CLOSED - A Crossroads

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I might be missing the point...if someone wants to lurk..does it really matter..is it more work if they join and just lurk?..Or if they don’t join and just lurk?. it’s much better if they contribute to the threads and such and it’s always nice to hear from new people...but unless I’m missing something I don’t see the issue with lurking...sorry but I must be missing the point...
 
I expect that many of us also attend other forums as well. In my case its the FordSix.com forum. They appear to have very similar issues to this site. They show 9,200 members, yet about the same number of members that regularly post. And same requirement and complaints about 3rd party photo posting. They solicit donations through PayPal and list those that donated. 30 last year. When you go to donate the default number that comes up is $25 USD. You can edit the amount from there and it's a one time donation.

For what it's worth Frank, you may want to have a chat with the admin, Perry Clark. He is also working on a change to the board software.
 
Some of you know, and many of you don't know that I am the owner of the Rodding Roundtable. For a time we also hosted and admined the Oz Rodders forum. We have the hosting room on our server for much more than what we are using. If Frank is interested we might be able to work out something that will benefit both forums. We are not interested in Admin services for another forum right now, and truth be told I don't admin the RRT. But I have two sons in the business, and between them they make me look good.

I also finance the RRT and have for many years. At times we have asked for donations, but have never had membership fees. I do have members that donate money annually, some of who are primarily lurkers. So with what I am able to come up with we have not needed donations for quite a while.

If Frank would like to get hold of me and see if this can work, we have some members in common that we can set up a contact through until we can set up something direct. I can work with Emails, or I have VOIP phone service.

No pressure Frank, I am just trying to help out as I hate to see a forum with so many talented people having problems.

Frank, (enjenjo)
 
JohnnyBgood said:
I might be missing the point...if someone wants to lurk..does it really matter..is it more work if they join and just lurk?..Or if they don’t join and just lurk?. it’s much better if they contribute to the threads and such and it’s always nice to hear from new people...but unless I’m missing something I don’t see the issue with lurking...sorry but I must be missing the point...
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i guess the prime point is that a when thread gets few or no responses they just say screw it, nobody reads it anyway & eventually leave.
 
Well I for one have been lurking every day for some time. I do post a thread here and there, but I'm mostly reading the threads everyone has been posting. I've been a member on here since 2005 and have enjoyed meeting man great people, that I would not have met otherwise. This forum has been a lifeblood of car related stories, that are both entertaining and informative. I think we are very lucky to have a dedicated administrator such as Frank that can put up with the everyday goings on that crop up to administrate this forum, no easy task. Facebook could never replace what we have on here.

That being said, a donation is not out of question for me.

Carl
 
I had a friend from high school that was running for Provincial politics told me that if everyone that said they were voting for him did, he would have 110 % of the registered voters.

A promise of commitment is at best unreliable, when it comes to money, talk is easy, paying not so much.

So lets simplify this (dumb it down for me) with a possible compromise suggestion.

Is this oversimplification more or less right?

1. We need new software. (How much does it cost?)

2. We need operating funds. (How much does it cost?)

I see this as two separate items.

Once the costs are available: a ONE time assessment for the cost of the new program and an annual minimal fee for upkeep afterwards. Member must pay to post.
 
I agree with Ray, let us know what it's going to take to do a resto on our forum and a how to. Most of us are in.
One other question, IF we had a bunch of (Canadian?) suppliers that offered a discount to paid members, not necessarily Sponsors but at least an incentive that costs them nothing until asked? Someone? would have to go out and drum them up but many are unique as in Canadian Hot Rod mag.
I see on the Canadian Hot Rods magazine title page they are funded by the Canadian government. Maybe we are a "special cultural" group that needs a grant?
 
I don't have any problem with contributing a little financially, but I would really like to see photo hosting onsite.

We are all getting older. I am slowing down, and feeling arthritis creeping into my fingers. I'll be 66 soon. I haven't worked on my own projects for 2 years, come August 1st. I just got my Ranchero project pushed back into the shop.

I have done a lot of thinking the past few months and am slowing down and concentrating on my grandkids and my own projects.
After many months of thought, I let my website expire yesterday. Time to work on my own stuff. I'm not taking in any full projects now. Just carry in stuff like a fender repair.

I check in every morning. I'd post more if it were easy to post pics. I'm hoping I can continue doing metal work till all my grandkids are old enough to show me they aren't interested, then I'd probably quit. In the meantime, I enjoy doing posts with metal work so as to help others with a dying art.

I'd like to see this site continue to grow purely because its Canadian based. I could say more on that issue, but it would become political.
 
OK. There's a TON of commentary to digest. Please be patient as I wade through it.

A few things immediately:

- 47 replies to this thread by 26 people only. And most people have replied twice or more (me seven times) and well over 800 views already. As I said last night (if you saw it), any commentary is good - supportive or not.

- JohnnyBG, I'm not sure where you saw that "lurking" was an issue. If you can provide a quote, maybe I can respond.

- Ray, Yes, we need new software. Either free or commercial (see my comments below about the free versions). I answered about cost HERE on Friday. Lots of stuff to read through since then. The numbers I provided are absolute minimums. They don't really cover what you term "operating costs" (other than upgrade fees for new versions that offer features and security). Other hosting costs are not included. I am paying those and will continue to.

-GFaRT, I see that board is using PHPbb (open source - free) and has been gathering donations since at least 2018. They are considering OR have purchased a license with Xenforo as the have a permanent development site up. You can only do that with a license. So, Perry has already bit the bullet so-to-speak but hasn't gone into production. I have had two Xenforo demo forums running (expired) to try to understand the software. Thanks for the lead though if I need it.

