well thats ****ed it aint it....

[Terra-Kotta]

We got a for sale page that no one uses anymore, no outsiders bother to post on it which means all the for sale items go to other sites and we miss out.

weve got two pages to check now, i only bother with the Rant page (which means i dont tend to bother answering any tech Qs), why do we need 2 when one worked fine?

Since the introduction of the charges weve lost far too many members, more members than many would realise, but i could come up with 10 easy, many of em regular posters.

im sure many of the regulars would have been more than happy to donate a tenner, instead of having had it dropped on us with no consultaition whatsoever, more funds would have been gained and people would have been happier to pay.

[Sonic]

I have to say Glyn is right!

All these 'small' changes have screwed up the flow of the forum.

There is definitely a drop in the number of posts. The for sale page has become a joke.

The fee thing should have only applied to people over a certain post count. Like Gold members, who obviously use the forum the most.

We've kinda lost the passing trade and its starting to hurt!

Seriously, I know no other forum where you have to pay. As I said, I'm happy to pay, as I couldnt live without this forum. I'd even pay more if it got more members in.

[rich_jc]

The fiver idea was inspired, and its good only 4 people read the for sale page, it means you know who is buying.

As for passing trade, bah, who needs new members? Us 12 will keep the forum going and it'll never get boring or repetitive or quiet.

Rich"bar weep granna weep drop the subs!"

[SpikeCapri]

I agree that the small changes have made a huge impact to the site, I remember when u couldnt go to make a cup of tea without having to come back n read new posts and threads, now I can go to work for a day or two and still not have anything to read

I havent looked at the for sale or Q n A pages for weeks, but gonna have a quick check now, as i will probably miss out on something good lol, like i did by not checking the OSF forum, missed out on an almost free capri project GRRR

[turbo-mike]

The bit I like is all the idiots have gone to an other forum run by a dictator that only lets you post certain things, and if he don't like it you are banned, with out any warnings or nothing, so keep the fiver and keep them out.
But I do have to agree that some times it is dead in hear, and I have allways said that splitting the page in 2, is a compleat wast of time and as soon as it goes back the better.
Keep it laser page.

[Supercharged Nat]

Mark (the guy who owns the site/ runs it) isnt bothered if the forum goes under, hes already said that in other posts when the fiver was forst introduced, and all that crap about the CP forum spilled into this one. so really its up to us to keep it alive or its gone.

if we want new members we need to let people know about it. every capri you see, leave the forum address under their wiper etc. couldnt hurt to have this forum linked from another forum or two? or try and increase the openess of the forum (like when people search capri, this address needs to come to the top).

what about address stickers made up for peoples rear windows, not just for your capri, but your daily driver too?

i dunno guys, just some thoughts there. but i gota agree with Glyn it just isnt what it used to be.

"Understeer" is when you hit the fence with the front of the car.
"Oversteer" is when you hit the fence with the rear of the car.
"Horsepower" is how fast you hit the fence.
"Torque" is how far you take the fence with you.

[340truck]

...haven't we been through this before? I'm totally computer illiterate but I manage to open the 2 forums in separate tabs and toggle between the 2, it's not that hard. To me splitting the forum makes sense, technical questions now don't get lost down the page due to mallet's mallet type posts and so get answered fairly quickly. As for losing members - how many laser page cars at coc in July - more than last year? Are we really saying we are prepared to pay to use the forum so newcomers don't have to? Just to get new members? Outsiders ARE reading the for sale pages, they don't have to pay to read them and if you make sure your email address is available they will contact you if the stuff you're selling is good and the price is right. That's my tuppence, thankyou!

[-JC-]

I've kinda lost enthusiasm a bit recently, and I think maybe the split of the forum has contributed to it, but it is also partly due to the fact that my car is still off the road, and I've had to move desks at work so it makes it harder to go on the net JC|2 LITRE LASER AUTOMATIC|STRATOS SILVER

[Peter-S]

Glyn, I accept your point of view in part although I do not see the big problem with 2 pages to look at. Maybe it was better before but it is still minimalist if you compare it with other forums such as CCS, CP or OSF and other forum sites generally.
Certainly some guys have left due to the charges too but I don't see that that is going to change in a hurry but people have always come and gone when they sell their Capri - even some of the current users don't have a Capri anymore - and I feel it's down to the current users to make the forum a place others want to come to and negative vibes don't help that. That's my rant anyway.

