forum

[E_T_V]

I think Tanya may have also missed that Beaker doesn't just use many different forums, she has set up and run many (including this one) too and is a top 10 contributor to this forum. Indeed if I can blow her trumpet for a minute (As she won't), she arguably oversaw the period of greatest membership growth for this club when she was chairperson, (along with all the extremely valuable contributions the other committee and members made of course).

My job is marketing now for my sins and whilst whitespace is good this is a bit extreme! Cold clinical and unwelcoming. Well thats how I see it anyway.

Site responsiveness varies hugely from good to quite frankly woeful. I'm not sure if this is a forum or a server issue - I'm not a techie. I know the hosting in recent years wasn't as good as previously as you fairly regularly saw site unavailable error pages, but I don't get those anymore just pages that take forever to load.

I just clicked on the membership page link from the homepage and it took 28 seconds to load! Yes I was that sad to time it! And when I eventually got there (most people would have closed the window after 5 seconds), there was no link to join nor form to download to fill in and post off. Really pretty poor to be honest from a club which is bleeding members.

There are many bugs although no official bug-list was to be seen. Bugs happen so let your users report them and mark them done when they are fixed.
The biggest value that the club had for many was the technical advice given via the forum which it seems does not have the focus/community that it once did.

Don't get me wrong - things must move on, but if it doesn't benefit the membership or the wider community then don't be surprised when people are vocal to voice their disapproval.

[Hobby]

It's not just the forum being slow , it's bloody awful Pete.
It's so messy, I'm on a model railway forum rmweb.co.uk which is modern but very easy to use.
Have a look and see if we could have something similar

It is slow I'd agree but I remember when RMWeb switched and many people had issues with it until they found how to work the new one, it's always the case when you go from an old one to a new one that many people dislike it until they get used to it.

I've just opened a few pages at random and none opened in less than 10 seconds, most well over that. If you don't do anything to the Forum you really need to sort that out! I'm on my PC at the moment so could see what was gong on, if it'd been my smartphone I'd have given up.

[Sussex Pete]

With a number of forum users indicating here that performance is slow, it is probably worth advising everyone, that if that have not been on this site for quite a while, it may be beneficial to clear your browser cache. This will ensure that only the most up to date pages are loaded, and the browser "does not spend time loading from the cache, only to find it needs to download the latest page". I'm not saying that it will fix everyone's performance, but it may go a long way.

[efiman]

Like others above I'm not a fan of this new forum format.
Private messages are not accompanied by an email notification in my case. Has anyone else noticed similar?

On a wider note I am not sure that the forum resources are being directed towards an achievable goal.

The Maestro/Montego pool of cars is very small in comparison to other marques and it is getting smaller.
What is the minimum number of members this forum needs to justify its continued existence? I suspect we're close to, or have dropped below, this theoretical figure anyway.

I believe the future for the forum lies in co-operation/affiliation/partnership (call it what you want) with a similar group of people within a related marque.

I am not a "glass half empty" type of person, quite the opposite in fact, but I am a realist and you can re-arrange the deckchairs anyway you want over and over but the ship......................... well, you know what I mean.

This is not to criticise the achievements of those directly involved in the forum as they are giving of their time freely and it can be a thankless task.

efiman

[ian drew]

Without the club and the forum it would be incredibly difficult to maintain and restore our cars. From that angle there shouldn't be a minimum number of members requirement, as long as there's 2 people interested they need to communicate and share ideas and experiences.

I hate using Facebook and avoid it at all costs, so this forum is invaluable. Personally I've had no problems with load times, but I access at work during my lunch break where we have a fast connection and internet traffic is probably slow. I do however not like the new layout, it looks very bland.
I assume that "New Topics" is the same as the old "New Posts" button despite the meanings being very different? The "New Posts" button was the way I would read the forum.
But what ever we do we all need to support those doing the work to keep the forum and club going. If you have a Maestro or Montego I expect you can afford the £18 as it will soon be repaid 10 fold with the great advice being shared.

Ian

[Hobby]

Considering the yearly costs of running a car £18 is peanuts...

[H48HPE]

is there no way to make this latest version run to look / act more like the traditional forums?

how are member renewals doing now? are we seeing a massive drop of member numbers? if so we need to consider what can be done to turn that round.

I'm not a fan of merging the club with others, this is supposed to be a community of MM fans. if I want other cars I'd just get in with one of the many groups already dealing with that...

It is kind of hard to justify the £18 without a regular magazine. The only good reason I can see is cheaper insurance for being in a club. one way to make the fee justifiable would be to make the whole forum member only - but I hope this is not the plan again as I think it would just increase the decline of remaining cars, if short term owners cannot get help.

Andy

[Russ]

Evening Andy, I think if the forum became members only that would certainly be the end of it.
You mentioned the help that the forum gives. About 7 or 8 years ago I had a fuel problem with the EFi , within an hour of posting for help there were several posts of help. Sadly these days it would take a week for a similar level.
I used to enjoy helping other members with technical problems but this new forum is so unwieldy that I just don't bother.
On the old forum it would at least a couple of times each day hit the unread posts button and see what was going on, not anymore .
I've also noticed that a lot of people albeit this was in decline before the forum change don't seem to be around anymore, useful people who were excellent with fault diagnosis

[E_T_V]

Evening Andy, I think if the forum became members only that would certainly be the end of it.

And remember that was exactly what was originally proposed - much to the disgust of many. Anyhow people saw sense and that was put to bed thankfully.

[Russ]

Is it because I Facebook that the forum has gone so quiet or lack o,f members?

[E_T_V]

Quite possibly, as facebook has killed off traffic most of the forums I use as it is more immediate. Thats fine however all the good advice and help is then "lost" as you cannot search to find anything ever again which is where forums are far more structured, searchable and therefore valuable.

[Russ]

I'm on a model railway forum which is still really busy.
I didn't realise Facebook didn't keep information, I can honestly say I've never been on it and don't intend to

[Mike Brock]

I agree with Russ regarding Facebook - not convinced this new website is responsible for dwindling numbers at all. mm's are in a constant downward spiral for reasons that are obvious. I think we should all stick together since we are now few and far between. The website is new - I'm sure all bugs will be ironed out sooner than later. Personally I would never throw my renewal of my membership out the window because of a few bug issues on a website - a tad overreaction in my opinion.

[Ed]

I personally like the new website layout, however, I've not posted regularly here in a long time. This is probably due to significantly reduced traffic in recent years and with the rise in smartphones and tablets, the old software just wasn't modern and quick enough to keep up with changing times.

The Facebook page is very busy, and it's plain to see that the traffic that was once on these pages, is now on Facebook. Whether that is a good or a bad thing, is up to the user. For me, Facebook is quick, instant, and I can get an answer to a technical query immediately. It's also a very quick way to share pictures and enjoy other people's cars. I post "on the go", and I haven't got time to sit at a desktop computer for hours uploading pictures the old fashioned way. The majority of my posts are made via my smartphone.

I don't think Facebook is going away anytime soon, and if you're not prepared to have a look at it, you're going to miss out. The MM community is very much alive and well, but times have changed and many people do not have the patience for forums anymore.

I do hope this forum has a future as it would be very sad to see it die, along with the wealth of archive material. What would be even sadder, is long standing contributors disappearing forever, refusing to embrace social media for no comprehensible reason.

[Russ]

The amount of trouble that Facebook has caused at work mean that I will never join regardless of what I may be missing