How Little Traffic...PT.com is

[Ludachris]

Thanks everyone for the input. I don't think crowd sourcing is going to raise the funds needed. It's stupid expensive to do it right.

I do mean stupid expensive.

Having migrated a heavily customized forum roughly 3 times this size I can tell you he's not wrong. It's a MAJOR undertaking.

[Ludachris]

I like forums better than any social media. I just like to look at the pictures on those platforms and that's about it.... this platform is really the best in my mind. You can search and pull up posts pictures and follow builds. On Facebook it seems to me to be one big ticker tape and the stuff you post just gets pushed to the back, and it's only people looking for quick answers.

Agree with this. It's why I think forums will always be important, even if they won't ever be as heavily used as they once were. Too many inherent issues with social media that prevents those platforms from totally replacing what forums bring to the table. But forums will need to become more modern to survive in the long term.

[TheBandit]

Thanks everyone for the input. I don't think crowd sourcing is going to raise the funds needed. It's stupid expensive to do it right.

I do mean stupid expensive.

I was really curious what "stupid expensive" means, so I did a little searching and came across this company: https://profprojects.com/migrate-vbu...um-to-xenforo/

They do their pricing based on number of posts. This forum has about 1.2MM posts (AWESOME!) which puts it just above their standard pricing schedule, but based on their price tiers I'd guess this is around $1,000 to do. I have no idea if that delivers the level of quality needed or fully scope of transfer needed, but if it's the right level a magnitude, I would think crowd sourcing is completely feasible. You basically need $10 from 100 users. I'm sure I'm way oversimplifying this, having never gone through it myself, but that seems like a doable amount for this community. Maybe I'm way off base.

[Larry Callahan]

Having migrated a heavily customized forum roughly 3 times this size I can tell you he's not wrong. It's a MAJOR undertaking.

It's not a rival task to do it right and not break it. I honestly don't think it could be done for under 20k and maybe significantly more.

[Ludachris]

Sent you a PM Larry.

[Vimes]

As a new user, I'll toss in my 2 cents and see where it lands. I joined because when I started looking for information about suspensions, this site was the one of the few where questions received technical answers instead of horsepucky like "just bag it and drag it" to everything. Being oriented towards the sort of build I want to do helped as well, since I don't want to need a ladder to get into my truck, nor do I want to get in on my hands and knees. The posts from folks around here showed that they know why things work, and know that there's no one size fits all solutions.

The main thing I'd like to see is easier searches. If I enter four words, the search will look for every post that has any of the four words. There's no way to tell it to only tag posts that have all 4 words, or specific phrases.

Thanks for hosting this site.

[Ludachris]

Agree with this.

[parsonsj]

We've built a nice community over the past 20 years, and it is nice to know that it's still bringing value. I know when I go looking for other information (Chevy Duramax, Porsche 964s, Lagun mills, etc.), I always try to find forums like ours. Sometimes you find it -- many times you don't. YouTube videos can sometimes be useful, but most give me motion sickness with the hand-held camera bob and weave, lol.

The one place I never go is Facebook -- somebody above said it's like looking for help on a moving ticker tape, and that's about right. FB is all about right now, which isn't what you need when you're trying to learn or figure something out.

[shelteredchevelle]

You all have good points and we all seem to be from the same frame of thought. I too have little to no use for FB and love the reference to the ticker tape, very accurate. I joined here to learn from you all as much as possible before I spent a small fortune on my ride, and am very happy I did, this is a great community.
I'm sure most everyone has been on the "new" format forums such as yellow bullet, and all the screaming and carrying on about how it was gonna ruin everything. Well, as it turns out, it isn't bad at all, but the cost was exorbitant. I don't see the search function being any better, or the format being any better, just different. There's my .02...

[Ludachris]

We've built a nice community over the past 20 years, and it is nice to know that it's still bringing value. I know when I go looking for other information (Chevy Duramax, Porsche 964s, Lagun mills, etc.), I always try to find forums like ours. Sometimes you find it -- many times you don't. YouTube videos can sometimes be useful, but most give me motion sickness with the hand-held camera bob and weave, lol.

The one place I never go is Facebook -- somebody above said it's like looking for help on a moving ticker tape, and that's about right. FB is all about right now, which isn't what you need when you're trying to learn or figure something out.

