Forum Suggestions

[Ron Earp]

Well Folks,

We have managed to continue along quite nicely on the GT40 forum and as of late we've had no problems and everything has been rather smooth.

I have done some work behind the scenes and we can now handle a lot more "Forums" or "Areas' depending on what you'd like to call them.

Any suggestions for changes? We added separate forums for different types of technical threads, does that need to be broken down further? Any new areas to add?

I hope to soon have the space for users to have Photo Galleries but not quite yet. The board is doing a LOT of business though, I'll post statistics soon. Thanks much,

Ron

 

Ron,

Great job... your efforts have REALLY paid dividends in terms of an active '40 community... thankyou...

I would personally like to see a 'scratch built' section, as there are now half a dozen or so of us engaged in this lunacy!

It would be useful as a place to share dimensions, approaches, supplier info etc etc..

Also, just as a thought, and open to comments... what about a set of regional areas... UK, Aus, CA, North East, etc etc would be a good way of finding out more about other local builders/owners..

Regards

Neil

 

[Gary Gibbs]

Is there interest in having a manufacturers area other than RF?

 

[Ron Earp]

Well,

This is one area where the site can generate funds to continue operations (although we did pretty good through member donations, getting enough money to cover the server fees for 10 months).

If the manufacturers are interested I do not know about it, none other than Roaring Forties have contacted me asking for build forums. RF made contributions and I provided them with a build/support area. It sees a small amount of traffic but it is useful to the people building the cars.

Ron

 

[Ron Earp]

TTT - Got to be more suggestions than just one!

 

[Guest]

All, what would you think of having a section that we all could use to let everyone know where we found this or that; other than from the manufacturers. Things like, I found gas caps at R&R Specialties and contact info and/or links. I would envision a parts source section similar to what the Northern California Shelby Club has (which if you didn't know about it has a great links section for Cobras) but focused on GT40 stuff. It could also be a cross reference site. As an example, Ron brought his rear panels over last night and the ones that go on either side of the exhaust fit perfectly and the one over the pipes will need a bit of corner radiusing(sp) done but will fit, so the cross reference would be RF rear panels will work on Sabre, GT Supercars and GTD. (I through the last two in for illustration only; I don't if they will or won't work.)

It maybe that doing it the way we are in each of the subsection topics will continue to work. The advantage of doing it the way we are is that the answers tend to be more current. And, it does give us something to talk about when there are no hot topics for the moment

But, consolidating the information would sure make searching for a source of a particular part or service easier. People will ask first before doing a search (not everyone! so I apologize if you search first and then ask) and having info scattered amongst other conversations decreases the likelihood that they will do a search first. (I see this in the software business all of the time: a customer may have reams of documentation, hard and soft copy, but they will call and ask how to do something rather than looking it up.)

 

Ron,
I think it's all good as is. The only thing I'd like to see is a spot to put my pictures. I know you're working on it so just keep doing what you're doing.
John

 

[dave harris]

I agree with Lynn - I think this type of parts information sharing section would be of great help - especially to people just starting the buy/build process !

 

[Bill Musarra]

I mentioned in an earlier post about finding individuals via the forum, and got shot down. I still think there could be a way to find individuals. It could be listed by state and you limited to pick one state/country and were limited to the e-mail address of say 2 people per day, and you are locked out of any more queries for say 24 hours. I have no idea how the programming would be set up, or the problems it might raise. It would help, lets say if there was something regionally happening and you could alert those in your region/state. It's just an idea, and it may not be feasable. Anyone care to address it?
Bill

 

[40 Bud]

I like the idea of Manufactures support areas. A small yearly fee would not be out of line for manufacturers or users. Any of the little guys like Mark at MDA, American GT, or GT Supercars should find this a great way to show there knowledge and get some good exposure. I know I have had a lot of inquiries about whats happening at GTD and nobody seems to be able to get much info about GTD, GTD Racing and CAV's relationship and there are people out there who want to know before they commit their money. All of these guys seem to offer good stuff but nobody is going to commit to what many times appears to be flaky operations. Maybe they could explain thinga on the forum. If they were paid subscribers they might pay more attention to what is being said here. I thought earlier you had posted some approximate costs to maintain the sight.Dividing this over the 500 some odd members results in a pretty cheap info/discussion source. I should add that I don't like black mail but any supplier who can't support the forum probably should be checked out very carefully before parting with any hard earned cash.

