Built to last
Why Would you Settle for Less when you can have More? Do not let other Authors Fool you with Empty Marketing Keywords. FLATBOOTS is what you Deserve. Built to last, Built from Scratch, Nothing Less.
Read moreOver a dozen reusable components built to provide iconography, dropdowns, input groups, navigation, alerts, and much more...
Shifted wrote: ↑Thu Nov 19, 2020 8:09 am Just to trying to consolidate the tangents into a single thread.I've been thinking a lot about this but we have the chicken and egg situation here.
There is no doubt that there is a clique on RL. Feel free to expound on that. :)
Personally, I feel bad for those who are just now getting into a 928. They will undoubtedly find their way to RL. And it won't be a beneficial experience for them. Just imagine what you would want to encounter were you to get into a field completely different from anything that you are currently familiar with. RL is almost the antithesis of that ideal experience.
It also confounds the efforts for in person gatherings. RL will currently still reach the widest audience. But, at what cost?
Can this forum not only be better, but also somehow attract the new owners and a broader audience? What can we do to make that happen? Buy some ad space on the search engines? Get the site onto materials passed out at events? Reach consensus on how to post technical articles and set some goals for creating them?
Shifted wrote: ↑Thu Nov 19, 2020 8:59 am Take this as one person's personal perspective: I prefer if the technical articles are threads and that they are either stickies, or they are linked to from a single stickie. I have a lot of interests beyond the 928 and am often searching for information. When I encounter a site that has a collection of technical articles, I mentally put them in the "backup" category. If I find a thread, I put that in the "primary" category. My flawed logic is that a thread has community input and is more likely to be recently updated and peer reviewed. I also like reading the comments from others to confirm or clarify the original post.You raise some excellent points and it also aligns with how I've done research in the past myself. I guess I'm taking inspiration from Pelican where they have a section with specific tasks but there is still the ability to comment on the repairs. Our article section is set up the same way like this: https://www.pelicanparts.com/techarticl ... cement.htm
In my perfect world, there would be a single thread titles "Technical articles and how-to's". That thread's first post would be a categorical list of all of the other threads (that are not sticky) that have how-to's or specific technical information. Categories for interior, body, electrical, engine, transmission, etc. The comments in that thread would be community suggested updates and corrections, with the first post being edited and updated to stay current. The linked threads would be a similar style. The first post would be the information or how to, the comments would be suggestions and comments that would get incorporated into the first post.
With that format, the ad could point to the forum, and the user would get both the technical articles and the general discussions in a single spot.
And why not make the photo thread sticky for the same reason?
I think that you, or a moderator, should lean on us to provide content. You should post a general call for specific content, and then send private messages to specific individuals to ask them to put together an article. You could even provide a template to make it easy. Just ask them to fill in what they can and let the community contribute the rest. Even just a skeleton article would get things rolling.
Just my two cents. My approach and logic is probably different from most people's. So, I'll work within whatever structure works for the most people.
Shifted wrote: ↑Thu Nov 19, 2020 9:03 am Another thought...IB does this as a business. They have either done market research, or learned by trial and error, to determine what attracts and retains the most people. Is that research an industry norm that could be found or bought? Or, can a reasonably objective analysis be done of their, and other corporate owned, forums to determine what works and what doesn't? I don't intend to push this in the direction of a business. But, if someone else has already figured out how to attract and keep users, it might save a lot of time and guess work if that information could be acquired directly or inferred.IB does cheat just a little bit though as their business model is to purchase assets that have already built up a following. So the forums that they own are usually those that have a longer history and started before many of these spaces got saturated with competitors. They then continue to expand on the audience by using SEO (which is what I've tried to do and got us to that #12 position) and their influence on a network of other sites.
I'm asking because I don't know, and you may have already gone down that path or determined that it's not viable.
Shifted wrote: ↑Thu Nov 19, 2020 10:16 am You could satisfy both formats of articles by having the tech article section link to threads. I haven't dug into the code here, but you could also do iframes or another reference method to draw the thread content into the article. Or, just pull it directly from the db.We're thinking the same here and yes that is very easy to do. I can import into the database easily or just use a static reference point. Lots of options.
milrad wrote: ↑Thu Nov 19, 2020 6:02 pm You guys are already over my head on the structure discussion.I think this is where the sticky with most read topics would probably come in handy. So if you wanted to see a reference it would be searchable that way.
My simplest suggestion is to encourage people to be thoughtful about thread titles so that they are more easily searchable by key word.
I’ve been on RL for almost 20 years, but new to the 928. Its history is invaluable to me. But when I learn something new, or at least something that may be different than what others have said elsewhere, I plan to post it here and not there. Like the pilot bearing post. But I’m no SeanR lol, and never will be.
Fox_ wrote: ↑Thu Nov 19, 2020 8:39 pm Quality guides for common problems could drive traffic.Agreed, starting work on building a structure for it!
maddog2020 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 19, 2020 10:59 pm I have some really cool docs (928 frame construction research for example) that I wanted to upload, and when I tried to upload it wanted my name and contact info, which I'm not really interested in posting here due to the off topic nature of some of the forums.Thanks I'll archive it.
Attached928 frame reinforcement.pdf
The Use of Aluminum in the Porsche 928.pdf
Swap-in out addons, use only what you really need!