[rousecapri]

which forum is this
i am on a silly day and cant remember

[Peter-S]

It's Old Skool Ford

[guitarswet]

The changes were made because poeple asked for them - they were fed up of pointless meaningless messages like this one being posted on a technical forum where is stated very clearly about keeping your posts restricted to technical questions.
You just can't win - I get just as many poeple saying it is much better than before as I do people moaning.
I do care about this forum - you are putting words into my mouth.  What I have said and will say again is that it doesn't matter to me if there are fifty or five hundred members here.  The forum pages have been paid for for the next twelve months and any other monies coming in are just a bonus.
You have to remember that it doesn't actually make a big difference to my life if nobody comes to the site anymore.  It's nice to know that people all around the world appreciate your efforts but it won't be the end of the world if people stop using the site.
A couple of years ago I was earning big money in a high tech company.  I didn't care if I was shelling out a couple of hundred quid a year to maintain a website for the benefit of other people.  Well all that has changed - since I was made redundant last September I have struggled to cope with my mortgage payments and the Capri restoration has been put on hold, probably permanently.  I only went on holiday this year because I used up all my company air miles on free flights and hotels.
So believe me when you are a bit short it becomes a lot easier to say to people "please pay a small amount of money to use my web site" without feeling the slightest bit guilty
Regards
Mark

[SpikeCapri]

i can understand that mark.

I dont use the site as much as I dont currently have a capri and my money problems have made me lose all hope of regaineding the best car ever for the near future.

The changes to the site, for me anyway, are ok, think it just seems weird as its not what i was used to, people are often afriad of change


and THANK GOD i now know what the hell beep war ni ni......... means

[STEVE SB]

Well Mark,
as you know I was away from the site for 9 months due to thhe move to france and the changes were a bit of a shock.
However they do not make much difference to me. I read the tech posts then read the rants, no hardship realy.
And although I don't post that often this site has been invaluable in the past to me and I didn't think twice about the subscription. In fact I was going to send a donation just before we moved to france, but in the caos of organising thee move it got forgoten. but you do a sterling job and the fiver is money well spent as far as I ma concerned.

[Capri18]

Well ive just paid my five pound to use the site, i was on b4 as capri 16 before you had to pay. But i always comeonto the site to see wats goin on, i think its a great site. I agree with Nat every capri i see i will put a little note with an adress for the site on it just to make people aware. Personally i think the 2 pages are okay keeps everything seperate. But next week my Capri should be up here at uni with me so i am definatly goin to be using the page more often. How do ya get the cool things at the end of your posts lol? and a pic under upor name? Grant

[Neil_M]

Just move the whole site over to a free webhosting site like Geocities or similar when your current server subscription runs out?

As has been said the site is very small, and is unlikely to go over any bandwidth restrictions placed on it, and if people do object to paying a fiver then I'm sure they won't mind a couple of ad banners instead? That way we can all access the site for free, hopefully pick up some new members on the way and the burden on your pocket will be lifted.

Makes sense to me...

[capri_sam]

I'm going to avoid getting into the politics of this if I can help it- but heres my technical thoughts.

The site unfortunately isnt that small- the archives of the Q&A forum probably run into the hundreds of megabytes if not quite a lot more, although the day to day bandwidth probably isnt too much of an issue. The gallery I would imagine also has a few gigs of pictures on it. It would be a shame to lose such a wealth of knowledge if this site collapsed, as well as the community of course.

[tck]

[rich_jc]

Its good to see you posting on the board again, though it's a shame you only seem to do so to have a moan.

You said in your post "You have to remember that it doesn't actually make a big difference to my life if nobody comes to the site anymore."

The sad fact is to many of us it would make a big difference if no one used this site anymore. I know its "ford capri laser page", but this is our cyber pub, and I think you sometimes fail to realise what responsibility you have in being the administrator of the site.

A lot of us can see the site dying off, and quite a few people with good technical knowhow have been making suggestions on how to improve things, and by improve, yes, I mean entice more members into joining. I appreciate you recently split the forum into two, a move which I personally think was a missed opportunity to make some real improvements.

Not just talking about the forum, but the member pics are years out of date, as is the list of recommended garages. There are a few members on here who fabricate very good capri parts, why not link a banner to their site?

I personally would see these as valued changes, and have suggested them before, so I do not hold out much hope of them happening.

If you can Mark, and you care, please make whatever effort you can to keep this site going. There are people willing to help you, we all understand you are going through hard times.

Oh, and its good to see a fairly touchy subject to most of us degenerate into pictures of near-naked women. Good input there!

Rich

[-JC-]

With regards to the two forums, maybe we just need to all make an effort to post in the right forum. It seems to a bit of a vicous cycle, one person saying "not many people read the Tech forum anymore, so I'll just post my Tech question on the General board" which does make sense, but it's kinda lead to more and more people doing it. Maybe an appointed moderator would be a good idea, with limited powers to move threads and stuff? Like people have said, it is easy enough to switch between the two, I always check the Tech section first still and then here after, it's not too inconvenient.

On the matter of payments, I don't mind having paid, and I would be happy to pay again, but it is definetly going to be an issue for new members. Faced with the choice of this site with its antiquated forum software, few members, sparse posts AND a fee to pay, and OSF / CP to me it seems like the odds are against us. TBH I only chose this site initially as it was the only capri forum I could find. Back then CP was Cerberus Racing or something like that, so seemed less capri specific, if it was more prominent I may not have given this place a second glance. I'm glad I did join this page, but think it needs to be more appealing to new members or at least find a way to encourage more posts from existing members otherwise people will lose interest.JC|2 LITRE LASER AUTOMATIC|STRATOS SILVER