Agree with you on that, John. I just wish more people felt the same and stayed away from FB for automotive tech discussions. If you look at the activity in FB groups, we are clearly the minority in that regard. Everyone is using FB to chat about car stuff these days. I get that FB is easier to use, easier to post to, easier to engage with on mobile devices, etc. And if you post a question in a FB group you're more likely to get a much faster response than in a forum - and from a lot more people. I get all of that. It's the instant gratification and the crazy simple user experience driving people to use FB more to interact with other car enthusiasts in all markets. Forums are considered "clunky", especially the forums that use really old forum software. But the masses appear to be perfectly okay with quantity over quality.

Unfortunately, what the average person doesn't understand, or doesn't seem to care about, is that the more good tech Q&A gets posted on FB and in FB groups, the less that will be archived in forums, which means that info will be more difficult to find later. It gets buried. Ever tried locating something you saw on FB from 3 months back? Which of the countless groups was it in? Or was it on someone's wall? Good luck. FB is an abyss and people are perfectly content with throwing some good tech information into that abyss. There is less content being contributed without the prompt of a question. Fewer people are posting articles and how-to write ups. And if they post them on FB, that content gets lost.

As more new tech discussions get posted on FB, it's not getting archived in forums, which makes forums a little less relevant as a technical resource as time goes on (assuming it's not a replicated topic of course). Forums became good tech resources because they were first a great community resource. As more people move to FB for that community interaction, the forum eventually turns into a searchable tech archive with fewer contributions revolving around newer market trends, which makes it a little less valuable as a tech resource. It's a slow cascade effect, but the effects are clear.

The average person doesn't care about any of that. They just care about using a platform which is simple and intuitive where they can get a quick answer to their question. They want to go where they feel they have the best chance of interacting with a large group of enthusiasts. Forums need to get better and rapidly become more modern overall to slow that cycle, and to bring in more people (or bring more people back) who have become used to the simple features and user experience of the modern social media platforms.

Forums still have value, even if far fewer people use them these days. But the trend needs to be acknowledged, accepted, and strongly addressed for the long term health and viability of forums, to ensure that the value proposition remains strong enough to slow that trend, and if possible, reverse it a little. That's not going to be easy to accomplish. Forums can't be run the way they were run 10-20 years ago. Let's just hope the FB overlords don't focus more efforts on better data organization and archiving tools in FB groups. They're already starting to do that a little, which is more bad news for forums. I stay away from FB groups for automotive Q&A as much as possible, but again, I know I'm in the minority. Who really wants FB in control of all of this valuable content? Not me.

[CarlC]

Since it's just among us girls..... ;-)

I too am a bit old school and enjoy forums for in-depth discussions. I don't need the latest and greatest background, fresh look, etc., just solid content and search engine.

The part that took the wind out of many forum sails were the actions of Photobucket and similar "free" image hosting services that began mandating monthly fees. What was nearly a decade of uploading and sharing technical photos and and associated information suddenly went dark for me. That, plainly, sucked. I was not willing to spend a monthly fee to keep the links alive nor willing to pay a ransom on photos held in hostage.

Facebook does have advantages for quick touches of what is going on, but the deep-dive is just not there and can easily be trashed by those just wanting to set off a stinkbomb.

Good forum and website builders are not inexpensive. vaporworx is going through a website rebuild, and it is painfully expensive. As a novice website owner, but understanding the costs of what it takes to have a super clean, well organized, etc. site, I give a pass for small business sites that are not perfect. It is very easy to invest more money into trying to present in perfect detail a low-cost product than the profit generated over "X" years. What's the point of having a perfect presentation if there is no ROI? It's a gamble.

That leads back to Larry's cost function. Is it worth spending $XXk to have the latest and greatest? Is it a conspicuous by your absence deal? Can any one promise that these expensive upgrades will promote more traffic and have a reasonable ROI?

[BMR Sales]

I'm surprized that there is not more Traffic on Forums lately. With all the negativity on FB about Corona, BLM, Lootings, Politics, etc - it's not worth going there!

[Ludachris]

That leads back to Larry's cost function. Is it worth spending $XXk to have the latest and greatest? Is it a conspicuous by your absence deal? Can any one promise that these expensive upgrades will promote more traffic and have a reasonable ROI?