- enjenjo, I see that RRT is also using PHPbb. It looks like an older version but may not be. Thanks for the offer but hosting space is not an issue. And, I don't want to separate the Forum URL from Canadian Rodder or use redirects.

- JVO and others: Yes, photo posting would be available in new software - possibly at two levels 1) in posts 2) in albums or media galleries.

-56TBIRD, I would be happy to talk to Canadian suppliers about discount programs BUT my experience is that we are dealing with a whole different animal and market (if you're comparing again to the HAMB). It's hard enough to get sponsors at ridiculously low rates. with sponsorship, at ridiculously low rates, we wouldn't need donations.

- K13,
Making people pay for board functions is NOT going to bring people back or attract new users.
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. Agreed. It will not.

I have experience with sponsorship beyond this forum. As many of you know, I have run the Canadian Hot Rod Tour since 2007. I can count on one hand literally the number of paying sponsors ($) that I have been able to attract. Donating prizes does nothing to offset operating expenses.

The issue here is: 1) do we do anything to keep this forum alive longer term 2) What solution do we choose. I'm not confident in the database converters for the open source (free) solutions (PHPbb, Simple Machines, etc.) It would be very easy to simply start the forum over with an empty shell but why bother?

P.S. If we did raise the money for the software, I would likely attempt the conversion in a test mode first to ensure that the production forum wasn't compromised.
 
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Ok..maybe I’m off track ..I know this is about the future of this site and possibly new software...but in most of your postings you mention the amount of people looking but not posting or responding...it from this I got the feeling that part of this was about the people just looking...or lurking as I called it..I guess I missed the point...
 
JBG, I'm simply trying to keep everyone up to date on what they're seeing by way of responses relative to the big picture.

That is, for example, let's say there are 60, logged in, registered users who visit per day. I know this from statistics. NOTE: An important distinction from registered users who are not logged in when they visit or "guests" (can't log in as they are not registered).

So, two things:
- The number of replies is indicative of (you choose): either interest or indifference.

- I would suspect that the number of registered users (over the 60) seeing the thread is much higher given the view count (fast approaching 900) AND as the number of visits per day to the forum is around 200.

Ultimately, indifference may be the deciding factor sadly.

We all "lurk" - either here or elsewhere. However, there are some (you know who you are) that attempt to bolster peoples self-esteem by recognizing their contributions (here, FB, etc.). As al37ford said
i guess the prime point is that a when thread gets few or no responses they just say screw it, nobody reads it anyway & eventually leave.
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The term "lurking" sounds so sinister. I prefer viewing. I search for answers to questions I have all the time on google and often windup going to a forum to find the answer. I'm a viewer there unless I have to ask a question, then I'll join just to do that. We don't want to discourage that type of activity. Of all those that view, some will join and contribute too.
 
John, agreed. I’ll make a note not to use “lurking”. It is commonly used though but, you’re right. It does sound sinister. In fact, by definition, it implies “waiting in ambush”.

Just another interesting stat: of the last 120 new user registrations, 26 went on to post something... I didn’t go back any further.
 
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Admin said:
We all "lurk" - either here or elsewhere. However, there are some (you know who you are) that attempt to bolster peoples self-esteem by recognizing their contributions (here, FB, etc.).
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I don't care who you are when you have done something that makes you feel a sense of accomplishment and feel good about it, it feels good to share it and Yes it does feel good when others give a pat on the back so to speak! Everyone could use a pat on the back once in a while. What's wrong with that? I say nothing, that's one way to keep people involved and coming back. IMHO Kudo's to those that hand them out!
 
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Bash, that was my point exactly. I applaud those that recognize the accomplishments of others. Al's point was that people get discouraged with the silence.
In re-reading my post, I should have said: I know people that bolster people's self esteem by recognizing their accomplishments and I applaud that.

The people that are generous will understand the value of doing that.
 
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Understood Frank. Unfortunately admittedly I am guilty of not handing out as many as should be, but only because my time here is limited, and I make a quick peruse of the titles of new posts each day and thats about it. I confess I will have to make more of an effort to peek into them at least. Sorry fellas.
 
Bash, no need to apologize. We all have time constraints. Thumbs up for your comments here :)
 
So, it rained so i have a little time to respond.I more or less breezed over this thread as this is our busy season and I have VERY little time to read/respond to online stuff. FWIW, I agree with Cword that the fact that this is relatively small is a plus IMO. That is one reason why I don't look in at the HAMB at all. WAY too much traffic. See something interesting and the next day it's 20 posts long and 6 pages back. I just don't have the inclination to go through all that unless I find a thread there while googleing for something. As far as contributing goes, I find that i have little to contribute and, not to sound like a broken record, picture hosting (or the lack of) has an affect on that. Glad to hear that this may be getting upgraded. Also, a "like" feature would be very beneficial IMO as it would give people an avenue to show that they ARE in fact watching and reading and liking so the author doesn't feel that their post is not interesting because there are few written replies. A "thanks" button would be nice as well. I would much prefer that to a dozen posts that just say "I like that" of "well done" and such. Another observation about those of us that are here almost every day but appear to rarely post, I have been here since 2009 and i think I can count all of the car related posts by you Frank on one hand.That is not to be intended as a jab or anything, just an observation that you should be able to understand why some of us visit every day but post seldom.
 
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