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Post by tony on Feb 3, 2017 20:07:44 GMT -8
................We've had 84 guests , 15 members and oh yeah 1 staff member online , some of you guests (no cost$$$) should sign up and share some of your vw wisdom and stories with us , and if you live far , far away maybe we could stay at your place for free if we happen to be travelling in your city or country..............just kidding!  |
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Post by PICTUP on Feb 7, 2017 10:53:13 GMT -8
................We've had 84 guests , 15 members and oh yeah 1 staff member online , some of you guests should sign up (@ no cost$$$) and share some of your vw wisdom and stories with us Sadly, that's commonly the way things go here. It does take some effort/time to host your pics somewhere, then sign in to the site and copy and paste the pics into a story which everyone can read. With seemingly everyone thinking everyone else is on Facebook, people are probably regarding these sites as a bit "prephonic"(i.e. when it comes to the computer/phone relationship) and it must seem like a huge effort if they can't tell people their story in a few characters or less. Now I might be completely wrong, but it seems to me Facebook isn't often a place where ideas are brought forth, commented on and carried along in stream of consciousness. To me it more often is a place to trumpet the poster's newest endeavour and try to feel as though they are "better" in some way than the masses. On this site I would hope, as you say, "sharing" would be the sentiment, and learning from others to be a key aspect. Also, if we were a Facebook "group" the content would be owned by Facebook, something that gives me chills to be honest. Even though we are on the "world wide web" here I would like to think we try to attract local like-minded individuals in hopes that we can also get together and meet in person...and heaven forbid, maybe even help out on others' projects. Just like they did in the golden days of clubs... ie before the internet. I'd be more than happy to hear from others' opinions. Am I a too closed minded dinosaur?  |
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Post by magikbus on Feb 7, 2017 11:12:10 GMT -8
I agree completely Don. You are indeed a wise ....  but in all things VW I have to admit I am just an ....  Stan |
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Post by tony on Feb 7, 2017 11:20:35 GMT -8
I don't need 450,000 friends , hence I've never checked out faceplant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  |
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Post by magikbus on Feb 7, 2017 12:05:11 GMT -8
I'm doing the world a favour by NOT becoming twit-faced, because I haven't yet found more than a handful of people that can stand the relevance and appropriateness of my opinions. I learned long ago that if you find that honest opinions about yourself negatively affect you, don't ask me for my opinion.
Stan
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Post by clay on Feb 7, 2017 12:32:24 GMT -8
Forums always score higher for me. The information is persistent, organized and much easier to refer to at a later date compared to something like Facebook. The forum is also easier to keep regional. I find Facebook groups and pages tend to become nothing but a proliferation of off topic photos, comments and posts.
A lot of the visitors/guests listed in stats are bots crawling and indexing web pages. They'll never register and if they did, wouldn't post anything we're interested in. The real activity level is seen in knowing how many are active in the local VW scene, encouraging them personally to login and post here. You'll probably find similar stats and results at the VVWC and Airspeed sites.
If your question is whether the forum is worth maintaining, I wholeheartedly say "Yes". You'll find my activity vis a vis VWs to be pretty much confined to the local forums with minimal posting in any FB group. My feeling is that even a forum with a small user base helps bring the community together...and thanks for running this one for us!
Something you might do to free up space is to remove stale ads in the classifieds sections. Many of them have multiple attachments. Reducing allowable attachment sizes will help as well. An image reduced to a standard 640x480 jpeg image is usually under 200 kb and retains enough resolution to be clear.
