Death of a Forum

[Super Sloth]

I'm pretty frequent visitor.. I'm sat at a work bench all day during the week I use the internet as a bit of a distraction and visit this site fairly often, sometimes multiple times in a day sometimes not at all.
I love going through the "readers rides" type threads and try to absorb as much information as I can on the technical threads. I sometimes feel like I can join in with the lighter chat type threads but I haven't got much to offer to people asking technical questions.

The tech threads just seem get answered by people who know the answers usually within 24 hours and there's none of the usual "my car won't start" followed by 2 pages worth of wild guesses like "have you checked the tyre pressures mate" type responses. I don't think I'd like that aspect to change.

Every club member I've met has been a genuinely nice person. They've taken the time to talk to me and I've never once felt belittled or slighted. Folks with much more impressive models than our little A body have taken an interest in what we have and made us feel like a part of the club. As a newbie to the scene my general impression is that this is a club full of genuine people who want to share their knowledge and love for the under dog of the big three.

I've never seen any angst on the forum? Light hearted banter - plenty. The moderators are either very subtle with what they do or the forum polices itself?

As others have said, I too feel like I don't want to bore anyone else. I'm actually thinking about deleting the whole post and moving on.

No, sod it, I'm posting. It's a great club, great members and I think the comittee staff are team of people that any club would be lucky to have.
Maybe some of us, myself included should draw inspiration from Blues comments and just choose to submit a post. Maybe it's a case of "use it or lose it"?

[RobTwin]

Good post Jon, glad you didn't delete it!

[smarty white]

What I can say is this is the best club I have ever been a member of,and although I have been an on/off member as my Mopars came and went never before have felt it necessary to share my experience's.
But I do enjoy reading about others and come here every other day at least.
This is a great club to be in,and the more discussions and opinions proffered the better the club will become,
And it's real easy to be enthusiastic if you are lucky enough to own one.
Speaking of which my sister just bought her favourite car of all time and it's
MOPAR!
That's the good news and as always the scales often tip at this point but for very little money a 2.4 petrol ruby red PT cruiser convertible with 80,000 on the clock and all the toys,power seats,hood,cruise,aircon,a two owner car.
It was that or an old version toyatoy aygo,uge!
And it will all be my fault for showing her an alternative she liked for sure.
I know of problems with them,but what do I look for,any advice appreciated,we are collecting it this Friday hopefully.
I'll see if I can get her to join the club,so try and say something nice boys and girls,they also do a turbo version on this motor rated at 240 horses,but am thinking more on the lines of that 440 I dragged out of a motorhome.

[morgan]

The photo thing will help and someone give Autofetish a prod to carry on his build thread ...amazing.

I miss the best thread ever. As I said before I think he is OK - otherwise we would have heard the explosion. Would love to know whats going on with the Charger.

[rossk]

It is interesting reading this particular thread and I do agree with a lot that is being said, yes photo's can be a pain to upload but I've sussed out how to do it now so I'm ok with it, but I agree there must be an easier way and room for improvement.

For me this is the first forum I've ever been in so do not have anything to compare it too, however as being new to a forum and relatively new to the muscle car scene I do find myself asking for help and drawing on others experience. Hopefully as the years go by I will be able to pass on the knowledge I have gained to newer members/owners, and isn't that the point of a forum, sharing wisdom, knowledge and just the general enjoyment and passion for muscle cars?

I've found that whenever I've asked for help that the reaction has been superb, in my short time on the forum I've purchased parts off other members and received a lot of help from people who have actually been there & done it, rather than risk the advice of Google!

I think for me once my Dart is back on the road and I get the opportunity to take it to a few shows and start putting some faces to the names on here it will become even more enjoyable. Fortunately I hope that it will be done and MOT'd and on the road this weekend, fingers crossed!

Personally I'm a big facebook user because it helps me keep in touch with family and friends which a busy life normally prevents and it is very user friendly. For what its worth, my opinion is that I hope this forum continues to grow and move forward, as I really like it!

[Lincrafts.com]

I feel a muppet!! I do a lot on Facebook, member and admin of Mopar UK Past 'n' Present, member of UK Mopars and lots of other car goups but not the MMA, oops! And to make it worse I didn't know there was one, head now held down in shame, I'm sorry.
Just requested to join.

[Gareth]

I think the forum sees less traffic these days because technology has changed the way we access it. Many folks live their lives glued to their mobile phones and for these people there are a plethora of apps such as Facebook or Tapatalk that make it quick and easy to share info. This forum on the other hand is showing it's age and is a pain to use on mobile devices as it seems to be poorly optimised. I generally end up firing up a laptop to view it, as on my mobile or tablet it's just too much fannying about.

