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Do y'all need any help? I'd like to think the turnaround could be a little quicker. I've got everything needed to host a site (web, email, everything but the ability to design my way out of a wet paper bag) if that would help get things up quicker.
Forums in the works too...... Maybe. I don't know if I can trust you all to behave...
How would everyone feel about a mailing list instead of a web-based forum? I don't want to hijack anything already under way, but I think email provides a better technological medium for communication than web-based forums.
I don't know what the current minicci.org hosting service provides in terms of email services, but I've got a dedicated server on which I already have several mailing lists set up, and I'd be happy to set up another one for MINICCI.
If you need notification of new posts, you can subscribe to threads and receive notifications of new posts via email. The process should be very similar to the one in use here.
Also, email lists limit your base as only people on the list who check their email regularly have an opportunity to read it.
If you need notification of new posts, you can subscribe to threads and receive notifications of new posts via email. The process should be very similar to the one in use here.
Also, email lists limit your base as only people on the list who check their email regularly have an opportunity to read it.
That's fine; I respect that. I would really prefer to see some kind of web-based forum that had a mail gateway; any chance the one you're looking to implement supports this?
Warning, my opinion follows.
Regarding notification of posts and threads via subscription, I think this is a horribly half-assed solution. What if I want to be part of *every* discussion? vBulletin certainly doesn't allow this. Having to respond in a timely fashion to "you have a reply" emails, which require me to click on a link, is inefficient. If, horror of horrors, I just read the thread notification but fail to click on the link, then I stop getting notification of new posts.
The cutsie features of signatures and avatars gets in the way of the discussion. The page sizes are consistently huge, which makes them slow to load, and the extra crap on the page makes them difficult to navigate.
You still need an email address to subscribe to forums. Most ISPs and mail services provide a web-based service for reading and sending mail (if they're not already completely web-based), so you can still check posts from just about anywhere there's a web browser.
I personally find vBulletin and the others to be incredibly limiting, for these and other reasons. The mailing lists I'm on (for a large number of topics) consistently foster more and better discussions than the purely web-based forums. I think it's a function of how simple email is compared to how clunky and user-unfriendly the web-based forums are. I think that, for group communication, a push technology (email arrives in your inbox and is waiting for you) beats a pull technology (you've got to go multiple pages to see if anyone's sent you anything or started a new thread or commented on something you said) hands down.
Hmmm.... I'm subscribed to the entire area of these forums. I receive notifications of new posts (like your's) and new threads. I also receive a nightly update listing all changed threads in here.
But, your point is taken.
The new forums will be much like these. I may simplify them (remove avatars and signatures), but I doubt it. I think they're fun. It gives people a chance to show-off a bit. Email just doesn't offer it.
Also, I would hate for our email address to be added to someone's spam list. Then, when we need to communicate something important, we'd have to use a different email address and/or domain (since many filters block domains) to get through to them.
Also, I would hate for our email address to be added to someone's spam list. Then, when we need to communicate something important, we'd have to use a different email address and/or domain (since many filters block domains) to get through to them.
I know this is a major concern. I make a very big effort to keep my personal inbox spam free (99.9%!), and my mailing lists are similarly protected. Mailman makes it a snap to administer the list, without getting in the way (like Yahoo! Groups does). The default configuration is to only allow subscribed members to post (with non-conforming messages queued for administrator action), and I can further reinforce the fortress using white- and black-lists, and a challenge/response system. The end result is that it's a piece of cake for those whose intentions are pure, and hell for spammers. :-)
Would you consider either providing/sanctioning a mailing list in addition to the forums, or finding a way to set up a true gateway between email and the forum? I'm obviously offering my time and resources for any of these solutions. :-)
Is there additional traffic going on outside of this group on NAM? This group seems very low-volume. I wonder if any one else has a feeling either way, and if one might make people more likely to contribute?
The cutsie features of signatures and avatars gets in the way of the discussion. The page sizes are consistently huge, which makes them slow to load, and the extra crap on the page makes them difficult to navigate.
I haven't looked around on NAM, but other WWW forums that I'm on have options to disable sigs and avatars. I agree that it can be really distracting when there is a discussion and you scroll through tons of sig just to see a one line reply, and this goes on for dozens of posts...the other nice thing about ability to disable sigs and avatars is that many people put in images that are NSFW, so everyone can have fun and nobody gets in trouble during business hours. Will the new MINICCI have such a feature?
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Geoff
'05 Mini Cooper S HB/B
'73 Porsche 914
I haven't looked around on NAM, but other WWW forums that I'm on have options to disable sigs and avatars. I agree that it can be really distracting when there is a discussion and you scroll through tons of sig just to see a one line reply, and this goes on for dozens of posts...the other nice thing about ability to disable sigs and avatars is that many people put in images that are NSFW, so everyone can have fun and nobody gets in trouble during business hours. Will the new MINICCI have such a feature?
This is something I would like on the "wish" list.
FWIW, I don't check into the forums very often, so the news about this Sunday's drive and a previously considered event being changed went over my head a bit. Perhaps event notifications should be e-mailed at least, giving those of us who don't wade through the forums a chance to know about what's upcoming. As a side note, I had to do a search for "minicci" to find anything at all related here on this forum, so for un-savy users it might not be the best place to share important news.
These forums do offer the ability to "subscribe" to threads. This service provides email notifications of postings. It also provides a link to thread.
The issues related to these forums, however, will soon be moot as we will have our own. If you wish to have email notifications of events, the use of that forum's subscription service will need to be used. That is about the only way to virtually guarantee notification of changes.
Hybrid Mode