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Post by PICTUP on Feb 8, 2017 9:25:31 GMT -8
Well, so far the general consensus sounds like the site continues to be a positive experience, as intended. As Tony says, it'd always be nice to see more people who are regulars here post up their VW build/work experiences because from that our hobby in general(local and otherwise) builds staying power, and could entice new people to get involved. Great suggestions regarding the stale ads, Clay. I will look into that. The one question I have is how to tell if the ad is stale? I guess a time limit like other sites? I know airspeed doesn't delete any ads and searching their ads is often frustrating unless you have the search setting juuuuust right. I have been alerted to the fact that we are running out of space and posted that in another section(Considerations When Posting), so the stale ad removal will help. Eventually we will reach a limit though as some persist in attaching instead of linking pics in their tech or build posts. When that wall is reached, I wonder if it is best to pay for more storage or have people be forced into using sites like Photobucket? I finally bit the bullet and now pay for Photobucket without ads and it is far better. Otherwise too much time is spent just trying to operate a grinding computer... Cheers, Don |
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Post by clay on Feb 8, 2017 9:48:42 GMT -8
Great suggestions regarding the stale ads, Clay. I will look into that. The one question I have is how to tell if the ad is stale? I guess a time limit like other sites? I know airspeed doesn't delete any ads and searching their ads is often frustrating unless you have the search setting juuuuust right. I have been alerted to the fact that we are running out of space and posted that in another section(Considerations When Posting), so the stale ad removal will help. Eventually we will reach a limit though as some persist in attaching instead of linking pics in their tech or build posts. When that wall is reached, I wonder if it is best to pay for more storage or have people be forced into using sites like Photobucket? I finally bit the bullet and now pay for Photobucket without ads and it is far better. Otherwise too much time is spent just trying to operate a grinding computer... Don, if you'd like to talk about some space management strategies, feel free to give me a call or PM then we can get into the nitty gritty boring tech speak stuff.
For the ads, I'd suggest establishing a 3 month "life" limit. There may be tools in the forum software to manage the deletions automagically or you may just need to do it handraulically (I'm not familiar with this particular forum software's tools). Maybe initiate the policy with a 2 week warning for advertisers to bump or delete their ads as appropriate. (I've already gone through and removed images from my sold items and bumped my valid ones)
If the forum control panel gives you access to manage log files and attachments, you can trim the log files down (the often grow over the years) but more particularly start removing some of the bigger attachments (after changing the attachment size restrictions). As a strategy, wait a few months after that change then start deleting the older large attachments. Of course that will affect images in older posts, so some work may be needed to preserve critical images in build and tutorial threads...or ask people to replace them with resized/smaller items.
You could pay for more space, but that's just delaying hitting the wall and increasing your hosting costs again.
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Post by tony on Feb 8, 2017 10:50:58 GMT -8
'Automagically' is a good word to describe how a huge blackberry pie can be consumed by our family of three in one sitting!  |
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Post by Brenticon on Feb 8, 2017 11:30:25 GMT -8
Now, back to Volkswagens ....  |
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Post by PICTUP on Feb 8, 2017 14:28:47 GMT -8
Now, back to Volkswagens .... Yes Brent, we all know you love, as Tony puts it, Faceplant... care to comment on the usefulness of this forum rather than trying to change the topic? BTW... why does the yellow Bus above have late Bay turn signals and bumpers and a crescent intake of the early Bay? All I can think is: 1.It had a nose transplant. (wouldn't explain the bumpers) 2. The people who drew it didn't know what Bays look like each model year. or 3. The people have no attention to detail. Any idea?   JK it's all good...  |
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Post by Brenticon on Feb 8, 2017 22:39:10 GMT -8
Honestly ....
a wise man once told me ...
Never argue with an idiot
He will bring you down to his level
and beat you with experience.
I think it fits here, as everyone is entitled to their opinions, and I choose not to indulge, as I already see where this topic is headed, hence. Topic change.
After all, this is an aircooled Volkswagen forum, not a Facebook analyisis page
Bwah ha ha ha,
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Post by Brenticon on Feb 9, 2017 19:38:58 GMT -8
Just to be open here, I am in no way saying anyone here is an idiot.
I'm only referring to not getting involved in a debate into what or who's right or wrong.
To each their own is what I try to adhere to
Peace, luv, and granola
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Post by tony on Feb 9, 2017 19:57:10 GMT -8
Everyone is entitled to my opinion!  |
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Post by Volktales on Feb 9, 2017 20:50:30 GMT -8
I have lots of opinions too. Let me text them to you. Oh wait, never mind...
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JK it's all good... 
