This forum

[Michael M]

I'm somewhat disappointed about the activity of this forum. Peter did his best by opening the Lancia D50 topic, which brings to the point one of te most discussable points in historic motorsport - the originality! As said in my reply, I was sure to see the flame symbol within a couple of days at this topic, but what happened? 4 replies only which is a shame!

As there is nothing to read and to comment at this moment, I made a short analysis for the period April 1-15.
New topics: 9 (thereof 2 Austria's Trivia)
Total mailings: 73 (thereof 44 Austria's Trivia)
Members involved: 17
Thereof 5 or more mailings: 5
If you exclude Austria's Trivia from this statistics (you know, he announced only 10 rounds, and he takes a time off for 3 weeks!), you have a new topic every 2nd day, and an average posting of 2 per day.

Hey guys, where are you? Where is our co-moderator Florian Lacroix, where is Graham and his trivia, where is Leo with his try for a Dutch trivia? Where are all the others who participated in this forum before? I know that a forum always is based on the "chicken-egg" principle, you check it, nothing new, so you leave. Then you check only each 2nd day, then once per week, and finally you forget about it. We have to avoid this, because there are not much alternatives around, so I kindly ask all of you to bring back new life to this forum!

[TimD]

I agree Michael, but there's just so much I can do.

If I told you that researching things off-forum to answer queries that have come up here has taken 40+ hours this last month...!

Not that I begrudge it for a second. I love the thrill of the chase.

And while I'm zooming off to Donington as soon as I finish this message to catch a little historic sportscar racing, I know that Peter Mallett is at this moment preparing his car for a race meeting this afternoon.

Half the trouble seems to be that so many people just read the F1 pages and never come and look down here. Any thoughts on how we change that?

Besides, where else would you find an enquiry about Jan de Rooy! Thanks for the answers Gerard.

Michael,
Your concern for the future of this forum is admirable - maybe you can think up some good new topics to get things rolling ? If you could, you'll be halfway to what you want... as you say, it's the chicken/egg thing.

I haven't heard from Florian in a long while, and have been wondering what to do about that. I do know that Graham is very busy right now, and i'm sure lots of others are too but, if some interesting debate were to be found here, i'm sure they could find the time to pop by again

I take Tim's point about the visibility of the forum, and have designated the historic forum as our first 'forum of the month'

Another way to increase the number of people who reach us would be to get links to the forum from the many historic racing sites. If any of you know the guys who run these sites, drop them a line and demand that they link to the forum immediately!

[Michael M]

Tim, I agree, researching to answer queries costs a lot of time, especially to Austria's rather difficult questions, and not everybody has the time and the interest to do this. But that's not the point, what I mean is the typical forum chat, giving comments, telling own experiences, and so on, which costs only a few minutes to type down.
And, btw, you belong to the "active 5" of this month, so please don't feel targeted ...

Administrator, you are right, somebody complaining about the (non)activity of a forum has to start more own topics. But when I see that even Peter's D50 topic creates not more posts, I really wonder WHAT I should start in order to create interest?? And, btw, I think not only new topics can be basis for a debate, but also active threads which in the past I have seen deviating into - interesting! - directions which have nothing to do with the original topic.

You are also right by initiating possibilities for getting "fresh blood" into this forum, but I think equal or even more important is to keep the old bunch together. Where are the individual spheres of interest of our members? For some of us this may be the period they experienced "live", mainly the 70s and 80s, others like more the historian aspect reaching back even to the roots of motoring. Racing history is not only the different eras, it's also divided into various categories and geographical areas. I gave it a try with a historic rallye topic, but the number of replies show that this test failed. And what about historic racing? Competitors have their own forum, spectators too, and also for technical topics an own forum exists. Not to forget the idea to move the trivias into an own forum ... Why not keeping all topics covering "historic" in one way or another in one forum?

Again, where are your individual interests? Come on guys, let us know, so all of us may be in a position to initiate topics more specifically to general interest.

Welcome to the joys of running a forum!

Seriously, tips to get things happening in here ?

Post anything and everything you run across which you feel may be of interest, or which may start a debate - from race results/reports on contemporary historic racing, to articles/reports/photos covering racing history.

Something I saw in the Nascar forum recently seemed to work well - the moderator posted a simple note, 'Who reads this forum ?' It was surprising how many people stood up and introduced themselves - some of whom have become more involved since. Maybe you could survey their favourite means of researching their interests ?

