How can we make the website a better place?
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This place is slowly getting raped by people who cant even be bothered to add there email address to this site, we seem to be feeding a great glutton of faceless modders probably a lot from the 323 mx5 + 6 world who are too dull to even post on here.
I would suggest that we need to make this board a biut more private so you can get info and parts if you sign up, as I write 2 members and 10 non members are just soaking all this up for free with no returns.
This is becoming like the london riots without the fires, people are just taking what they want without any effort or resistance and if it wasnt for about 10 regular users there wouldnt be anything for them here and this place would be dead.
Its time to make parts of this board private, we have all the spotted items just being snapped up and never seen fitted to any vehicles on here, there hasnt been any new worklogs for a long time
A lot of members signing up and not posting a single word
I have totalled changed tack with this site and thats why my postings have dropped right down because i have been watching on the side for weeks now that I can post something and things are read 30+ times before another regular member replies, everything I want now stays on my computer and I only announce after I have bought it because I have spotted that things are getting expensive when they are listed here.
I will be emailing Daryl about doing things to this forum for the decent members and cutting out the chaff that just come along and take without giving, have you tried joining MX6OC its nearly impossible to get anything out of that site. its more like the masons there, when i had an mx6 I couldnt even get in the site and still havent been accepted
Things need to change very soon or we are just feeding a large colony lurkers to lazy to put anything back in and keep this place alive
This will just get plundered like the rainforest at this rate
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As a new member, I would like to say that I too have noticed that there are more visitors than members on, most of the time. I haven't put a great deal into this site yet, but I am still VERY new to '3s….. I am learning bits a pieces from the regulars, but there isn't a lot going on. I PM'd someone 3 days ago, and haven't had a reply. ( I'm not sure if they're still active or not) However, For that reason, I can understand why people don't bother to register...... I mean, why bother when you can get all the info you need and pointed in the direction of items of interest without registering?
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Jesus DJ has it really taken you this long to realise this site is dying fella,.. ive been sat in the background for ages mate,..i had the conversation with admin over a year ago ref the changes this site needs but well as you can see no change was taken ,.
with what is it now 700+ members and you get what one maybe two shows they're interested in and you all think about attending and only get limited numbers that do,..something requires a major kick in the ass fella,.. we should be getting at least 20 members attending shows but yes you are right we get more guests everyday poaching this site,..personally i still want a 3 but hey theres so much crap out there and very little mint stuff left im wondering if its worth it,…weve had imo a very respected member ripped off recently it just aint on mate the site needs to close it doors by limiting its content to guests and remove the non posters from the members list,...and restrict the sale section to members only with a post count over 50 at least,...
you need to run your ideas past your fellow moderators first discuus it all then we need to approach admin with proposals,...im with you for change but it has to be constructive and right,....
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@ea6a34bde0=Raines:
posters from the members list,…and restrict the sale section to members only with a post count over 50 at least,....
I've run a fair few websites and forums over the years, and while I can see your point, I do disagree about the restriction of the sale section. A For Sale section is a pretty important part for the success of any hobby-based site, and restricting it to people with over 50 posts can have two effects -
1 - New members will be put off by the fact they're segregated
2 - New members will span the boards with nonsense just to build up their post count
Both of these would have detrimental effect on the quality of the forum. Sure, you could just hide the For Sale section - but then people may not bother signing up at all.
What I'd suggest is leaving the For Sale section open to all. So this wouldn't discourage new members joining. But, you could hide the Spotted For Sale section from members below a certain post count. I think that is the source of the issues here anyway. Its not something that is core to a hobby site, so potential members probably wouldn't expect to see it anyway, so that would solve the first issue I mentioned above. If you don't inform new members of this hidden section and the requirements to access it, then issue #2 shouldn't arise.
Just my 2 cents!
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I agree with Jayom: The "For Sale", "Parts for Sale" and "Wanted" should be visible to everyone as it would only benefit members if these can be seen by guests who might then register to make an offer.
The "Spotted this for sale" really is the problematic part as showing the nice finds to everyone does reduce the chances of making a good deal for members.
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@3c614dc3f6=Raines:
Jesus DJ has it really taken you this long to realise this site is dying fella,.. ive been sat in the background for ages mate,..i had the conversation with admin over a year ago ref the changes this site needs but well as you can see no change was taken ,.
with what is it now 700+ members and you get what one maybe two shows they're interested in and you all think about attending and only get limited numbers that do,..something requires a major kick in the ass fella,.. we should be getting at least 20 members attending shows but yes you are right we get more guests everyday poaching this site,..personally i still want a 3 but hey theres so much crap out there and very little mint stuff left im wondering if its worth it,…weve had imo a very respected member ripped off recently it just aint on mate the site needs to close it doors by limiting its content to guests and remove the non posters from the members list,...and restrict the sale section to members only with a post count over 50 at least,...
you need to run your ideas past your fellow moderators first discuus it all then we need to approach admin with proposals,...im with you for change but it has to be constructive and right,....
