Considering Change to XenForo... opinions?

[rustyroger]

While we're talking about this sort of thing. Here's a totally random observation: Do you think Facebook is killing off "the forum" (speaking about any forum, not just this one.) I've seen traffic decline over the past year, while Facebook seems to be filling up with smaller splinter G-Body "groups" based around a certain location or club or even just a clique of guys. So many of them.... Yet another reason I think something has to change here. (and XF has provisions for a direct facebook login and opengraph stuff in it... not sure about vB)...

Here in the UK Facebook has become more popular as forum traffic on some British car forums has declined.
However it's fair to say that the American car hobby has nosedived since the economy tanked over the last five years or so.
Astronomical gas price hikes, job insecurity, and all round belt tightening probably has as much to do with this as people turning to Facebook.

The American car club (UK), once possibly the largest UK American car clubs has just had its website updated, the new site has no forum. It's fair to say the forum saw very little traffic over the last few years. It's also fair to say that American Auto Club International, probably the largest UK based American car club has much less traffic than it used to.
A considerable part of the traffic is posted by a handful of "regulars", But I think the same can be said of GBF and most other US based Car forums. However the website of GBF and other popular car forums has a large enough spread of topics, plenty of posts offering help and advice, and a significant amount of new posters to keep the site interesting.

I dare say there is a minimum size under which a forum becomes unsustainable and withers away, the size probably depends on the subject matter and other factors but I'm no expert in these matters.

The advantage of forums over Facebook as I see it is it is much easier to keep various subjects separate and uncluttered on a forum, Facebook means everything gets thrown together in a jumble. For those of us who have points to raise about G Bodies a forum is far more informative than a Facebook site which may have a query about an issue someone has with car mixed with pictures of someones new baby or their night out yesterday.

Roger.

 

[ssn696]

Re: XenForo Changes Drive Pensive Moment

"a lot of you guys are pretty old..." Thanks pencero. Well, you're right. I signed up a while back, then fell off the world. One day I found the site and climbed back on. Other than the data, my second favorite aspect of the Forum is that I have found a bunch of people who *get* my affliction with 80's 'boxes'. Well, it's what I know...it's the first car I ever drove. I'd like all this (useless to most people) data that I have collected in my head to be saved somewhere for others to use.

I need to start another thread. All the posts from vanrah about trying to liquidate his $70000 masterpiece are jarring. As an old fart, my pockets are finally deep enough to afford the upgrades I always wanted to do when I was young, singe, childless and had lots of time on my hands. Now I can afford to skip all the hard work and just buy his car and drive it. But the challenge of figuring out how to make the car MINE is the fun part. I may even be building something beyond my skill level to drive. And if you're not driving it...why are you building it? And, once you've built it, no one else will offer you anywhere near what you've spend making it YOURS. I don't want to depress the Forum readership, but occasionally the blinders get ripped off my head and reality intervenes(not the bloody knuckle variety - the I'm going to be old and dead someday and all this passion will be forgotten). I hope vanrah does not lose heart or health. Hang in there.

I say this as I take my 5 year old outside to help me build a fence to hide my project(s) from the neighbors, and Zoning patrols. I need to get the cars and trucks put together enough that they can wait for my kids to help me build one for each of them. By the time they are in high school, they might already know more than I did in my 20s about dreaming big and figuring out how to make it happen.

 

[ssn696]

Re: XenForo / Props / Shame / Courage

Since I'm not sure where the right place is yet to post this kind of comment, I will continue the thread I posted the other day.
1. Props to LSCustoms...I just read the disc brake thread and videos he posted in his signature line. Excellent resource. There should be some sort of fund to compensate members who put such effort into sharing knowledge
2. Shame on me...I pulled rear brakes from a '83 Riviera; I ordered brackets from Phoenix; I have flipped through catalogs. All of this has been hoarded/tripped over for YEARS. IT NEVER OCCURRED TO ME that the four-bolt pattern would fit on the end plates of a G-body axle housing IF YOU JUST MEASURED AND DRILLED THE #$%^&* HOLES!!!!!
3. Courage...I used to do so much more work when I was younger and childless. Now I have money but a lot less discretionary time. This forum is a way to solve this problem - see what others have done and follow the formula. Not quite buy the kit and install - still have go boneyardin' to build your own kit.

So. Now I need to read through the Forum and see what is actually posted in there. There is so much tribal knowledge buried in one-word/one-sentence postings. Could we crowdsource collating the nuggets and putting them in the 'Knowledge Base'? Every time I see a noob (was one recently) log in and make that first post, 'how do I...?' and the uniform response (yeah, I'm making it, too) is 'dig around...the data is here.' This is often my job at work. I've gotten so much mileage out of the 2 years I spent back in my noob days collating and filing information. The problem is that in the 8 years, so many others have added to the folder structure that it has become impossible to find anything AGAIN.

4. XenForo...So, I am back to GP403's comments that the site needs an upgrade. I have not yet really explored all that the website has to offer. Among all the chat is some really excellent knowledge...it's just that it looks like my garage - I know it's in there, but I have to dig through so much stuff to find it again.

In closing: Anybody have a brilliant ideas how we can help? Kind of like marking a box when you take it off the shelf so you know what's in it - can I do something constructive? I don't have a lot of time, but if each of us contributed a little, could we held GP403 out somehow?

Thoughts welcome. Rants accepted.

Quinn

 

[King_V]

no offense but do you really want a black background?

As a matter of fact, yes. I've been trying to use a dark or black background with less-bright-than-white text for years.

And I am not exaggerating when I say years. As in, in the 1980s, I would ALWAYS set my Commodore 64 to black background, black border, light grey text.

I find black text on a white background NOT to be like print on paper as people claim. I don't know of any paper that projects its own light...

Rant over....


That said, I'll be fine with the site as it is, or with the change. As long as functionality is still there, I'm not all that troubled by different forum software. I say whatever works best for the site.

 

[Brother Al]

Leave this alone and update to the newer version update php... most common forum format used these days... the Tbuick site isnt the best format IMHO.