Hang on a minute :hmm: :hmm:

I'm not even on that forum. :wha: :wha: :wha:







I didn't even realise it was allowed to be on two




Takes me all my time to keep up with this one

 

[Moley]

I would guess that we don't have many wine learned academics on the forum. We do have many very experienced home wine makers though, but also some who think they are academics. But at the end of the day I participate in the hobby and the forums for enjoyment.

Interesting choice of words, I wonder who you're thinking of :wha:

I certainly wouldn't class myself as an academic. I did get 'A' levels in physics, physics with maths, chemistry and biology, but that was 35 years ago, then somehow I completely changed direction and ended up with an arts degree. However, I do still remember quite a lot of the biochemistry relevant to winemaking and brewing. I've got a bit of experience to share in winemaking (although I'm not an expert) but everything I know about brewing came from this forum. I do try to take time to explain why we do things, rather than just giving a one line answer to questions.

There are plenty of folks learned in brewing, either academically or through commerce.

Hang on a minute :hmm: :hmm:

I'm not even on that forum. :wha: :wha: :wha:

I didn't even realise it was allowed to be on two

You can join as many as you like, plenty of the brewers use THBF and jimsbeerkit while wine makers might use THBF, Harris, winesathome or numerous others. However, it's bad form to post the same question on multiple forums unless you state that you're doing so or particularly need a quick answer and doing so increases your chances.

The Harris forum can be very slow and quite stuffy, but there's a lot of knowledge and experience to draw on.

 

[bobsbeer]

My comments were not aimed at anyone in particular, and certainly not you Moley. On this forum there is a wealth of very knowledgable people, especially on the beer front. On the wine front not so much. I am guessing we don't have many commmercial winemakers. Or those who work in the testing/academic field of wine production on this or the Harris forum. But as I said we do have some very experienced home wine makers whose knowledge is very welcome to me. I was certainly not making any comment on the level of inteligence or academic achievement of any member.

I do feel that inteligent argument is sometimes lacking, and some answers are purported to be black and white quoting certain authors as the only authority on the subject. As can be seen in a recent topic where the answer (and I was wrong too) was not as clear as was first thought. Folklore ruled to the detriment of the truth. We just need to be open to alternative argument if the source can be verified and is reliable. I was recently reading two papers on the effect of caffeic acid as a colour enhancer in red wine. One study showed that it did the other had the opposite result. They were done a few years apart and based on different wine but this does show that you can't just generalise.

 

[Moley]

Bump.

It has gone again.

Forum bookmark just gives me an error message, their home page tells me a server migration took place early this morning. Nothing has previously been communicated to me, and clearing my cache has made no difference.

Does anybody know what's happening, or is this still a work in progress?

 

[user 1290]

I thought it looked like a broken front end Perl file for the forum as the rest of their stuff is still working OK.

P.S.

I do feel that inteligent argument is sometimes lacking.

The Harris forum can be very slow and quite stuffy

OI! You talking about me?

 

[LeithR]

Just went looking for info on gerry fowles and came across this link, it seems he has died.
http://www.winesathome.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?6032-Gerry-Fowles

[EDIT] It seems he died last year.

 

[ohbeary]

Well Mr Mole as you said here I am again, Home wine and beer etc has disappeared down the hole in the middle, I too failed to observe any notification of site migration and can find no trace of it. :hmm:

 

[Raphicerus]

I too failed to observe any notification of site migration and can find no trace of it. :hmm:

Same here. I hope it's migrated to a server with a better clock!
Hi, OB.

 

[bobsbeer]

Home wine and beer etc has disappeared down the hole in the middle

You been banned again Harry? Twice in two days must be a bit of a record. :lol:

 

[ohbeary]

You can go off people.... :grin: the "banning" was some kind of cock-up and nobody seems to know where the site has gone. :whistle:

 

[bobsbeer]

Seems rather strange. Not sure whether the comment at the end of the page is relevant, but looks like a hack to me.

Those who write software only for pay should go hurt some other field.
# - Erik Naggum