**Some of us took it into our own hands :D
Oh and yes, making a site more restrictive and harder to join makes it less likely that people will join in the first place and go on to contribute. I'm admin of a site which is the largest of its kind, including the official one, and we only have 6,000 contributing members out of 200,000 registered members. What's important is how many contribute, not how many don't.**
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I think the site should be only accessable to those registered.
And if you don't make any posts after 1 yr you registration is terminated so you loose all the I have a mx3 for sale but you won't see me again or I've forgot my tyre pressure, thanks, cheers see you next year!
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It is easy to make certain areas restricted with a phbb board, my point is that for sale sections should be open but things perfect for other members that we have spotted or discounts for members with opie etc should be viewed by members only
Stuff we do to our cars that we post up with the how to's should be members only and keep the projects open a lot of other boards do it with certain areas members only why cant we. Some of us have been promoting this site with stickers on cars and the web address to come here from adverts we have listed ourselvesTomtom and jayom, you have taken the time and effort to sign up, its free to do and requires minimum effort, thats all thats wanted here, people to sign up and join in a bit not just take for free with no returns
Famine, we dont want the site more restrictive to join or restricted areas, just as long as you sign in you have full access, 24hrs a day we have 8 - 10 times more people flicking through here for free than members on here logged in.
Why should we keep putting how to's and links to save money for other people who cant even be bothered to enter their email address for free for it
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Since the very beginning of this website it has always only had around 10 proper active members at any given time who actually own MX-3's.
It is an interesting point that a potential new member of the 'Club' (not just a new member to the website) could potentailly come on here find all the info he needs to fix/modify his MX-3 and then dissapear without even having signed up to the website, never mind getting involved in the club.
Perhaps the answer is partly in restricting some aspects of the site to members. That will at least get them to sign up. But more importantly perhaps we need to look at how to entice those new members of the 'website' into becoming members of the 'club'.
Any ideas how we can do this?
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You could get onto the guys over at SXOC for some advice. Obviously they've got a bigger target market, but the same principles should apply. That place is definitely one of the most active car-specific forums going.
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There are just not enough mx-3's out there to get that kind of numbers but I don't see why we can't aim to get 50 active members.
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@5b41ef4ec9=ukmx3admin:
There are just not enough mx-3's out there to get that kind of numbers but I don't see why we can't aim to get 50 active members.
I know theres not enough mx3's in the world but closing some sections off to non members will make the list grow as they will need to join to access info they are after and maybe more people will start to join in a bit more as they can then just post while they are here the only thing non members dont get here is ability to reply and thats all
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I think we do need to restrict some sections.
But we need to back that up with ways to get them involved with the club.
Got any ideas?
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Problem with putting on too many restrictions is that you take away reasons for registering. I came here just by googling around, did see a lot of useful information (like the how-to-stuff and the part where noobs like myself were asking questions) and decided to register.
If I would not have seen that kind of information I probably would not have registered. I think people do register if they find something useful and want to participate.
Restricting information probably reduces the number of guests reading the forums - but it does not make them register. You don't get people into a pub by putting a sign up "Members only" - but you do get them with "Yummy food and cold drinks"…
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I think having to register your details and post isnt going to put anyone off that wasnt serious anyway, i dont mind the odd person not being able to scrounge parts members have been waiting for, although i wouldnt know where to begin, basically i support the lockdown as long as its not over the top.
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Yes you are correct, i think we need to be carefull about what we restrict, and not restrict much at all.
We might need to add new content also for members only. Maybe a downloads section for the manuals etc….
We would also need to advertise what has been restricted to entice people to want to see it.
But my main concern is how to get new members involved with club side of things.
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Restricting certain info should gain more registrations. However if we go this route we need to ensure an effecient sign up procedure. We're always getting stories of people waiting for weeks to get approved. Has that been resolved yet?
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Yes its been resolved Chris NW does 99% of the registrations now. He works in It so is online most of the time.
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Right I just looked up the Ip addresses of all 8 guests who were online and ALL of them were BOTS from search engines who were just indexing our website. Which is a good thing!!
But it probably means that there are not many actual people on here as GUESTS, they are probably all just indexing bots.
So I would assume that we don't have a problem at all with people not signing up.
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so these bots accessing are they set off when someone is searching
