THSCC Forums

I'm gonna go against the "McGrain" here a bit.

Part of what makes this forum interesting is that it is the CLUB forum. As in you have to be a member of this club to participate. Opening it up just makes it "yet another car forum", which is way different to me. I do think you'd end up with a lot of non-club members participating, and that changes the dynamic quite a bit, IMHO.

I voted no, but only because there was no option to "make the forum readable by the public, but only allow posting by members." I think that gets you your lurkers without harming the actual dynamic of the discussion here.

I do think that with regards to the track program, there wouldn't be anything wrong with a "public" forum that was open for them to use. I do see specific uses of those being fine, just not the general opening of everything.


--Donnie

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Triad has an open forum, and honestly, they do less traffic with members+non-members than we do with members only - at least with the part of the forum I see.

I will also point out that none of the regional clubs are knocking things out of the park with event attendance. When I started, it was common to see 120+ cars at every event for miles around. Now, it looks like 100 is a good turnout. If we want more exposure, we need to figure out how to advertise in the middle of WOW and Halo online games. It seems the generation of folks we want to recruit are not interested in driving anymore.

I voted no, but I won't be upset if we open it up. If it starts to suck we could always lock it back up.

I tend to agree with Donnie. I like the fact that this forum is mostly people we know and isn't completely filled with useless noise like a lot of other car forums. I also like the fact that we know who we are talking with.

I do however think that we should put more content in the open section of the forums for folks who are just finding the club.

My big question is. Who is going to be responsible for adding content, expanding our facebook and twitter presence, monitoring the forum if it's public? Right now I see that this job has been added to the pile of all the other things the VP's have to do. Is it time add some sort of formal or even informal position that is responsible for the up keep of our web and social communication? These are just thoughts here, I don't really have a strong opinion either way. But then, I like the way things are.

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OK so I'm back in. Now which tire should I buy??

For the naysayers, what about making all of the current sections private, and only visible to members?

Then we could open registration and have a public part of the forum.

That doesn't address the issue that Richard is wanting deal with. His proposal would actually free up a worker position that goes unseen but is a royal PITA.

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In need of car.

Is there a target number that is desired to see at events? I think 100 is a good number. When we had 120 people showing up, it wasn't necessarily a positive because the events tended to suffer.

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In need of car.

Yes but the bank account was growing rather than dwindling and we could buy pretty much whatever we wanted. Plus site rentals have done nothing but increase so that moves up our break even number without big entry fee increases. At this point I think 120 participants would be a good target number for positive revenue and event quality.

As for opening the forum publically, I voted to do so keeping staff part private. I agree we should keep the real name requirement and we should keep a section private for members only as well, maybe the "club discussion" section?

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'07, '08, '11 Autocross VP
'06, '10 Mike Dishman Cup
'21 MX5, '13 Corvette GS, '92 Corvette 383 c.i. 413whp/390wtq, '03 Expedition

As has been mentioned, at an average of 80 drivers so far per event this year, we have net positive cash flow at every single autocross so that being said and given we don't have any big purchases looming (ie bus or timing equipment other than maybe another 300ft spool of wire), I say that 5-6 runs per event and finishing at ~3pm and still making money is a very nice position to be in.

I know that both rallyx and track are bleeding though so is the goal to make autox even more 'profitable' to subsidize rallyx/track?

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2011/2012 Autox VP
2013/2014.5 President
2013 Top Gun

2015 Fit

22R-EC => 4G63 => D16Y7 + D16Y8 => EJ255 + K24Z2 => K20Z3 + K24Z2 => K24Z2 + M54 => L15B

I am glad people are talking and contributing to the conversation. I hate that this is one of those touchy topics...

I like the private nature, but I think at times it hurts things. In a perfect world I would like both public and private sections. I don't have anything against having a members only section but.... I HATE THE MANUAL PROCESS REQUIRED TO VALIDATE WHO IS A MEMBER AND WHO ISN'T! Did I say that loud enough? I am frankly burnt out on how we do it right now. Right now it is a nightmare and in my opinion is about 90+% of what it takes to act as an Admin for this forum. But as Jason pointed out there are other options to make that work better. In addition to "for fee" software I suspect there are phpBB add-ons that might do that as well. All it takes is for someone to own it.

I am a big proponent of "real names". Other than my Xbox Live gamertag ("Method X" if anyone cares), I use my full and real name everywhere. For one thing, it helps me remember that there really is no such thing as anonymity and that if someone really tries they could probably figure out who I am. So I also try to talk and act online the same way I would if I was talking to someone in person. I see no problem with having a "real name" requirement, but frankly I can't see it working unless it is some type of honor system, or we tie into someone else's authentication scheme such as Facebook. However, I am absolutely NOT a fan of using Facebook related authentication.

I am assuming that Rodney's poll is for him to take the pulse of the current forum regulars. And that this is not going to be a "majority rules" vote. I think it is up to the senior staff to make any decisions as to what to do (if anything).

