Why is it quiet on here?

charger01 · Post by **charger01** » Mon Mar 27, 17 9:47 pm

octanejunkie wrote:I've not had a problem posting pics.. Load to a web hosted album, and copy the link, then hey presto... I have more of an issue with the photo hosting site running slow
It'd still be MUCH easier if there was a way to post pictures directly to the forum, especially from my phone.

It might be worth opening up the forum to guests, but beware, as an ex moderator myself, it can be a bit of a handful keeping the idiots at bay..

I really like being a part of the MMA, but i do find myself a bit isolated in the south west.

You want to try living in North Wales if you want isolation. Even the sheep go around in pairs.

ScottyDave · Post by **ScottyDave** » Mon Mar 27, 17 9:50 pm

Safer in pairs

Mossy68 · Post by **Mossy68** » Mon Mar 27, 17 9:51 pm

Dave81 wrote:Social Media is killing all forums I believe.

I'm not posting as much as I am snowed under with my new girl and family stuff.

I do however pop on and look most days.

I have noticed that a lot of the regular contributors seem to be missing.

Steve B, Carl, Will, Gary and even Ade Worman who used to post almost daily, I haven't seen a post in months (Well Mossy has been recently).

I don't think you can put a price on a forum like this. The info is amazing and it serves as a great historical reference.

UK Mopars and American Cars UK on FB is alive with people, but it just doesn't feel like home like here.........

What can be done......Haven't got a clue.
Half the fun of owning my car is the camaraderie on here and at shows!

Understand people have hectic lives though....

Im slowly rebuilding my life after a horrible divorce , so that's my excuse!!!

I'm just so busy , that I hardly get time for a good read , though I try and look in daily. Plus , my old phone ( which is my computer!), didn't support modern apps etc. Just upgraded , so taking steps.
Oh and having to work hard to run an SRT10 daily !!!!!
Yes I am mad. But life's too short for a transit

Captain Chaos · Post by **Captain Chaos** » Mon Mar 27, 17 11:06 pm

Personally I really like the feel of this Forum,it's welcoming and informative,I think it would be a great shame if it were to succumb to the wider social media alternatives. There is still enough of us here to make it more than viable and I am just as guilty of reading rather than posting,contribution is the key.

Dave81 · Post by **Dave81** » Tue Mar 28, 17 5:50 am

Mossy68 wrote:
Dave81 wrote:Social Media is killing all forums I believe.

I'm not posting as much as I am snowed under with my new girl and family stuff.

I do however pop on and look most days.

I have noticed that a lot of the regular contributors seem to be missing.

Steve B, Carl, Will, Gary and even Ade Worman who used to post almost daily, I haven't seen a post in months (Well Mossy has been recently).

I don't think you can put a price on a forum like this. The info is amazing and it serves as a great historical reference.

UK Mopars and American Cars UK on FB is alive with people, but it just doesn't feel like home like here.........

What can be done......Haven't got a clue.
Half the fun of owning my car is the camaraderie on here and at shows!

Understand people have hectic lives though....

Im slowly rebuilding my life after a horrible divorce , so that's my excuse!!!
I'm just so busy , that I hardly get time for a good read , though I try and look in daily. Plus , my old phone ( which is my computer!), didn't support modern apps etc. Just upgraded , so taking steps.
Oh and having to work hard to run an SRT10 daily !!!!!
Yes I am mad. But life's too short for a transit

Yes mate.....knew you had stuff going on.

Still not seen pics of this new toy of yours though.......be good to catch up at some events this year! Beer and Bananarama! as usual!

Dave81 · Post by **Dave81** » Tue Mar 28, 17 5:52 am

ScottyDave wrote:
Dave81 wrote:It's been a long Winter (though not really cold). Need Gary's Picnic at Shakey
Planning on going to this again myself, might catch the Mopar crew this year did find your motor though Dave

I'll let you know what day Dave. Be good to put a face to the name.....especially as your a local member to me!

cadboy · Post by **cadboy** » Tue Mar 28, 17 6:50 am

Agree it has been a little quiet here but a lot better that any social media crap.

I look nearly every day and read all new posts and sometimes add a little too, but you wont get this on FB and unless you have all day then social media search is useless.

english68 · Post by **english68** » Tue Mar 28, 17 8:11 am

Captain Chaos wrote:Personally I really like the feel of this Forum,it's welcoming and informative,I think it would be a great shame if it were to succumb to the wider social media alternatives. There is still enough of us here to make it more than viable and I am just as guilty of reading rather than posting,contribution is the key.

Exactly what I have been thinking - about the forum and about how I just read but don't contribute.

Will try harder...

Post by **MattH** » Tue Mar 28, 17 10:15 am

As a long standing MMA member and commitee for a LONG time, I'm acutely aware of alot of the issues raised. We are all busy and social media is an easy fix for nice pics and simplicity to use but is not easy to find proper information amongst all the drivel and adverts which is where the forum wins out I feel.

We are working on solutions to the forum as it is an old platform now which needs upgrading. Our hopes are it will be more user friendly and easier to upload photos and links. The new website was the first phase of this upgrade and the forum is teh current project but no easy feat to try and move everything to a new system without losing all the hsitory that is built up from years of forum activity.

