Hi all,

Just wanted to put some feelers out there for ideas and concerns about the club. I'm looking to take our website to a new level and have been floating around some ideas in my brain. Here's what I've got so far.

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• Add more model years (300ZX, 350z, 370z)
  
• Increased discussions about hybrid modifications to the Z
  
• Separating home pages according to Z model (a separate home page for early Z, ZX, etc)
  
• Increasing download content
  
• Increasing local club content
  
• Updating photo gallery and moving to new database
  
• Virtualizing the server
  
• Increasing sponsorship levels
  
• Adding staff to help moderate and manage more parts of the site
  
• Restructuring front page design
  
• Finalizing the logo rework design
  
• Replacing our sister site (datsunclassifieds.com) with better software
  
• Add more technical articles
  

This is just a laundry list, but, it would be nice to have some feedback from our members. Are there concerns with the list I've shown above, or do you have other ideas? Go ahead and reply directly to this post and we can get the discussion going. Thanks!

Mike

I also like the site the way it is, and integrated classified section sounds good, but keep the site for classic zeds!

Although I am fairly new to this site, I will weigh in on this. I have to agree with Blue, keep it classic z ( that is what attracted me here as aposed to other sites) I like his ideas on seperate files to hold specific content, as much as I enjoy reading through previous posts, when I am looking for certian information, hours can be wasted before I find it .......if I ever do. This would help cut down on the repeat posts which the more senior members find annoying. I really enjoy the site the way it is, all the information is in here, and the members are by far more patient and helpful than on other sites.

Mike would it be possible to assemble a monthly or quarterly virtual magazine associated to the site. Members could submit potential stories / items of interest and your or other members could select / edit into a monthly or quarterly virtual magazine. . Potential for sponsors / advertisers? Could also highlight some of the more interesting forum post etc… Just a thought… JLP

Mike -

Here is my perception:

• No need to open to non-classic z cars (that is the basic format for the site per the name)
  
• I would like to see content of the hybrid mods that are known true and proven
  
• Increasing sponsorship would help offset some costs and expenses and future expansions of the website
  
• Add more tech items so we can have fast references on the top basic challenges and the best fixes and mods on the top of every section - ie brakes, carbs, engines...
  
• The classified section does need some help - maybe the classified could be broken down by the same sections as the site forums - engine, brakes, carbs, interior....
  

I would like to see a few logo'd shirts, hats, and so forth that we can buy and wear to car shows. I'm sure most of us would buy a polo shirt or a t-shirt. Lands End and several other company's will store your logo on file and then use the logo number when ordering to have stitched on the shirt. That way there is no upfront money for you to inventory and I'm sure some of us would cowboy up to pay the filing charge of the logo. More active members out there the more $ the sponsors will want to give you. Maybe a couple sponsors would be willing to pay the logo set up fee.........

+1 for keeping it classic Z's only. I like the newer cars, but from club experience, the owners don't really have a lot in common.

One thing I would like to see improved is the "new content" programming. I miss a lot of posts because I tend to always view the site with the "what's New" button. The problem is that if I get an email notification and and follow the link to that single post, it treats the whole site as being read. When I go back later to view the new posts, the site thinks I have already read everything. There is no longer an easy way to view posts in the past 24 hours either, so I am forced to go to each forum and look for new content. Other sites treat each thread separately, so unless I open each thread, they are treated as unopened until I select "mark all read". It's a simple thing, but very frustrating for me.

Otherwise, I agree with the proposed changes. Keep up the great work Mike!

Thanks for all of your feedback, guys. It looks like we want to keep it Classic Z related and try to make some things easier to navigate. The biggest difference I notice with our site is the fact that we don't have a lot of "in your face" advertising.... and I like it that way. Although the advertising can make a difference in funding, it's just plain annoying. For instance, I think what happened to Zcar.com was an abomination. That site, although it had a lot of ups and downs, just plain sold out and everyone could 'tell' it changed. We aren't going to do that. Anything that happens here will be to keep our community strong and useful to our visitors.

With that said, I still think it's time for a change. We have been classic Z for so long and the content has a tendency to become stale. The same information is traded back and forth all the time. If we could build this site into the repository of information that everyone is looking for... I believe we will have more time to enjoy the hobby AND the conversations.

There has been a lot of ideas floating around in this post, and I plan to approach a few of you this year about your thoughts... Thanks and let's keep it rolling...

I've always wanted to see a forum combined with a wiki properly. We attempted such a site at vlg-archives.com (vintage Lamborghini) as a way to quickly index the knowledge base (forum archives) by car component. This would in theory make it easy to find information about specific archival topics, instead of guessing what search prase to use, or having to wade through umpteen pages of posts to find that one useful nugget of information you needed to, say, replace your wheel bearings properly.

To facilitate this, we added 3 tags to a standard wiki, allowing editors to easily add a hyperlink to a search phrase, thread, or exact post. Clicking on that hyperlink from the wiki would drill down to the forum to the information. The wiki was then skeletoned to look like a parts manual, so users could drill down until they got to the area the wanted (engine, transmission, interior, etc) with the hope that if they did not find what they were looking for, they would then scour the site the usual way, and the return and add the link to the information they found, so the next user didn't have to spend the time.

In practise we found that there was much interest but almost no participation. There really needed to be an assigned editor to the wiki to clean up and add content to the wiki in order to make it grow. In addition there was no continuity to the look of the pages from car to car. We did a poor job of setting the boundaries under which content was to be added. But that was a small user group of under 1000 people, and the site was stuck on Yahoo groups, so it became difficult to persuade people to visit the archives for information.

My sense is that if you add a button "add to wiki" (or whatever) to a thread/post, and grant editors some editorial powers, and then charge them with the task of indexing and archiving important posts and content, you may end up in a year or so with a very readable index of information which provides an "alternate view" into the archival information we have here.

Hope this helps you think of more ideas.

Hi Mike,

How about this idea:

Opening up a section of the site to the public that is loaded with advertising for revenue however, it will contain data and tech tips that people on the web will want.

It will be a special public "front end" section and the current site will be "back end" with privacy in place.

Regards,

Philip

My thoughts on development of the forum: There is a danger in, not allowing repeated content to be discussed, and pushing it towards a "read-only" website. Personally, I think that's what killed the action at HybridZ. Once the action stops, the crowd leaves, you hear crickets, and people only show up silently for reference access. At that point it's a white-dwarf of a forum.

Keep the content as-is, don't over-police repeated questions. New discussion on old topics can be good. If it bothers you too much, figure out a way to link repeated content together in some sort of "chapter". Integrate the classifieds.

Engaging "George Lucas" Mode:

To aid in directing people to the right place for technical discussion, imagine having an exploded view of an S30 where you could click on the various part(s) of the car that you wanted to discuss. You would then be whisked to the appropriate section of the forum....and maybe even links to suppliers of that part.

Edited March 9, 201212 yr by cygnusx1