Anyway this post is really long. Sorry about that.

Me gonna delete my irrelevant posts now to tidy this thread up.

admin won't read this essay

Right, firstly can people *please* stop posting shit in this thread, or preferably delete it. It's hard enough getting an admin to read a thread at the best of times, impossible with shit like that everywhere.



Thing is, I don't think he did. When he first mentioned the idea of the "new site" there were pages and pages of really good suggestions that would've made the site better. The ideas of having a "dibs" button on For-Sale threads which specifically pointed out the first person to offer the full price, the idea of reporting users rather than threads, rating sellers and buyers (would've been a good one), additions of a mobile version of the site, so many good ideas.

What did people actually get? Charged for using basically the same site. Out of interest, I just had a scan through the Feedback section to get some timescales of things.

On the 1st September 2010, Ash posted up the The future of the club post. He said he'd basically finished writing the "new site", except for choosing the membership and options. Yes from now on people would have to pay, but "the new site will be hosted in a corporate-quality hosting environment, where reliability and speed will no longer be an issue". People were promised competitions, a "proper" classified section and a Member Map.

Reading back through the thread now, in all honesty they are not the words of an enthusiastic man.

It was nearly two months before the New ISP Host required thread appeared. I had some chats with Ash about this over email.

Many threads then appear about "erm, where's this new forum then?", and "I think it's just died a death really". It's not until 9th March 2011 when The Final Countdown thread appeared and ran its course.

On 12th April 2011, the site is put back up in its old form having been down unnecessarily for nearly a month. Not until 31st August 2011 did the Welcome to the New Club thread appear, exactly one year after Ash had said the new site was finished.

Ignoring the inevitable bugs and such, people started complaining about the Parts for Sale on 4th September as far as I can see, four days later. People are still complaining now.

Posts about disabling thread locking have been doing on for several months, and at a quick look the oldest thread where someone volunteered to be an extra admin was on the 30th August 2010.

The official Positions Vacant - Admins Required thread was started on the 16th December 2011, and still nothing has been sorted. Still the same issues exist, and still people are getting frustrated.

I agree with Jeffers' point that "people do have a life outside of this forum and this in turn means they don't automatically have time to be on here every 2 mins", but I'm not asking anyone to. I'm saying that 18 months of people volunteering to be moderators is purely ridiculous, considering all it means it ticking a tickbox behind the scenes somewhere. Obviously no-one can be on here every two minutes, but that's why you have more than one admin. That's the whole point.

As for this idea of putting together a list of ideas, I agree that's the best idea; but it's been done - so many times, and repeatedly people just get ignored. I love this site, I think it's fantastic and has an amazing bunch of people who are always willing to help out, but I've said it a million times and I'll say it again - people are getting frustrated with it, moreso now people are paying customers.

I tell you what would be perfect - if Ash just said look, I'll be maintaining ownership of the domain and will stay as an admin. Someone else can take over the technical side and a couple of select people (ahem, Stan) can be admins. Admins can then choose moderators, who have a subset of powers such as locking threads and banning users, but perhaps not higher-level tasks such as appointing new moderators.

I'm a web developer myself, and whilst not wanting to disrespect Ash's work, writing forums isn't that difficult, and I'd be more than happy to help look after the technical side. I work for a hosting company now so could probably get decent discounts and such, but at the moment I'm powerless to help, just like everyone else.

I've never been that big on "car meets", I'll be honest. However if we had people like Stan and Jeffers who are genuinely passionate about organising trackdays, I'd be there. It'd be great to meet (some of) you, get to know people are really build up that sense of community that's rapidly failing.

I like Ash, I think he's a genuinely good guy and he's done a lot, but both he and everyone else need to stop this "I'm sure someone's dealing with it" attitude, because it's simply naive and incorrect. No-one is dealing with anything, nothing is being done. This forum will die a death if nothing is done, be that someone taking it over or someone starting up an alternative. I don't like the term "rival site" someone used, as that implies it's purposely against this one. It wouldn't be, it'd be to save the community that's here before everyone goes elsewhere, just under a different name perhaps.

Anyway this post is really long. Sorry about that.

owain how long did that take you to cohort?

if that doesnt happen, we will still be here come july discussing ways for the forum to improve.

also, i agree with everything Owain and Stan have said in this thread, i think without guys like you this forum would be in an even worse state than it is in now.

Thanks for your viewpoint. I think we are simply just trying to keep it all together and to move things forward in the way which the vast majority want.

Obviously, we are powerless though, so we are merely trying to piece together a map for a better future.

is there anything you dont know?

Basic social skills.

Whilst I really appreciate your response and you're right - I do like helping people - I'm by no means suggesting that Stan and I start some kind of coup and expect everyone to come following. Ideally, I'd like to see Ash hand over control of the current site. If that were the case, I'd happy sort the technical side, and someone like Stan could be voted in as admins.

What certainly *is* true, however, is that if you have a developer around regularly, then things like voting systems are *so* easy to add in. Incidentally (and this started before all this kicked off) I've been recently learning some new web languages, and the best way to do this is to work on a project you understand - I chose to build a forum.

I *know* it only takes a day to do a database schema, it only takes an hour to write a proper secure way of securing people's passwords so they can't be retrieved by hackers. The Jive forum software (an off-the-shelf product) has the concept of "Useful Answer" buttons - the OP can click this on someone's reply, that's noted.

Say you nick the idea of the "Useful Answer" button. Then say you need new admins - without any work whatsoever, we have a list of the members who have been democratically voted to be the most useful in previous months.

I know it's really f*cking sad, but I *love* doing stuff like that. The best part of my job is when someone says "it'd be handy if...", and I can just make the change in a matter of minutes or hours. Feedback on For Sale threads - whoever hits the "dibs" button on a For-Sale thread gets to give the OP a Seller Rating out of 5 at the end, and the OP gets to give the buyer a rating out of 5. Everyone has a buyer/seller rating against their name, no more PugPlus problems.

It's so monumentally sad that I enjoy doing stuff like that I know, but that's why it frustrates me when no-one's about to even remove the Report Thread button when it's been universally decided it's pointless.

Because, despite the number of these threads there have been and no matter how much no-one seems to care, it would still feel very much like dumping on Ash and this place. If he came along and said "I don't give a f*ck, do whatever you like" then I'd be on it in a second.

However until that happens (or enough people decide it's what we need), it'll probably just remain an idea.