KidZoom

Judging from the number of adverts here and the Site traffic, one or more persons are collecting some reasonable fees. This is a fairly large forum, some repetition and trolls are to be expected. There are some great threads for DIY, Mods, and many other areas. However, there is a huge vacuum for tech help for legitimate questions. Many people who come here looking for help are stressed by a complex car that is not functioning today and they have to drive it tomorrow and their only alternative is the local stealership that charges way too much money to fix everything RX. Far too often they are immediately flamed, in about the same volume of words that would take to link them to a thread that will help them. We are all in this together, they are fellow 8 owners. Throwing insults does no good for the club or the noob. It is common sense that the number of RX8 owners here far outnumbers those that are Mazda employees or Mazda techs. It just makes you look bad to harp on someone that asks a legitimate question. We all hate people talking down to us.

As for moderators, administrators, owners, etc, being more active. That could help. Many of you have volunteered or conscripted some of the best members of this forum to help. Hopefully, that will bear fruit.

But the one thing all can do is to show some common courtesy in sharing your very important understanding of all things rotary.

8 Maniac

iTrader: (1)

If you're implying that moderators or admins get paid, that's incorrect. The board is hosted for free because of the ads. Internet Brands collects any profits made by the forum, as far as I know. Pretty much the only thing they'll take care of is vendor claims or site glitches/problems... and that's only when they feel like it.

9krpmrx8

iTrader: (46)

I don't think any of the regulars here mind answering legitimate questions if the person asking the question has at least taken the time to use the board and search a bit (or at least read the damn owners manual). But when people just come in and don't bother to search at all, and then expect us to feed them information, that it is annoying. Especially when they are asking a retarded question like, "what is the best exhaust for the RX-8?" or, "What type of oil should I use?", or "My car won't start, what should I do?", etc. etc.

This board is organized pretty well and information is very easy to find if read the threads that are already there for new members. A Noob forum is a great idea.

TeamRX8

iTrader: (25)

they won't any more read that than a sticky thread titled "what belongs in this forum"

they are clueless and there is only one way for them to learn and that is the hard way, so boo-focking-hoo

KidZoom

Thanks for the information. Have you ever explored hosting and getting paid? There is some fairly serious money moving to someone. The host access is very slow and one of the biggest concerns addressed here is the terrible search engine.

.02 worth

Speed_8

what about all the people who have been recently ripped off? majority of those sellers had 0 post counts. Can we maybe implement a post count before they sell anything ?

KidZoom

Just researched Internet Brands. They would probably crush any move to create your own hosting option.

"Never mind" Rosanna Rosanna Danna

elysium19

iTrader: (1)

Hi everyone,

So I don't know if this is wanted at all, or pretentious for even bringing it up, but I'd be willing to volunteer as a moderator, as it sounds like there are not nearly enough active mods. I've been a part of this community for 5 years since I got my car and have been involved in discussions of all sorts and involved in plenty of real-world rotary community events. There are at least a handful of people I've met on the boards (and in real life) who could vouch for me. You've probably all seen my posts in various places (except the lounge....honestly, I come here to talk cars, I keep my casual chit chat to the bar!) I certainly have my views on things, but I know how and when to tuck those away to stay neutral and keep the discussions organized and appropriate. I've never been a forum moderator before, and would need some introduction to that, but have been in charge of various organizations before and am quite sure I could handle the responsibilities as I think I understand them.

I visit the site a few times a week, and for at least the next year or two will continue to do so. I don't know if 2-3 hours a week is enough time investment, but that's about what I can offer. I have no interest in being compensated for this. You can see from plenty of my prior posts that I'm really just interested in having a vibrant community and a good resource of content available for people interested in our cars. Almost everything I know about cars in general came form this community, and I appreciate that tremendously.

That said, I realize that there is plenty of BS that moderators have to deal with, which is probably why people are less active in doing so. Not too excited about that, but I'm cool with helping. One idea I was thinking about was having certain moderators in charge of certain parts of the site, just so they are more familiar with the types of threads that go on there, and the people that post there.

Anyway, if this would be helpful at all, one of the mods should PM me or post here. That's all....

-Andrew

AkursedX

Well I'd like to throw in my 2-cents as I am fairly new to this forum.

I would like to preface this by saying that I've been doing the automotive messageboard thing for over 10-years. I have probably made over 25000 posts on many different boards. I have over 1000 posts on ~6 different boards and over ~100 posts on probably another 10 boards. I am also a moderator of a low-traffic Fiero-board.

I will say that this board is a wealth of information for those that are willing to search for it. I have been able to find answers for nearly every question I have been able to come up with. I also find that the search is pretty easy to use. That being said, I also know that not everyone is going to be as resourceful as I have been in finding my own answers and I do find this board to be pretty abrasive on 'noobs'. I understand the frustration though, I can't think of how many times I have seen the same questions posted over and over and it does get old answering the same questions.

I think a 'noob/intro' forum would be a good way to avoid the clutter that pops up in the tech section plus it gives a way for a new member to introduce themselves. When I first posted here, I wasn't sure where/how I wanted to introduce myself here. Then make it so a person can't post anywhere else until they start an intro-thread. Many people will post their problems right in the intro thread I'm willing to bet. Then the people who want to take the time to answer the repeated questions can and the people who are annoyed by it would be more inclined to just avoid the 'noob' forum.

