Ron Earp
Admin
For many years GT40s.com has offered sponsored subforums for companies that wish to have a specific area for dedicated discussion about their mark. I think this is beneficial to the users of GT40s.com, to the sponsor, and it is helpful to the forum because it generates a small amount of additional revenue. The revenue is certainly important for times like these where the forum has fewer and fewer advertisers.
But what to do about subforums when the sponsor no longer has an interest in sponsoring the subforum? In the past I've simply dispersed the threads in the subforum to the proper locations - engine questions to the technical engine forum and so on. This action is irrevoccable though and I'm not sure I'm entirely pleased with the process.
So, does GT40s.com need another "model" for mark specific subforums? Does it even need them at all? Or should the structure of them be changed?
One of the dangers of mark specific subforums, at least in my mind, is that some of the questions in the subforums are duplicates of technical questions asked in the main forums. For example, the new GT40s.com user might not realize that ZF installations have been done often in the Transaxle forum and isn't specific to a certain type of car. Or a wiring fault is a wiring fault, no matter what sort of car it is and the fix is pretty much same wheter or not it is a XYZ GT40 or the Apollo Command Module.
On the other hand, mark specific forums give the manufactuer's a place to talk about their products with a focus. And keeps that chatter out of the main forums. If you aren't interested in a XYZ car then you might not want to read about it all the time and have various methods to avoid that.
Anyhow, just thinking about the matter and looking for some feedback. I'll have to kick around and see how some other forums manage this topic.
But what to do about subforums when the sponsor no longer has an interest in sponsoring the subforum? In the past I've simply dispersed the threads in the subforum to the proper locations - engine questions to the technical engine forum and so on. This action is irrevoccable though and I'm not sure I'm entirely pleased with the process.
So, does GT40s.com need another "model" for mark specific subforums? Does it even need them at all? Or should the structure of them be changed?
One of the dangers of mark specific subforums, at least in my mind, is that some of the questions in the subforums are duplicates of technical questions asked in the main forums. For example, the new GT40s.com user might not realize that ZF installations have been done often in the Transaxle forum and isn't specific to a certain type of car. Or a wiring fault is a wiring fault, no matter what sort of car it is and the fix is pretty much same wheter or not it is a XYZ GT40 or the Apollo Command Module.
On the other hand, mark specific forums give the manufactuer's a place to talk about their products with a focus. And keeps that chatter out of the main forums. If you aren't interested in a XYZ car then you might not want to read about it all the time and have various methods to avoid that.
Anyhow, just thinking about the matter and looking for some feedback. I'll have to kick around and see how some other forums manage this topic.