[ July 16, 2002: Message edited by: 40bud ]

 

Its hard to suggest changing something you like that seems to work very well.
I had a thought, don't know if or how it would work but a section on "specifications"
with info like car dimensions, bellhousing bolt patterns, tranny ratios,dimensions and strength, various engine dimensions, exhaust sizes etc. It would fit well with a "scratch build" section or a "parts" section but it is all stuff that is easy enough to finds somewhere if you just look or could just as easy be placed in existing forums. Maybe a thought, or i just wasted 10 minutes of thinking out loud.

Another thought to waste, maybe a "backyard mechanic" page where people list off tricks they found and problems they over came. Again the above applies.

 

[Gary Gibbs]

I was wondering if the forum would work with something along the lines of a backyard mech. section where people could post good construction ideas. They could be limited to avoid the obvious solutions to problems. One example might be the make your own brake roll that was posted some time ago. I realize that alot of the posts on here are "how do I do this," but this section could be more of "I found a really great way to do this and let me explain it in detail." It might save time from people answering the same question more than once, etc.

Just a thought.

Gary

 

[Mark Clapp]

I've enjoyed the forum very much all along and agree to maybe starting a "How I did this" section. But Ron, why did you stop inserting that picture of Donnie Osmond with your posts?

 

[Ron Earp]

You mean this one of me...Well, it is obvious I need another digital picture of myself to put on signatures...

 

[Guest]

Ron,if you can't get Julie to take one, maybe I can come by and get a shot of you and your '40 to use ;-)

You and I proved that there is probably more interchangability between these cars than people figure. (Even parts made for a model need to be fitted in most cases-the NASCAR builders have told me the same thing about their cars even as regulated as they are.) There are some excellent ideas here and none of them are bad. Several of them about parts and sources would seem to lend themselves to consolidation as features of a single forum topic. If you do a links page, the first link should be to a primer on metal polishing

 

[Gary Gibbs]

Another feature that I like about clubcobra.com for example is that you can elect to get e-mail notification when a post is made to a thread that you are participating in.

 

That's a feature that I also like... but I think that this forum software UBB doesn't do that...

I also like some of the forum packages that tell you who is currently on the Forum, and lets you private message them... better than placing E-Mail address on line for Spammers to use....

Ron... do your hosts restrict you to just this software?, or can you install and use any?

If you can use any, can I recommend that you look at the free of charge, and very powerful, phpBB which does quite a lot, and also has an import feature to migrate data from UBB...

Regards

Neil

 

Paid ads? I know this is controversial but it can help to shop around. Maybe we can even do group buying. LOVE the site. cb

 

[Ron Earp]

Neil,

I think we will migrate to phpBB in the future. I won't do it quite yet, but I have investigated it and it looks good. Nice suggestion! It has the features we need and I have MySQL which it supports.

I will go ahead and impliment a few more forum sections based on feedback. I cannot get some of the features folks want quite yet since this software does not support them, but we'll do it in the fall around the 1 year anniversary of this site when we upgrade.

Thanks for all the suggestions and I'll see what I can do!

Ron

 

HEY, RON,

I LIKE THE IDEA OF A MANUFACTURES SECTION. A LOT OF THE PROBLEMS/SOLUTIONS MAY NOT BE RELEVANT TO ALL MAKES.

ALSO THE "SHADE TREE MECHANIC" SUGGESTION.

BESIDES - BOB PUTNAM DOESN'T HAVE ANYTHING ELSE TO DO ANYWAY (HEH, HEH, HEH).

THANKS A LOT FOR DOING SUCH A GREAT JOB.

BLACKJACK