Feb 2019 Admin Update

Hi Everyone,

I know the site has declined considerably since our heyday era after the first switch from IPBoard to SMF.  I don't know what the fix will be, but the site WILL be around for a long time to come.  It'll always be a personal love of mine to work on and administer this forum.  I do want to modernize this site at some point, but I don't know where the first place to start would be.  There's a possible idea of converting old forum tech documents and writeups to wiki format. However, there are plenty of questions that go along with that idea.

The Good News

• I'm investigating Google/Facebook Single Authentication plugins.
• You folks have kept the chat alive almost every single day.
• Facebook seems to be on a decline.
• Marketplace plugins are plentiful now for SMF.
• Mobile Themes are readily available and could be implemented now.
• Last but not least, I haven't forgotten you and I continue to pay the yearly server fees for this site out of my own pocket.

• There is no way to allow mods to approve new members without opening full permissions and group control to them.
• We've declined this far already, how do we come back?
• How do we handle generating more users when our favorite car's simple existence is declining?
• How do we locate the best tech articles to create a wiki style repository of S12 knowledge?
• How do we generate new member registrations to increase content generation?

• Fix the registration process.
• Implement a true mobile view now that these things are more available.
• Update the Member Rank Names (not changing the post counts for now)!

What do decals cost to get going? Would having them at shows like radwood help?

I dont really have any significant or well developed thoughts atm.

Update: About halfway there on the reactive theme.  Reactive/Responsive is a web stylesheet methodology that allows the page to resize itself to best fit various screen resolutions dynamically, including a menu drop down for mobile.  This will enable a true mobile view without the need for tapatalk or any other goofy apps or forum addons.

I placed the new theme above all else because other things such as switching Captcha/Are you a Human? tests will require some theme modifications in my experience.  The registration and user approval abilities are next on my list after that for that reason.

I don't know that I have anything valuable to add to this thread, but I'm following.

ever thought about a potential discord group you should be able to do sometype of bridging.

Or a link to discord, if there is a potential issue with smf allowing new memebers we could use discord as both a forum and voice / video stuff that.
https://discord.gg

extremely usefull tool.

Me inputs on the matter:

-it's going to be very hard to get new members. The forum era is on a major decline not just here but on every car forums.

-there is tons of valuable information here that is "lost". Not that it isn't here but there are too many posts and conversations all around to make it easy to find. We then end up with questions like "what parts do I need to convert to s13 front suspension" on the Facebook pages. The idea of a wiki based website is a must I believe. I personally am willing to participate, as I'm sure some other members are. The nice thing about wiki pages is the fact that everyone can correct/validate/add info.

-aftermarket parts availability: with less and less cars on the road, it's just getting near impossible to make it profitable. The best we can do is: include a list of readily available aftermarket parts on the wiki page, with links to the vendors to make it easy to find/purchase these parts. Maybe try to negociate deals for cs12 forum members?

The registration process is the most important i think. It took me 3 emails and joining the facebook group before i could get an account made on the forums. Just being able to make an account from your Facebook login information would be super helpful for capturing new users.

Thanks for the extra input everyone.  Keep it coming!  The registration process is now my primary focus based on feedback.

I lowkey like the idea of the Wiki but with a Garage (with garage posts/comments) being a big set of components.  Sort of a wiki with a throwback to cardomain but make specific and not horrible. 

I'm still working on things but work is slow as I work to implement a new AWS based ticketing system (Amazon Web Service, Amazon Linux EC2s, RDBs, and a VPC mainly) at work right now. Not to mention I'm raising two kids under 3.

Unrelated note: Just paid the hosting for the site up for another 2 years.  This new host has been incredibly stable compared to our last three and I'm even going to hype them a bit.  A2Hosting is who we're going through now.  There may be potential to migrate to an AWS instance later in life for elastic redundancy and backup capabilities depending on price as I learn and gain more experience in that arena.

I know this is old and Xano is busy with life. but if you or Arro can fix my account so that I can delete spam accounts from the registration page that would awesome. I am reluctant to add any new members because I can't tell the difference between the spam and the real there are so many now. before this happened I was able to keep up I was adding new members once a week and was on top of the spam accounts it's gotten out of hand now, and is overwhelming.