Forum announcement - please read

[letterman7]

Hi folks,
I've been having some discussion with Dan over at Euro-Nova based on what has happened with other enthusiast sites over the past year. What we are seeing is a rapid decline on specialty sites like this - sign-ups are sporadic at best, and posters tend to be the same people over and over. Which is fine, it keeps the site alive (unless, of course, an admin pisses someone off, but I digress). Anyway, Peter is/was the admin of the Eagle Owners Group and, seeing that progression within his own forum set, decided to lock the forum, making it static for a while, and moving everyone to the Euro-Nova site where the Eagle group has it's own section.

Now.. we are sort of at that point with this site. It's been active, sort of, but even the newcomers have dropped out of sight over the past couple months. I check the site every day, several times a day, just to check that everything is 'running' and there are no major issues, but I, too, am having time constraints to spend hours monitoring everything. Warren.. our webmaster.. mentioned to me that he had no time to spend perusing the threads and answering questions - he left that for me to do So.. Dan has graciously offered to 'host' a Sterling specific section on Euro-Nova, which means that all brands are welcome (Cimbria, Sebring). Which, in of itself, may not be necessary since all the cars are related and there is much cross-pollinating with knowledge with all the platforms. What it would enable, having our own section, is keeping the current build threads active, rather than starting anew on another forum. You would have to sign up on EN, of course, but that's about it.

We, Dan, myself and Warren, would have to work the details on what we could move and how to do it, but the option is now there. A central location to meet and share ideas without the fear of reprisals from moderators (even though I am one there as well... just not quite in the capacity as here). It may be a good thing, it may not, so I've added a poll to hear your voices.

Please post up your comments and concerns!

R

 

[RangerBEH]

I have mixed feelings but combining resorces and builders into one forum would seem to have many benifits. I'm wondering if some of the prior members would come back as well. I would also think it'd be less of a headache on your end as long as euro-nova isn't going anywhere.

 

[sector]

This forum is dying.

 

[maineak1970]

If the forum moves 'overseas' who is going to do the metric conversions for us? They didn't teach me that in grade school way back when.

 

[letterman7]

Just have your handy conversion table open in another window...

 

[Peter]

As I post on a LOT of forums, VW, Corsa B, Mercedes, Lambretta, photography, scuba, diabetes, etc etc. I can say this a global problem, having 300 plus 'members' and only a handful posting and some of those do it to keep things moving, I can understand what is going on globally.

Combining forums and dying forums are going on everywhere and some unlikely combinations too, but it does mean that resources can be pooled, content saved in suspended forums for reference only which can be linked to and administration shared.

As the internet knows no boundaries, the term 'overseas' is hardly correct and there is very little to worry about apart from the odd reference to Kilograms and millimeters (25.4 to the inch) even an English and American gallon are not the same and fluctuating currencies and language, (Americans do not spell in English or use the same terms).

I have found my time on here as an Eagle owner (Cimbria derivative, which co-exists on the 'Sterling forum' quite happily) and on the Euro-Nova site very beneficial to myself and I hope to members on those forums I visit and having a central 'meeting point' would in no way detract from the individuality of the marque or it's variants as 95% of post are either directly related to a specific vehicle build/diary/blog or are under a general topic anyway.

Lets see where it goes. -confused*

 

[vpogv]

I am all for a single resource for all information on these cars. Knowledge is power and combining it all to one place would benefit everybody. No more picking and choosing where to post or doing duplicate posts.

 

[Peter]

I am all for a single resource for all information on these cars. Knowledge is power and combining it all to one place would benefit everybody. No more picking and choosing where to post or doing duplicate posts.

Or in my case 'triplicate'.
and as all three have different forum PHP engines it is usually a case of copy text and do the attachments again, as well as spell check for different languages so quite a job sometimes.*thumbs up*

 

[letterman7]

Interesting how things have a life of their own. When Dan and I set up Euro-Nova, no other forums other than the EOC existed. Came the great cry from Sterling owners - we want one too! And about the same time I was going to set one up, Warren had this one ready to launch. I think this has been up and active for close to 10 years, and it's facing the same issues as all the others. Seems that the majority... the people that actually use the forum... have spoken. I'll try to get a hold of Warren this weekend and talk it out.

 

[vpogv]

I'll state the obvious that some how migrating all of the threads from here to the new site would be beneficial for search. Plus I wouldn't have to redo my build thread again. *laugh*

 

[letterman7]

Oh, yeah, that's the plan at the moment. But only the current build threads. "Generic" topics like the canopy, engine and whatnot would be lost as they would almost certainly be redundant with the Nova. We (Dan, Warren and myself) would have to see what would be logical to move other than the build threads if necessary.

 

[RangerBEH]

Please try to keep that stuff as many times sources for parts are referenced and the foreign part sources are useless to us.

 

[RangerBEH]

How does it work when a sites archived? How long would we have access to this site?

 

[Bobby Brown]

If I can pipe up here, if this happened (it is literally talks right now) I would be looking at transferring the vast majority of content over which can then be pruned once merged with Euro-Nova. If transferring 10 posts it is the same process to transfer 10,000.

I would also be looking to merge the user database so if you aren't registered on Euro-Nova already it would just be a case of logging in as usual.

As said, it's all talk at the moment.

 

[letterman7]

Right. I still have yet to discuss it in detail with Warren. He may not want the sites merged. I'll approach him over the weekend to see what his thoughts are.

 

[Bobby Brown]

Which is why it's an informal chat between us for now. Merely kicking ideas around. I'm happy with the outcome whichever way it may be.

 

[Brett Proctor]

So is this take over going to happen*yipes*

Or is it still undecided-confused*

Just curious. I don't see how its going to help. If either site is interested in whats going on in the other site, all you have to do is just a click of the mouse away to view the other site. You shouldn't have to double post.


Maybe Rick and Warren just need a vacation from the site*laugh* Like I had.

 

[letterman7]

Still undecided. Warren isn't returning my calls *laugh*

 

[Brett Proctor]

Still undecided. Warren isn't returning my calls *laugh*

I guess that means he's not interested in doing it

 

[letterman7]

Could be. He's got quite a bit of vested interest into creating and maintaining the site, so I get the financial end of it. On the other hand, since there has been a downturn in all the specialist sites, sometimes it makes sense to centralize the information, especially if it overlaps with other sites.