Sponsored Subforums?

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.
 
Ron,
As it stands, the forum is easy to navigate and to search for specific technical items.
Why create more work when it is not necessary. Very pleased with this format.

Jack...
 

Randy V

Moderator-Admin
Staff member
Admin
Lifetime Supporter
Miscellaneous Nuts and Bolts around my shop get tossed into one of two 5 gallon plastic pails called Pickle Pails ... One is for SAE and the other Metric.
Lots of good stuff in those Pickle Pails.. One day (or more like a week) - I could go through the pails and sort out all the fasteners and put them in their appropriate bins... Meanwhile - I just accumulate them and periodically I find myself searching them (usually with eventual success) for my needs..

What's my point?

There's a lot of good posts in those Pickle Pails.

I'd rename the sub-forum and move it into the Technical Forums section. If another sub-forum goes TIA, Hurl all the messages from that forum into the Pickle-Pail..

Some of us mods could take some time to sort through the Pickle-Pail to weed out the chaff such as advertisements from the former Sub-forum owner / as well as some of the leg-humping messages that have no true technical value..

Just a thought...
 

Ron Earp

Admin
Some of us mods could take some time to sort through the Pickle-Pail to weed out the chaff such as advertisements from the former Sub-forum owner / as well as some of the leg-humping messages that have no true technical value..

Just a thought...

Thanks for the offer on that and I'll take you up on it. The CAV subforum is not going to be sponsored as far as I know and it'll be dispersed. Threads will still be active of course. I'll schedule a time for that and we can do it later in the week.

Thanks,
Ron
 
Ron,

Another option might be to just lock the manufacturer subforum and maybe move
it out of the sponsored section. That way, in this example, CAV owners could
search the CAV only forum, maybe find the info they are looking for, but to
add to a discussion or create a new one, they would have to use the appropriate
technical subforum.

Might be a lot less work, and can keep some specific vendor stuff segregated.

Just a thought,

Ian
 
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