Suggestions to fixing and organizing the 928oc site

Kiln_Red;12453 wrote:

First of all, Ed, thank you for the newest submission to the Tech Library. I have approved the new tool thread and will adjust your account so that your posts there will not need moderator approval in the future. Thank you for volunteering to run the program and updating the tools!!

I quoted the above comments because, honestly, I am not sure what your opinion is with regard to how we include the tool program into the forums. You state that you will be following Gary's template for including new tools as a new thread. Also, you mention how many others want the forums to be simplified. By the way, we just did away with the Say Good Morning forum. Lastly, I believe you are suggesting that you want your own forum. I wouldn't necessarily call this a contradiction of the prior suggestion but, clearly, the two thoughts are in conflict with one another.

Since you are the executor of the tool program I will stand by whatever you choose and will do whatever I need to, to help. I am not at all meaning to pick on your above comments. As I have told Stan in the past, I am very conservative in style. I don't like making mistakes. And mistakes are easy to make when changes are made with an unclear understanding of how or why we're making them.

Thank you Ed for all that you do!!! :cool:

I figured that I was going to mess it up.Basically I was trying to meet the expectation of listing the latest tool, and at the same time answer a question as to my opinion on how I persieve it should be. I want it to be as the majority would like it to be. If I can't meet expectations I will say so but I will try to make everyone happy.That is how I run my business and it works for me. I believe in majority rule but if for some reason I am not able to execute that I have no problem saying," let's try this."

hb4;12460 wrote:

The mechanism for always having a post at the top of a sub-forum is to make it a Stickey. See the Site FAQ .

With the $ method if you click on a heading other than Thread/Thread Starter it sorts the threads by the heading title and the $ posts are not necessarily on top any longer.

You can do that of course, it just defeats the purpose of having a forum with a structured title sorted by that title. I am not sure why you would do that though.....

For example, in the Roadside Assistance forum, it allows a 928 in need to find support close to where the need is quickly.

I am aware of the sticky option, but it is usually not used to sort a complete forum, and would be difficult to maintain that way, as each new thread would require all topics be re-stickyed.

My point is that there is a purpose to the structured titles, and it provides a value to the forum user. Of course Austin and the members are welcome to proceed in a different direction.

Ed, you are doing an excellent job and I look forward to the development of the tool program. Just let's me know what, if anything, you need from me. If you feel we need a new forum for the program and you find it is widely supported, then I am happy to accommodate. Keep up the good work!!

How about a spot for build or project threads?

I enjoy reading start to finish picture documentation of people's projects. Most of the motor related sites I use have such a forum and I find them very interesting. I know some members have some really neat projects in the works and it great to preserve the entire build process in single thread.

Or, one could just create a build thread and drop it into the general discussion?

thx
Tass

Tass wrote:

How about a spot for build or project threads?

I enjoy reading start to finish picture documentation of people's projects. Most of the motor related sites I use have such a forum and I find them very interesting. I know some members have some really neat projects in the works and it great to preserve the entire build process in single thread.

Or, one could just create a build thread and drop it into the general discussion?

thx
Tass

Personally, I have used the Member Car Profile forum for this purpose as others have also. I think that would be the best place to include such posts.

Maybe this will be viewed as self-centered on my behalf, but it seems to me that the better approach to this subject may be to avoid the apparent duplication of efforts that seems to be built in here. We are starting to do a periodic Newsletter for email to all of the members. In that publication we intend to include just about any kind of technical article that any member might like to submit to be included. Such articles will be edited, and/or even written, by me and may be broken down into segments to be published in a series. I am going to initiate that kind of series about one of my anticipated 928 projects and it will start in the next issue of The Shark Vibes. Successive segments of the series will depend on progress on the particular project.

One thing President James has mentioned in the context of The Shark Vibes is that technical articles submitted there could then be expanded upon and then put in the OC Forum somewhere after being published, or simply being put there just as published in The Shark Vibes.

At this point, since this Journal has essentially never actually come to life, I suggest that we abandon it and in its place we simply lodge each issue of The Shark Vibes, in sequence, in its own forum or subject within the OC Forum, and then perhaps add some sort of index so members could locate technical articles, or maybe even any kind of article, and then go to it in the sequence of Issues that have been published and then stored there.

In fact, I will resent it if a member actually submits a technical article to be put in the Journal without having an opportunity to first publish it is the Newsletter. If it is published first in the Journal, I will not be inclined to republish it in The Shark Vibes. Just me.

The short of it is that I think we should, at some point, begin to look at The Shark Vibes as the "Journal" of the 928 Owners Club. Maybe it is too soon for the rest of you to see it that way, because I am at this point, in the overall heirarchy of things, just the tail trying to wag the dog. I respect that all of you will need to see just how capable and willing I am to hold up my end of this overall effort.

What I suggest is that the name of the subject Forum be changed to:

The Shark Vibes, Journal of the 928 OC

Some questions......
If the Journal and Vibes were combined, how would submissions that didn't make it into Vibes be handled?

Is there an advantage to the members to articles being published immediately?

Is there an advantage to members to articles being published in a consistent format, .pdf, for example.

Or, in the spirit of using the Forum structure for all OC member interactions, should the editor create a post from whatever format the article(s) were submitted?

If the Journal and Vibes were combined, would there be a searchable index of articles?

How would 'letters to the editor' be handled?

Vibes is not designed or intended to be a magazine. It is an informative newsletter to keep all members up on what is happening and/or has just happened since the last Vibes to introduce them to new members, new products for 928's, new businesses catering to our cars and to let them know what new articles have been uploaded in to the "Journal" area of the forum.