FaceBook did not exist when the forum was set up. The club is now 20 years old and was set up when we still printed on black and white photocopies and hand wrote every addrss envelope!
I am proud to be part of this club and to have helped keep it going until now, which is 20 years. There are many clubs that have come and gone in that time, so hopefully we are doing something right.
I think we must be as the membership numbers are at their healthiest for about 6 years, with alot of new members finding us and joining up, plus the old stalwarts who come back after a bit of time away.

Yes we have to charge a membership fee which does not happen for social media, but we have costs that do not go away, and the biggest cost is production of the magazine. When times were hard, we went digital with the magazine out of necessity to reduce costs drastically but this was not well received and we got it back to print after 2 years.
Some people may flinch at the Â£30 cost but in comparison to what we spend on the cars as a hobby it is not alot (less than half a tank of fuel) and I'm sure there are many members who would say they saved that Â£30 just with one piece of advice from another member.

Regards the public area, this was tried for a time but it was decided to change it to the current format, as there were alot of "lurkers" (to quote the Rods & Sods line) who got alot of benefit from seeing some of the forum, without paying to join, which is unfair on those who do pay to join.

So it may be quiet on here, but bear with us and get posting.

Lincrafts.com · Post by **Lincrafts.com** » Tue Mar 28, 17 10:44 am

I have loads of old pics of mopars from shows over the years so I will try posting them in the Photo Archive. I only have the pics and what show and year not who owned them and other info so would that be acceptable?

morgan · Post by **morgan** » Tue Mar 28, 17 12:28 pm

charger01 wrote: Morgan , glad to hear you finally sorted all them dead ignition boxs's. I take it its running sweet now?

.
Yup. MSD12v all-in-1. Vroom vroom. If a little pongy.

MattH wrote: Some people may flinch at the Â£30 cost but in comparison to what we spend on the cars as a hobby it is not alot (less than half a tank of fuel)

Been said SO many times but I have to agree with Matt here. This place is the MOST useful Â£30 I throw at that car. Without this forum I would never have got off the ground and it would have been an insurance fire-job year ago

Facetube can do one - no thankyou...

RobTwin · Post by **RobTwin** » Tue Mar 28, 17 1:25 pm

Lincrafts.com wrote:I have loads of old pics of mopars from shows over the years so I will try posting them in the Photo Archive. I only have the pics and what show and year not who owned them and other info so would that be acceptable?

Hell yeah, get posting!

Then we can try and chip in to the thread and add any info on where the car(s) might be now etc

Just put the show event title and approx. date as the thread title and jobs a goodun

Lincrafts.com · Post by **Lincrafts.com** » Tue Mar 28, 17 1:31 pm

RobTwin wrote:
Lincrafts.com wrote:I have loads of old pics of mopars from shows over the years so I will try posting them in the Photo Archive. I only have the pics and what show and year not who owned them and other info so would that be acceptable?

Hell yeah, get posting!

Then we can try and chip in to the thread and add any info on where the car(s) might be now etc

Just put the show event title and approx. date as the thread title and jobs a goodun

Thanks for that, I'll give it a go later, teddies to pack and send out first, got to earn the pennies to keep the 'cuda.

What topic is best for swearing and chuntering in when it doesn't go right?

Casper · Post by **Casper** » Tue Mar 28, 17 1:50 pm

MattH wrote: We are working on solutions to the forum as it is an old platform now which needs upgrading. Our hopes are it will be more user friendly and easier to upload photos and links. The new website was the first phase of this upgrade and the forum is teh current project but no easy feat to try and move everything to a new system without losing all the hsitory that is built up from years of forum activity.

In fairness Matt, phpBB is a decent forum platform and migration to something like vBulletin (often considered the market lead in forum software) isn't really going to give a significant advantage over what the MMA currently have.

phpBB is stable, quick and relatively intuitive from a user perspective. vBulletin 5 has better social media and mobile device features BUT by all accounts is far from stable and a lot of people are reluctant to upgrade from vBulletin v4 (which is closest to phpBB).

To my mind, stable, reliable, easy to use and quick is better than unstable, feature laden but slow.

As for the photo upload point - there are two things for everyone to consider: cost of storage and impact on the speed of the forum. Uploading photos means storage cost for MMA - the more photos, the more cost and you have the added issue of slowing down the site as it tries to load large format photos.

So, with that in mind, the other option is that users host their own photos. Everyone can find free private hosting online (photobucket being one option) - hosting your photos on photobucket and then linking them to the MMA Forum is easy to do and costs the MMA, and the user, nothing.

However, if the MMA wanted to host the photos, the easiest way forward is to either buy a bolt-on widget which would auto resize the photos for users (for instance resizing them to 1024x768 at the time of upload). This should be able to be bought off the shelf and implemented for around $750 USD (I know because I looked into this for a similar site with similar issues).

As for traffic, as has already been said by others, you only get out what you put in. If people want the site to be busier, the obvious answer is to say more and get involved when others start topics

Pete · Post by **Pete** » Tue Mar 28, 17 2:33 pm

Some fantastic and well-reasoned Posts there.

Thank you once again to our very loyal (and discerning) members - we could not do it without your support.