Proposed Changes to RX-7Club Forum - Your Input Requested
 

Good day fellow forum members!

The purpose of this thread is to announce that changes to the layout of the RX-7 Forum are coming soon. These changes should make the forum easier to navigate, especially for members who are not accustomed to forum communities, and to make it a more inviting environment. Additionally, the attached document outlines these changes.

I believe this is a great opportunity for our members to have a hand in brainstorming some ideas that may be long overdue or fresh new ideas. At a minimum, the changes outlined below are a baseline for the Admin/Mod team:

First and foremost, the restrictions placed upon new members to post in any forum section will be removed. That means a new member would no longer need to have 10 posts before posting a classified ad.

Second, the classified section will be replaced by Rennlist for new listings. See Index 5 in the attached file for more info. The current classified section would be accessible for older for-sale threads; they would become read-only once the transition is completed. The Rennlist site has a graphical interface so it would be easier to spot something with a thumbnail photo.

A third reason for these changes is to reduce the duplication of forum content. For example, remove the classified listings by generation and by region. Instead, use only listings in the generation classified section with the use of thread tags.

Lastly, the regional forums were realigned for the US into 5 areas. These areas were based upon National Geographic’s website, https://www.nationalgeographic.org/m...states-regions. This realignment is a reduction from 8 regions to 5 therefore some states "jumped" borders as a result of this realignment.

Please cast your vote on some of these elements and/or comment below with any additional proposals. The time for member input will close on 31 Dec 2018.

Thank you in advance for your input/suggestions/recommendations!

Thanks for your input, Molotovman!

I cast a vote that the changes looked good. Given that I am the author of these proposed changes, there are a few other changes that may be made to further streamline the forum.

I ask that members who wish to add suggestions to please include the benefit(s) of that suggestion; one's opinion is good but consider expressing the overall gain that change would have on the forum.

For example, in the attached file, the 3-rotor sub-forum was moved into a stand-alone section under the Tech and Performance forum; similar to the V-8 Powered sub-forum. Currently, the 3-rotor sub-forum is nestled in the Rotary Car Performance section. The benefit for this move would be the ease of navigation to a popular engine conversion.

Here's one other thought for all to consider:

In the Tech and Performance Section, there is a sub-forum titled: "Interior / Exterior / Audio". I would argue that this general topic could be archived (moved to a read-only section) because each RX-7 generation has unique circumstances for each of these topics. What would be best to handle this sub-forum?

I propose additional sub-forums under the "Tech and Performance" section such as "Electrical","Cooling" and "Fuel"...these are subjects that are very popular and I'm under the impression that having specific sub-forums for these topics would be useful to many people

Please export the document as PDF and not .doc. :)
A lot more practical that way :)

Zepticon,

The purpose of the DOC file is to allow members the opportunity to rearrange topics or propose changes for additional review. However, attached is a PDF as requested.

Spalato,

Thanks for making those recommendations! Are you suggesting those topics be general in nature? Wouldn't such topics be discussed as it would apply to a specific generational forum? Moreover, take a look at Note 1 in either attachment. This would enable the use of thread tags for each generational sub-forum. These thread tags are broken into each major system for the RX-7, such as Cooling, Fuel (Emissions), and Electrical (Wiring Schematics and Body Electrical). Would that satisfy your recommendation?

I voted "Remove post restrictions, Keep Classifieds but remove duplication, propose more forum changes". so here's the other forum changes I'd suggest:

1. Do not change any of the US regional forums - i.e., all US states should fall into the same regional forum they currently occupy.

2. Within each of the generation specific technical forums, the "general discussion" sub-topic is redundant, should be eliminated and its existing content should just be merged into its generation specific technical forum. Rationale is that it appears no one follows the stated intent of the "general discussion" sub-topics anyway, 2nd gen section quoted as an example: "The place for non-technical discussion about 2nd Gen RX-7s or if there's no better place for your topic" - Scroll through there and you'll find all kinds of technical discussions, often duplicating posts in the main 2nd gen specific forum; same is true for 1st & 3rd gen specific sections.

Pete,

Thanks for the additional input! Could you elaborate on the benefit(s) to keep the US Regional forums as-is?

Sure - As one of the folks impacted by a proposed border change, specifically MD moving from the northeast to southeast forum, it means I would have to peruse two regional forums now instead of one to find & read about events of "local" interest to me. Typically, I consider a "local" event anything within a 2 hour drive (1 way) from my place in the northeast corner of MD. I suspect the same is true for other folks impacted by border changes - for those folks the changes adversely impact how they interact with the forum. For those not impacted by a proposed border change, it makes no difference - they are already used to frequenting the regional forum(s) that interest them already, so why change for the sake of change?

Cheers,
Pete

Pete,

Thanks for clarifying your position on the US Regional forum alignment. Much appreciated!

No opposition to removing the posting rules, if it brings some new people onto the forums, its a good thing.

I would also like to see the regional forums left as i. Making those already large areas even larger would make them less helpful in sorting through local events and classifieds.

I would like to see the regional classifieds stick around as well. Often local items that are inconvenient to ship are not listed in the generational classifieds.

Will the classifieds simply be using the rennlist formatting, or will our classifieds live on a Porsche forum, or something else? The thumbnails are a nice touch.

We are talking about our classified section mimicking Rennlist's classified section. We are not hosting our classified section on another forum. Included are a couple pics of Rennlist's new marketplace, which I believe that we will mimic.