The Journal is for FULL length articles but is also NOT intended to be a magazine. It is to be A LA CARTE articles so you can start reading an article online and if you like it you can finish it there or download the pdf file of it and finish it on your e-reader whenever you can get around to it.

The Tech forum is completely different and designed so you can easily find the articles you are looking for. Some folks might need special tools (others may not) so the plan is to have the Tool Loaner thread as its own (very short) forum (since we only have like 3 or 4 tools to loan out so far).

The member articles for the "Journal" will be published after they have been reviewed at the very least or edited at best, but we need a good editor for that. Austin can convert them to pdf and post them for us. Barbara Koster is handling the acquisition of all of these types of articles.

I have a suggestion or should I say a request, but I am in no way in any position to do it or even say exactly what needs to be done, but, Could the 928OC homepage get a facelift and some current things put up under lastest news other than the "THEO" tool bit? Maybe some pictures of cars,members and some group gatherings along with the benefits of being a member,tool loaner program,tech library,roadside assistance etc. Just asking.

OBehave;12749 wrote:

I have a suggestion or should I say a request, but I am in no way in any position to do it or even say exactly what needs to be done, but, Could the 928OC homepage get a facelift and some current things put up under lastest news other than the "THEO" tool bit? Maybe some pictures of cars,members and some group gatherings along with the benefits of being a member,tool loaner program,tech library,roadside assistance etc. Just asking.

Second the Motion!

Suggest the sub-forums be ordered generally by the number of posts per day over the year; i.e., put the forums that consistently have active threads at the top of the sub-forum list (Right after a new OC FAQ sub-forum)

Suggest a list of members of the OC and their region be available to the members.

Stan.Shaw@Excell.Net;12423 wrote:

As Austin understands, we are using the forum software to allow more members to easily help maintain and improve the resources. I would expect at some point the website would be nothing but the forum.

Suggest a sticky for each sub-forum that point to the appropriate section(s) of the web page as a start in that direction. Once everything on the OC Webpage is referenced in the Forum, the web page can simply have a mission statement and a link to the Forum. Existing underlying web pages can be removed from the website navigation and remain to accept links from the Forum.

It will be interesting to see if anyone mentions the change at the top of each page of the website...

wallyp;13052 wrote:

It will be interesting to see if anyone mentions the change at the top of each page of the website...

I noticed it, but then I'm a bit 'retentive' anyway... Studies of webpage eye tracking ( example ) indicate it would be scanned, but without a change in colour I doubt that it will be read

Tass wrote:

How about a spot for build or project threads?

I enjoy reading start to finish picture documentation of people's projects. Most of the motor related sites I use have such a forum and I find them very interesting. I know some members have some really neat projects in the works and it great to preserve the entire build process in single thread.

Or, one could just create a build thread and drop it into the general discussion?

thx
Tass

I'd like to second this suggestion. It would be very cool to be able to find entire project build threads all in one place.

OBehave;12749 wrote:

I have a suggestion or should I say a request, but I am in no way in any position to do it or even say exactly what needs to be done, but, Could the 928OC homepage get a facelift and some current things put up under lastest news other than the "THEO" tool bit? Maybe some pictures of cars,members and some group gatherings along with the benefits of being a member,tool loaner program,tech library,roadside assistance etc. Just asking.

I'd like to third this motion. Needs a facelift. The definition of 'latest news' should go back no more than a month or two or else it shouldn't be called 'latest news'. Maybe just 'news' or something.

In internet time a few weeks is forever and that stuff has been here as long as I can remember.

We also have to come up with some way to generate new content on a regular basis. When I log in and see no new thread contributions day after day it just makes me not want to bother. Not sure what the solution is, but I think new members probably come here for a while, see that there isn't much going on and then let their membership lapse (like I did ).

Mike wrote:

We also have to come up with some way to generate new content on a regular basis. When I log in and see no new thread contributions day after day it just makes me not want to bother. Not sure what the solution is, but I think new members probably come here for a while, see that there isn't much going on and then let their membership lapse (like I did ).

Most 928 camaraderie happens locally, in my experience, so I think that providing a place on the site for each local region to communicate would make sense. If structures were set up to allow Local Representatives to maintain items like lists of local mechanics, local tool loan, announcements of local events, list of local OC members, etc. it might help membership growth and retention.

Is it possible to create a top-level forum that contains a sub-forum for each Region?

no offense but i think the layout of 928oc.org is horrible, it is way to outdated. I am not a professional web designer by any means. I started designing webpages back in 1999 in the 8th grade, stopped in 2004, have my own website that I got lazy and installed wordpress and bought a template. I have actually taken a few classes in college within a year ago. The look of the website is not good, their is no uniformity between pages. The main page is to dark and old non graphical images. I think this website has great content, but the layout and navigation of the content is horrible.

No offense taken
The site is a @10 years old now.
Any volunteers to re-develop it out there?
I am sure the board would be willing to listen!

what kind of hosting service do you use (company / package)?

Any progress on registry?

That was an epic score, nice work.

Speaking generally...I don't know that it is an organizational issue rather than a use issue, but I suggest that the Officers use the contact capabilities to provide some coordination and services to the paid membership- ie trial balloons for group buys to leverage vendors, tool loaner program...maybe find Leeroy....(mostly kidding on that last).

Of COURSE a very simple opt-out should be provided for those that want no such traffic.

smtcapecod;17762 wrote:

Any progress on registry?.

The members working on this should be ready for an announcement very soon