You're right Carl, upgrading the forum software is a major risk from a financial standpoint, and there is no guarantee of seeing an ROI. Not with the continued embrace of social media - no way of knowing if a modern forum system will truly bring more people in to participate. There's also a chance your regulars won't like it, so you could lose some member participation. But it still has to be done. There are other important considerations beyond the ROI, or even just slowing the decline in activity. There are also very real risks of not keeping the forum software updated. Older software is more vulnerable to spam, hacking, and crashes. The older it gets, the more challenging it is to manage. Security patches are no longer available for this version of the software. You're also stuck running older server operating software versions (Apache, PHP, and MySQL) because the old forum software isn't compatible with newer, stable and secure versions of those operating systems. If you upgrade your server OS, the forum breaks. If you get hacked and have to move the site to a new server, that server has to be provisioned with an older operating system for the site to function on - which means both the forum software is vulnerable AND the server software is vulnerable. I've watched a few forums get destroyed because of some of those vulnerabilities. All that content is gone.

I can fully appreciate the tough position Larry is in. I've been there myself. Just like with car projects, it's a lot more difficult and expensive when you aren't technical enough to do a lot of the work yourself when running a forum and managing the server/software. Many business owners have this challenge. But if you leave the car sitting outside in the elements unprotected for too long, a storm can come along and cause some catastrophic damage. If/when that happens the ROI becomes a moot point.

[Ludachris]

I'm surprized that there is not more Traffic on Forums lately. With all the negativity on FB about Corona, BLM, Lootings, Politics, etc - it's not worth going there!

I think many forums have seen a rise in traffic lately, but that traffic increase hasn't always resulted in increased participation. Every forum is different though.

You'd be surprised how many PMs and emails get sent to forum admins these days asking "how do I post a question in the forum"? The number of people who can't figure out how to use a forum is astounding. LOL!

[CarlC]

I totally get it about the security issues as I've been hacked to the tune of 80000 emails in a day due to a vulnerability. It's really too bad that there isn't some type of nuclear option for the a-holes out there who have nothing else better to do then to butcher somebody's hard work.

[Ludachris]

I totally get it about the security issues as I've been hacked to the tune of 80000 emails in a day due to a vulnerability. It's really too bad that there isn't some type of nuclear option for the a-holes out there who have nothing else better to do then to butcher somebody's hard work.

Every website software platform deals with that risk - a large percentage of small business websites these days are built on Wordpress, just like the vaporworx website. It's a great platform in many ways, I've worked with it extensively myself, but it's also one of the most targeted, if not THE most targeted platforms by hackers. It's critical to keep the core script, all plugins, and themes updated in Wordpress. Forums don't get targeted as much as Wordpress, but they do get targeted. The older the software gets with no security patches, the better the odds of getting hacked. And when the site gets hacked it can't always be recovered. Which, for a normal business website isn't always the end of the world, since most of those types of sites are relatively small and can be rebuilt - not that it's cheap, but it's possible. When the site has over 1mm posts, like this one, that's a major loss for the automotive community.

Carl, if you need some references on some Wordpress maintenance companies who can help you keep the VaporWorx site software updated and secure, send me a PM. I'd be glad to share some that I've worked with.

[bikefreak600]

I was non active on this site for a few years, due to other aspects of life requiring my attention. I have noticed a drastic change in activity here from what it used to be. This forum is imo the best place to interact in this hobby

[Dietrichtj]

Is it just me or is this site dead? You post a question...something for sale and crickets! Seems like the same 5 people are always around, but I can never get more then a couple responses and it takes weeks just to get that! Other forums and you can get answers and sell stuff quick.

I'm new to this site. I just signed up today. There are some items that I found in the classifieds that I'm interested in. When I tried to post, I couldn't. It said that I have to have 50 posts to post in the classifieds. I guess I'll go elsewhere.

[andrewb70]

I'm new to this site. I just signed up today. There are some items that I found in the classifieds that I'm interested in. When I tried to post, I couldn't. It said that I have to have 50 posts to post in the classifieds. I guess I'll go elsewhere.

We've had a lot of scammers and this is the only way we can easily stop that from happening.

Andrew

[Dietrichtj]

Thanks for the reply. I really enjoy the site. Only 48 more posts before I can buy the rims.