Anyone else check this site daily ?

[Transamman25]

Its come to my attn no matter how often i check that no one is posting in these forums anymore
Is there a way we could link to each individual chapter of of NFTACOA ? Or maybe have our sites be a part of the Parent clubs forum ?? Maybe it would have our members come through this site each day and we could cross benifit from the forum traffic ?

[firebirdclub]

A check of the forum messages shows that there have been more than 10 postings in just this past week and the overall number of posts are going up.

We are open to any suggestions as to how to get more participation.  How would we implement the plan you suggest?

Frank

[Transamman25]

I moderate a site that gets 50+ posts a day so 10 a week can definitely be improved upon ... How many individual chapters do we have ?? The easiest way to do this would be.... Under each region setting up a special section for each chapter --- It would be much easier to keep track on what's happening with each Chapter and inter-chapter relations i.e. get togethers, etc. This would also give the sponsors more bang for their buck.

[firebirdclub]

I have made some modifications to the message board as a start to what you have suggested.  Let me know what you think, if I am on the right track and how to make it better.

This addition to the Message Board will be publicized in the next Eagle and anywhere else you can think of.

Thanks for your help.

Frank

[78tahitman]

It is hard to drive traffic to the site and also hard to get people to post as well.  I run a Forum dedicated to the Second Generation Trans Am that gets about 130 posts a day on average, plus there is another Forum dedicated to the 2nd Gen Trans Ams that gets 300 posts a day on average.  The site that gets 300 posts a day has been up and running for about 6 years or so and mine has been up for about 2 years now.  There is also a Forum out there dedicated to Third Generations that get probably over 1,000 (at least) posts a day and has been up for a long time as well.  So, there is a multitude of Forums out there that have alot of people posting on there.  I know it is hard posting on one forum (because of free time), let alone multiple forums.  There is not really alot you can do.  It is like the old saying of "You have to have money to make money".  The same rule kida applies in here as well.  You have to have the posts to get more posts.  The more people post in this Forum, the more responses you will get which drives traffic up.  Right now, I check in here about once a week to see what is going on, and there is only about two or three posts that I see that I can respond to.  So, it is hard to get people to post when there are other Forums out there and not alot of traffic here.  Now, I am not degrading this site at all, but just saying that there are other fourms out there and this one is still relatively new on the scene.  It just takes a while to start building that traffic up.
   One suggestion I do have for Frank is that the Forum is disected way too much for the amount of traffic on here.  It takes me about 20 minutes just to find new posts because the posts are burried down in a child board, down in another child board, down in a sub topic.  Now I know this makes sense for having things broken down into sections, but sometimes it is too complicated to try and find something because you have to drill down through so many sections just to get to a post.  If you look at www.thirdgen.org , you will see that there is alot of sections there just like here, but they need that many sections because because there is on avergae of about 500 people online at any given point in time.  With THAT many people on there posting, you need to have all of those sections or else your post would get burried too far down the list within a minute.  So, having alot of sections there makes sense.  My site that gets 130 posts a day and TAC which gets about 300 a day, has a simplified section list that it is easy to find posts and keep track of what is going on.  Here, there are way too many sections and sub-sections, and more sub-sections, that it takes alot of time trying to find a post.  The ammount of traffic should designated the amount of boards to post in.  Now, I am not saying to get rid of all of the sections that are already here, that would be too much work and things are already set-up. 
  I guess I started to ramble on there. Anyway, my point being is that it is hard to drive traffic up when you have competition for posts.  This Forum is still young (not the club, but the Forum here) and it takes time to build up traffic.

[Transamman25]

Heya Hitman glad to see ya made it over here ! What did you think about my idea of having a section devoted to each individual chapter because while this forum is new the club has been around since the early 80's and hasplenty of members from which to draw the traffic in ... my idea was that if each chapter had there own section - the members would come in to check on their local chapter and stay for the general discussion and etc..

[78tahitman]

Yes, that could be a possibility, but how is the NFTAC broken down into chapters?  I don't think there is a set breakdown of chapters within the club.  Maybe it could be broken down into regions or something like that.

[firebirdclub]

I agree about the sections but remember that you see all the sections because you are a club Message Board member.  Try logging out and look at the forum as if you were looking at it for the first time.  That is done on purpose so that it is not confusing to the first time reader before they register for the club. 

Then register under a different name but not as a club member and you will see more sections but still not all.

Only club members that are registered for the forum see all the sections.

Moving the general discussion area near the top was also designed to give everyone a place to post if they felt the rest of the board was confusing.

Grouping the local chapters into regional areas is designed to lessen the number of sections.  I hope you like it and let me know if I can make it better.  A separate regular board section for each local club would really increase the number of sections.

To see all new posts since your last visit all you need to do is click the "show unread posts since last visit" link at the top of the forum.   The last posts in the forum are also always listed in the the forum stats box which is second from the bottom and the link "view the most recent psots on this forum". 

Keep the comments coming as we are trying to improve the message board usage.

Frank