Due to firewall rules, I can't do this from work, but I could run a quick SQL query against the forum DB to see who had visited and posted on the forum within the past 30 days. I would hazard a guess that it is a significant fraction of the membership. I think we have about 320 +/- members who are paid up for 2012. I would guess that the forum may service a core of maybe 50 (maybe even much less than that?) people on a regular basis. So in addition to potentially opening things up, I also wonder why more members don't utilize the forum as is. Then again, everyone is not quite "into" online forums as much a other people.

Someone above mentioned "who will do this". I think that we should consider maybe rethink some of how we staff our online presence. If you look at the THSCC "Contacts" page http://www.thscc.com/general/info/contacts.html (which right or wrong I pretty much consider as being the documentation of our "staff") you see the "Mass Communication" section. I can see an opening for a new position that tried to unify our online experience. Or if not that broad, then just on the social networking side. Ex-THSCC member Alex Maier does this professional at VMWare. I think her title is "Community Manager". Basically something like that.

And to be clear, I am not looking for that job. I can see me continuing to help out, but as I am burnt out, I need a break from the spotlight. If we do make changes, I would like a hand in that, but I don't see me having a huge role once it is done.

Richard

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Richard Casto
1972 Porsche 914
2013 Honda Fit Sport
2015 Honda Fit EX
http://motorsport.zyyz.com
Money can't buy happiness, but somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Porsche than a Kia.

That brings up the subject about track events and their future. The track section of this forum is all but dead (based on observing last post date on threads there). Problem as I see it: growing track rental costs plus perhaps insurance costs = bigger entry fee required = lower turnout likely. This is true for all organizations. Given their fixed costs, it's hard to see where tracks like VIR are going to experience deflation in expenses without some economic collapse. Most likely they will see continued upward pressure on costs. Couple this with the demographic profile of a significant drop-off in young drivers and perhaps add the thought that in the grand cycle of things, we should be near a peak in automotive performance interest -- I mean are we going to see ever growing HP numbers, or is 500, 600 HP "enough"? Maybe the upcoming Shelby Super Snake will mark the peak of this craze at supposedly ~1000HP?

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Current stable:
2019 BMW M2 Competition slicktop 6MT
2011 BMW M3 sedan slicktop 6MT
2007 BMW 328i wagon (slushbox for now)
1975 CanAm 125MX2

To be fair, our cash flow is positive on DIRECT expenses, but we do need to worry about depreciation of assets and bus maintenance.

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2012 MX-5 Sport SUV

I hear what everyone is saying about the decline. It is clearly a combination of things. I think economic is one big part. Regardless of why, I think now is the time to make changes. If the pie is getting smaller, we have to fight to keep things alive and that includes periodic rethinks as to how things should work.

Richard

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Richard Casto
1972 Porsche 914
2013 Honda Fit Sport
2015 Honda Fit EX
http://motorsport.zyyz.com
Money can't buy happiness, but somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Porsche than a Kia.

Ok, so I know there has been some jokes about "THSCCIT" (Noah, Zach, Carlton, Jeremy etc) given their recent involvement with the live timing application for smartphones, pre formatting results for drop style results on website, new donated laptop and setting up client mode for the announcing laptop etc etc. Seems it might be time to just do some MAJOR changes around here: website and forum.

I'm all for a major revamp. But there is risk of upsetting people so we have to weigh said consequences. Richard, it sounds like you wouldn't be upset being dethroned as forum admin? Anyone against a complete website update featuring a modern framework, easy integration with social media, mobile device support, possible drag/drop framework for membership db and payment integration?

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2011/2012 Autox VP
2013/2014.5 President
2013 Top Gun

2015 Fit

22R-EC => 4G63 => D16Y7 + D16Y8 => EJ255 + K24Z2 => K20Z3 + K24Z2 => K24Z2 + M54 => L15B

I am thoroughly enjoying the size of the events we have now. We get lots of runs and finish early. The past few events I was left wondering why we did not do fun runs. I understand people have things to do, but when the site is already paid for, the course is already set up and the momentum is there, so to speak, why not take the extra half hour or so for fun runs. At that point it seems like an easy extra $100 or so for the club per event.

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92 Miata 1.9L naturally aspirated. SSM 21

Piedmont was due to heat and Fayetteville was due to trophies, raffle and a greater degree of clean up, but yes I agree we should offer up fun runs after an event if we finish that early given the weather and participation work out (need at least 20+ people to do fun runs so we have workers).

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2011/2012 Autox VP
2013/2014.5 President
2013 Top Gun

2015 Fit

22R-EC => 4G63 => D16Y7 + D16Y8 => EJ255 + K24Z2 => K20Z3 + K24Z2 => K24Z2 + M54 => L15B

It's been a _long_ time since I've been at a THSCC autox (2+ years, IIRC), so this may have changed a bit. You may want to look at the flow of the trophy presentation process. It used to be pretty lengthy, and that's a notable drain on folks at the end of the event.

I know part of the charm of THSCC is how trophies are done, and I don't want that to be lost in the shuffle. However, if a modification frees up a bit more time for driving, it might be a change worth consideration.

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Tom Freeman
'98 M3/4/5 | '93 Spec3 325i | '12 TSX sport wagon | '03 Tahoe
Team Silver Bullets '91 240SX