Attachment 748582

Attachment 748583

i am a current Porsche owner and use rennlist every day. the new marketplace is great, because the search function actually works unlike the previous separated vehicle/parts marketplace. i would definitely recommend mimicking that layout

new members not allowed to post in the build section?

https://www.rx7club.com/how-use-site...1124252/page2/

Nope, I'm not able to respond in the build section. That makes getting to 10 posts pretty difficult without non-sense posts. I don't even really see the 10 post min as a detraction if that was possible. Restricting classified access (posting, not viewing) until somebody is a contributing member of the forum makes alot of sense and would keep it from becoming another outlet for people to sell things for cheap/free.

shaunp,

Thanks for your comments. Hang in there!

Unfortunately I can't vote for any of these. Personally I think having some sort of post restriction is smart. I t weeds out potential bad eggs from selling in the classifieds (especially after a previous ban). Personally I think new members should have access to view and reply to everything from the start but should have a restriction to only be allowed to start a classifieds thread once they hit a minimum post count.

Yes, most people are going to be weary of new members posting classifieds with 0 post history and it's on them but as more new members come in I'm a little worried that scams/lazy people may become an issue.

Also, as I believe this forum is mostly contributed to by paying vendors I'd also be wary that some may make multiple accounts for the purpose of selling things to get around the rules. Although I'm sure my view is limited and issues may be few and far between it's still something to keep in mind.

BREAK

As far as the new classifieds section and the other forum changes I think they're a great idea. Keep up the hard work.

Basically this. I have absolutely nothing useful to say on this forums so basically almost no reason to post. I just want to lurk and keep my eye open on rx7's the come up for sale and passively learn about things. I'd be more okay with the post restriction if there was an off topic section or somewhere to just talk about random things. Granted I haven't searched all that hard for decent topics, I'm just trying to get through the restriction.

^ This

any chance we can nix the post count limit sooner than later? still got noobs violating this amendment: https://www.rx7club.com/introduce-yo...ction-1079355/.
rather than deleting them, pissing people off and them leaving, i've just left them as is. had one bump an 8 yr old thread just to gain one post. then there's all the other threads in this section and the how to use this site sections about not able to see classifieds they're posting in. gaining posts really isn't as difficult as they're making it out to be. all i see is a bunch of whiners. if i could eliminate this limit i would. there's a few that have posted wanting name changes. i've tried but that doesn't seem to be in my abilities either.

what can i do to lift the post count limit? sick of seeing this BS

https://www.rx7club.com/website-rela...mbers-1132229/

Yeah that one annoyed me. I had typed a response but elected not to send it........

I don't mind people asking about the post limit, but comments like this don't come across well. Kind of says I don't give a F about the forum, I just want to buy something and leave :(

Which actually means the post requirement helps, as it is preventing this person from shopping right now. Not really sure how we win on this one, especially with how short peoples attention spans are nowadays.

I had thought that allowing new members to post in build threads would provide them more opportunity to engage with the forum to get the 10 post count. But after thinking about it - I know that I would be very unhappy if my build thread got filled with comments such as "sick car bro" and "nice", with no further engagement. I am sure the moderators don't want to waste all their time cleaning that crap up either.

Perhaps one idea that may help - can we give new members access to the vehicle classifieds only and not the parts classifieds? My reason being that usually when a member is whining about post count, I tell them to share more info about their car so I can engage them in conversation. Usually this works. But some people do not have an RX7 yet and are actually on here looking for one so it stops pretty quick. Maybe by allowing them to view cars for sale gives them what they want, and by engaging the community that route will help them get 10 posts or whatever so that when they have bought a car, they can access the parts classifieds. That way we should only have to police anyone spamming the classifieds. I realize has the potential to jerk sellers around, but if that happens we could ban the new member from the forum, and make that consequence clear as part of the sign up process. Just a thought, it's a complicated issue.

FYI, I only joined the forum in 2017, which is not that long ago and I do not recall any issues getting to the 10 post count limit. But I guess my life is not driven by instant gratification and collecting fake electronic friends.......(the world is doomed if this trend continues :banghead:)

What annoys me is if you click his "thanks" link you can see he definitely read the below post.... Clearly not caring. I'm sorry mods have to deal with cleaning all this trash up.

https://www.rx7club.com/west-sale-wa...posts-1067903/

All,

Shall we keep the conversation focused on improvements? The intent of this thread is to:
1. Notify members of some proposed changes.
2. Allow an area to brainstorm ideas focused on forum streamlining and/or make a more inviting area for discourse.
3. Allow for constructive criticism.

As stated earlier, members who wish to add suggestions should please include the benefit(s) of that suggestion; one's opinion is good but consider expressing the overall gain of that change to the forum. Moreover, feel free to comment on the benefits of the current arrangement of the forum. What do members currently like? What separates this forum from others?

If there is more discussion about post restrictions then please discuss the pro's and con's of that topic.

Moving forward, I ask that we keep focused on proposing ideas that would benefit the forum. Nothing is set in stone therefore any discussion on timelines (minus the poll deadline which ends on 31 Dec) would not be entertained at this time.

I appreciate everyone's input and poll participation thus far. It would be better to get more participation in the poll.

FEED AFFLUX & jjandros, thank you for contributing to the thread. I especially like your idea to engage those members with low post counts to talk more about their cars.