As for moderation, it seems like this board is moderated pretty well. Flaming doesn't seem to be a huge issue, and I don't see many things in the wrong place. I have seen far far worse places.

I do find that some sections have too many stickies. This is just a personal preference, but I really only like seeing 2-3 stickies in any forum section. When you start putting more things, it starts getting cluttered.

About the only other thing I would like to add, and I saw this covered in an earlier thread in this section is that I would like to see a project thread section. I saw that some people felt that it would become cluttered with projects that never had a chance of getting off the ground and this would probably be the case. But I have a solution to offer for that. Only allow moderators or admins to move people's builds and projects into the new section. I know of another board that does this and it makes for many hours of great reading seeing the progress of people's builds.

I know once I get an RX8, I will be doing a dedicated build-thread for the car here and on a few other boards at the same time. Reading through build-threads is probably one of my favorite things to do on the internet.

I hope no one takes offense to any of my input as I understand that I am still a 'noob' here, but these are just things that I have seen in my limited time here. Like I've said before, I've been a member of many automotive messageboards and I have seen some really good ideas in different places. I really do enjoy this board and I hope I'll be able to contribute more as I learn more about the RX8 and hopefully meet some people in real-life eventually.

9krpmrx8

iTrader: (46)

^ Good ideas. I wish every new member was like you and other new members that have come to the club that did take the time to research before starting a new thread asking questions. Most new member introduce themselves by starting a thread and asking five different random question that could have been answered had they searched for two minutes.

The Reverend

iTrader: (1)

gtfo noob

Chris

iTrader: (10)

I really like the idea of have a build/project section. The initial intro post is a cool idea that I have yet to see anywhere. Great Ideas!

...oh and rev, I thought you bought a s2k, gtfo

Brettus

iTrader: (2)

Good idea but :
to start a thread in it you actually have to have started your build

J8635621

iTrader: (10)

It should be a badge of honor to have your build in that subforum. Only the good ones that bring something new to the equation or the really thorough builds. None of the "I bought a greddy kit of my baby's mama's cousin's ex husband for $300 and I want to shoot flames" bullcrap.

Chad D.

iTrader: (19)

Good points you made AkursedX,
I'm pretty sure I will meet you eventually.

and secondly,
I should be a moderator, and moderate all the thugs and bitches here. No really. I should. I don't even hide behind a silly user name and I am reasonable. + I rock Advans. so there.

mods actually do a good job here on 8club, the ones that moderate that is.

slvrstreak

iTrader: (3)

and i agree...good analysis newb

alnielsen

iTrader: (4)

Nor do I.
I have been following everyones posts here.

redline86

iTrader: (7)

cflrx8club.com has a noob thread. Here is a thought although it might be unrealistic, in a noob thread have stickies for things like, car wont start? then get the mods to post links to several of the larger threads already covering the various problems associated with the symptom. Car is over heating etc. etc.

People come to these forums usually cause they are having a problem, they are uneducated, know little about RX's and possibly cars in general. Most of the usually problems already have very good threads covering just about everything. I've found a solution to any problem I've had through trolling page after page. I have yet to see a new problem that someone else has that haven't already been described and fixed.

But at the same time, the sheer amount of information on this forum could overwhelm a person trying to find their problem, especially if they don't have hours of free time at work every weekend to do nothing else but read everything you can find about everything.

You could throw my cooling issue thread into the "this idiot could do all this so can you" noob thread.

But in the end, you can't cure lazy unfortuantly, no matter how easy you try and make things.

redline86

iTrader: (7)

I would also like to add that there seems to be a growing number of noobs that think that there are people who spend all day on this forum just to answer their every question. It's really annoying and I consider myself a newb, it fills up my new post search with stupid things and it takes me longer to get updated or new stuff, new for sale, updates from venders, etc.

I say lock the newbs into the newb section for a while, and give us a filter to filter out the newb post.

Unrealistic demands I know....

laythor

that seems redundant


i kid, i kid

Chris

iTrader: (10)

I am so stocked man... only a few weeks away from the build itself

HiFlite999

iTrader: (2)

I agree with all you said here. "Search" is not an answer to every question for several reasons. The first is urgency when someone unfamiliar with RX-8's in particular, or automobile mechanics in general, encounters a problem. A sympton based sticky list would help. A second issue comes with the terminology unique to the 8. I was hardly a automotive novice, yet it took quite a while to figure out frequently posted terms like SSV, APV, VFAD, UIM, LIM, MSP-16 and the like. A third issue is the overwhelming volume of "data" available after nearly a decade's life in a very active forum often results in a needle-in-haystack problem when trying to find info on a specific topic.

Still, whatever its shortcomings, this forum is rather remarkable. With an RX-8 population of ~200,000 to have or have had 70,000 users and often several hundred logged in at any given time, shows a level of owner interest that is rivaled by few other makes.

zoom44

hiflite- post #2 just in case

slvrstreak

iTrader: (3)

that should be stickied
ive read a lot of the good FAQ threads and ive never ran across that one

HiFlite999

iTrader: (2)

That is a good one that I also missed. Perhaps a "Glossary" heading would help search find it. Searching "SSV" gives 735 hits, one of which is probably that post. Searching "FAQ" and "SSV" gives one hit, and it's not that one.

The answer to most any RX-8 related question is in the Forum somewhere - finding it oftentimes ain't so easy.