Another idea, go back through the archive of previous posts and se if there are any topics which you could add something to, or which you feel may be relevant to any recent events.

A 'whatever happened to' topic always goes down well...

Finally, don't be ashamed to steal ideas from other sites. If you see something posted elsewhere, post it here if you think it will be of interest.

Good to have you taking an interest. If you can think of any other ideas, let us know & we'll see what we can do

[Michael M]

Links in other historic motorsport sites principally are a good idea, the problem is that this position in most famous sites is occupied already by a competition forum. However, there are still a lot of potential sites with no forum link.
Proposal: administrator makes available for us a special e-mail address, to which we can sent shortcuts of potential sites, where a link to our forum would make sense. However, somebody (administrator?) has to send standard mail to webmasters of these sites and ask for linking.
What about search machines? I don't know whether it is technically possible to get content of forums searched, but in such case anybody searching for e.g. "lancia+d50" or "piero+taruffi" would be linked to our forum, and all people searching for persons, cars, or places out of motorsport history for sure will find their home here. Altavista alone shows more than 2000 results for "historic+racing", and over 6000 for "racing+history". However, adding "forum" to these searches, only 1 single result appears.

The idea from the NASCAR forum is not bad. What I have seen in another forum is some kind of inofficial obligation of any member when changing status from rookie to racer to introduce him-/herself more detailed than the standard profile does. However, this introduction of course is volunteerly.

[This message has been edited by Michael M (edited 16 April 2000).]

[Peter Mallett]

You are of course absolutely correct Michael. But to be honest, the racing season has started and I am certain, many of us are involved directly. However as co-moderator I take responsibilty for the lack of activity, but I would ask you all to understand the my work is currently taking much time. also As from tomorrow I will be offline between Mondays and Fridays for some time to come (unless I can work something out).

If you feel that you would like to take the job on (you are one of the most regular posters) I would not be insulted. However. I fully intend to find some more interesting topics to post as my next race is a month away, which may just give me some time to organise myself. Keep it up.

[fatbloke]

Peter, I think you should stay exactly where you are! Maybe someone needs to have a word with your partner though - Florian was it ? - I don't think i've ever seen him post here

[Michael M]

Peter, no misunderstanding please. There was neither any complaint into your direction, nor any idea on my side to take over as moderator as something similar, I only tried to wake up all our members. Reason for this - which may be outside of my competence - was the disappointing lack of reaction to your D50 topic, which gives me the feeling that only a handful of souls survived in this forum.

[Hans.ca]

Peter good luck in your racing, please do not change anything in this forum. I read it all the time and get a kick out of it. As I used to cover motor racing as photographer I have many good memories but my liberary is not as extensive as some of you peopels. Since I now work for the governement (pensioner) I have time to follow my many interests. Right now my biggest concern is raising my new hunting dog, Heidi an english springer spaniel. She was born on Robie Burns day. Motor racing right now has to take a back seat. Did you watch the Long Beach Cart Race today. Tracy won (long live Canada)and I just wish that F1 racing could be this good. Besides raising my dog I'm also a wood turner and a gardner so there is not much time left over for the computer. Fishing season starts at the end of the month. Please keep up the good work.

[Peter Mallett]

Well folks, having sneaked a view of this forum I have to say that activity is pretty good. We all must realise that our subject crosses many barriers. Even last year is now history so when the Formula one Forum discusses the Malaysian race it is actually trampling on our territory. However I don’t have a problem with that.

To pick up on Michael’s point concerning the D50. Again, there is no problem if people don’t have an opinion on the matter. I don’t feel aggrieved if I don’t get a response, because we are all busy people. Later in the year when we see this car racing, I hope the topic will come back for discussion. (If I see it racing the topic WILL come back!!!

[Florian Lacroix]

Hi Guys,
some of you are complaining of the lack of activity of this forum : I am sorry for that !

Just one question Michael : is it better to have non sense topic or to have interesting one ?
I think the second choice is better, that is why I don't want to post for anything.

You can't imagine how was this topic when I suggested Craig to create it a long time ago.

Maybe you compare it to the Formula 1 forum ?
Do you thing the activity in the historic world is so huge ? Most of the topics of the F1 forum are based on news !!!

You can imagine too that moderators have got jobs or studies or even holidays, so we can do some stops for a long.

I hope that it will help you to understand this "lack of activity" of this forum.

I repeat that everybody is free to post topics