Does anyone here follow the forums on Roadfood.com? They recently attempted an upgrade and have had nothing but trouble ever since. Currently all of the forum headings are in what I’m guessing are Chinese characters. It’s really a mess, and I can’t imagine what they are going to do.
You can still read the Roadfood reviews, but it’s such a shame that the community over there is without their discussion boards. It’s a different community than HO, but it too is made up of people who are passionate about food.
I’m not on FB so I don’t know what’s going on there. Any thoughts? Thanks.
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Their Facebook and Instagram look fine. Interestingly all that content in Chinese is just filler copy. Must have outsourced the work. Somebody has some adjustments to do but probably fixable when everyone gets back from holiday break.
Thanks - I’m relieved!
The Sterns sold the website a while ago.
This was a supposed migration to a new platform but in reality it has been Chowhounded.
The new owners look on the forums as useless, I’m afraid.
Worse, all the old and archived threads are extinct and have disappeared in Google searches.
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I’m sorry to hear that. Do you think that people feel that FaceBook and other social media have replaced things like forums? I’m not on FB so I don’t know what that experience is like.
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Ouch for the forum. What a mess!
Facebook, Instagram and the forum are hosted by different companies with different technologies. Unless they are all hijacked by the Chinese hackers…
I’m not sure anyone hacked the site, it just looks like it’s unfinished or has some bad coding issues. My company outsources web construction to China and the problems appear similar to some issues we’ve run into.
I see. In that case, the site shouldn’t be online!
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The former mods have no access and most functions are not live at this point.
In my case I started one of the longest running threads, New Jersey Hot Dogs. Shortly after joining Facebook I started Hot Dog Nation. My time on Roadfood decreased until I stopped posting.
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I love your use of the word as a verb form, and I think we all know what you meant.
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I always loved the Sterns and their reviews. But once they sold the site, it just wasn’t the same. I also loved the discussion boards, but those started dying out too. Monetization just never works out for those places.
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For those interested, there’s a new “Friends of Roadfood “ group on Facebook. Private at this point but I can add you if you message me.
I read that some RoadFooders were starting that up, but I’m not on FB, so I can’t participate.
I looked at Roadfood.com this morning and it seems to be normal. Forums are accessible as far back as 2003, I didn’t check any further than that.
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I looked at Roadfood. Based on restaurants near me that I know well I’m not impressed. At all.
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It has always been about diners and cultural touchstones. I realize that’s way different than your interests but that’s where we all started sharing notes about
hidden treats all over America.
My first posts were about Italian Steak Sandwiches, Kansas tacos, and deep fried tacos 
Plus lots and lots of Southern food and barbecue , subjects close to my heart. But that was in early 2000s to a few years ago and times change.
That’s why the FB page.
Fexy Media owns it now, not the Sterns.
Yeah, I’m not a fried Twinkie sort of guy. grin On the other hand I’ve had a lot of really great road food that wasn’t floating in grease. Really good Southern food and especially barbecue are not greasy. Steak sandwiches are not (often over cheesed by my measure, but not greasy). Even fried foods like chicken, fries/frites/chips, fish don’t have to be greasy.
I take issue with Roadfoods on an admittedly superficial look based on three places near me that I know are awful (as does our local health department who cite them regularly) rated four and five stars. I take issue with Mr. López-Alt because he lays claim to science-based writing that quite simply is not.
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I must tell you I haven’t looked at the front page for years.
The forums were populated by an eclectic crowd much like here.
Internet life moves on , and very fast at that.
It was always more about the culture than the eat places
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Do the Sterns visit the Facebook page and contribute?