Add this to the fact that we're asking people to pay for access and you're just increasing the likelihood of people drifting toward cheaper and easier options. Personally I don't mind paying for access to the club, but I would like to see my subs invested into the forum platform rather than the club magazine which I know is an emotive issue. I have complete respect for the folks who give up their time to create the mag but for me when Connected arrives I have a quick scan through it which takes ten minutes and then it goes into the recycling which seems an awful waste but for me, that's the way it is. The forum needs investment more than the club mag in my opinion as it's there every day of the year keeping the club going. Make it mobile friendly and I think it will spark back into life fairly quickly.

[Prothed]

Another one here who trusts that the forum will continue. Facebook has its place for chat and noise but it doesn't serve the same role as this forum.
I don't post much but log in most days and have found the technical content invaluable.

The future of the magazine was discussed some time ago and while I know and appreciate the amount of effort that goes in to producing it to such a high standard, I think that the resources would now be better spent on the MMA web site and forum. A lot of the mag now seems to be pictures of cars at shows, and the web is well-suited to (and full of) these. The travel and technical content could also move directly online.

[lough3969]

Gareth I think you raise a good point here about the magazine... its difficult to fault the mag and I actually enjoy getting it. Niech magazines are having a resurgence, I subscribe to Dice Magazine for murdercycling and that is fantastic but they print upwards of 30 thousand and have a strong subscriber base. If the magazine run for Connected is only in the hundreds then surely the cost of printing and posting takes a vast amount of money that could be channeled into an online edition? I've recently started getting my newspaper digitally and im a convert. Great definition pictures and the ability to link stories and other web content is brilliant. This would also mean that the club could offer a free browse of a recent issue to anyone visiting the site, this in turn might encourage membership, even globally!

[RM23]

Hi all I think the demise of this forum is very premature I've been an mma member since 1999 but only joined the forum a few years ago and I'm one of the youngish ones I love dipping in and out looking at photos technical bits just mooching when I've got somethingto comment i will I've bought many parts off here and the information from more qualified peeps is great posting photos is hard so I don't bother but overall this club is great and it will never die hoooorrraaaaahhhhhhh ,any way please keep the mag when I didn't use the forum it was a lifeline when I had my roadrunner cheers

[Dart Vader]

If a new website is going to cost then count me in for 20 quid towards it........

If 100 members all put in a 20 theres 2k

Unless your Diane Abbot then it's 13.75 yen.

I'm not suggesting a crowd funding page to help pay for it.....or am I..


Whatever we do then let's try and fund it from extra money donated rather than it coming out the kitty

I like the mag but I now use apps like Readly for all my mopar and American mags, all the classic car stuff. Online pdf was tried but people didn't like it. To me I still think we should go this way. For the environment and saving costs to the club

[lough3969]

I'm in Justin... great idea!

[Gas for GOSH]

There have been so many well reasoned and thought through responses here (exactly what is the norm for this forum). Just to drop in a couple of thoughts:

Firstly, yes the committee is evaluating all costs at the moment - forum and magazine so the recent posts are interesting and Im sure Pete as Chair will be asking more about these suggestions.

Secondly, re the magazine we have some longstanding members and some newer ones so those who may not be aware we went through a year or so when Connected was pdf only. One thing is certain: you cannot please all of the people all of the time! Some members have no interest in the magazine at all in whatever format, some members were OK with the pdf, some had trouble downloading it and got frustrated with IT issues, some were fine with the pdf format, some were extremely unhappy with pdf only and said it was a core part of any club to have some kind of hardcopy mag or newsletter.........so when we could we went back to Connected in hardprint but reduced the number of issues. As Editor you would expect me to be biased towards hardcopy......I do not mind putting the time in to put the content together, but one of the strong arguments for me is when members also take time to send me material because they would like to see their car in print. So Connected may or may not always be in this current high quality format, we will see, but I will constantly be a voice for a written document of some kind.

To be the forum and the magazine complement each other - we need immediate exchanges of views, we need tech advice etc so the forum is essential in so many ways. It is crucial that both are maintained. That's where I come out.

By the way this will be landing on members' doormats soon.....enjoy

[Gareth]

I seem to recall the last time that the mag's future was discussed, MattH mentioned the fact that printing and postage consumes most of the club funds. How about changing the mag from every three months to an annual end of year review? This would mean potential savings on postage and printing (longer print run) and would mean a bumper issue to look forward to in the cold winter months when things are traditionally quiet.

[latil]

The club mag needs much more than just pictures of shows. Proper tech articles would be good as would period adverts(copyright permitting)
I struggled to read the pdf version and the hard copy takes one sitting in the loo to complete.