Zitat von sandwich;77320I think the logistics of arranging a 'meet', with Club E31 members , even in the UK , as far apart as Edinburgh, and yourself in Cornwall, make it all a bit difficult. Personally i dont mind travelling say a 100 miles for a quick chinwag, few photos etc etc so whoever is game, chuck your hat in!
I'll throw my hat in, but I guess it will be Gaydon when we all meet again!
Some where in the midlands I guess .... Steve can fly up the M5 then 
.
Hopefully I will get a bit further than buying a ticket and then getting the car stuck in the paint shop
Oh and blowing uo the wifes car in a last minute dash
This is not a message with new ideas. It's a summary of earlier suggestions put in a single post to provide a quick overview of the changes we'd like to make to the forum. Since Martin and Christoph are willing to make the effort of reorganizing the forum structure, we should get them a final structure we can all agree on. Simplifying the forum structure means a lot of threads need to be moved, a lot of which needs to be done by hand because they are not in the correct subforum. I was asked by Reinhard to take this job on me and I agreed. That doesn't mean the forum has to be changed to my vision. If you have ideas that are not yet reflected in the proposed changes, please post them! Thank you!
First of all I'd like to give an overview of the current forum layout - as reference. Note that I did not expand the "Information", both "Deutschland, Österreich, Schweiz" and the "Francophones" subforums. We do not wish to interfere with the German and French forums - that's up to their respective users.
It's obvious the forum structure is way too extensive, confusing and often redundant. Just look at all the various places to announce meetings! Most of the more obscure subforums have only a handful of topics - some are even empty. Many people don't like posting in forums with little traffic because the chance upon replies is slim, so that makes them either post in the (wrong) subforums where more traffic is or not post at all.
The "Entrance Hall" contains apart from the completely empty "BMW 8 Series FAQ" and the totally redundant "Meetings" only static (or close to static) information. Either move the static information elsewhere and get rid of the entire subforum, or move it all the way to the bottom.
Right now the forum is more or less split into countries or regions, but we'd like to change that to languages. While it's true there are differences between the cars between the regions, most of the discussions in a certain language will apply to all groups speaking that language. If there's a possibility to confusion, just make sure others know what type of car you have and all will be fine. So there's absolutely no reason to have a "Main Discussion" in "Australia, New Zealand, North America, United Kingdom", one in "United Kingdom" and one in "USA & Canada". Amongst the countries on this board are The Netherlands, Italy, Japan, Denmark, Spain,... All different languages, but honestly, none of them active enough to justify a full subforum. Most of these countries already have a community in their own language elsewhere. So we'd like to limit the number of languages on the board to the dominant ones: German, French and English. Most of the people outside the German and French section already posted in the English sections anyways. All this means "The 8series all around the world" is either completely redundant, or should be limited to meeting information only. I prefer to turn the subforum into a dedicated place for meetings and move all "Main Discussion" subforums to the English section. Some have suggested to leave away the division in countries even in the "Meetings" folder, but I'm not sure that's a good idea. Not every German will want to read about UK meetings, let alone USA meetings and vice versa. Nevertheless, the "Meetings" section could do with good suggestions. If we do categorize into countries and/or regions, which ones. The more categories, the less likely you'll check them out.
The current English section ("Australia, New Zealand, North America, United Kingdom") is crowded with subforums, most without much traffic. Actually, from the 14 (!!) subforums only 3 generate reasonable traffic: "Main Discussion", "Maintenance & Repair" and "Classifieds". Most of the other subforums can be merged with one of these, though. Mixing all the suggestions together gives us the (potentially) new forum structure:
Can you live with this? Do you have ideas for improvements, or perhaps objections? Please let us know!
Looks good to me 
I'd be very happy to see that, Thanks Revtor
Zitat von robmarrs;77327I'll throw my hat in, but I guess it will be Gaydon when we all meet again!
Some where in the midlands I guess .... Steve can fly up the M5 then
I can't do gaydon this year, but will gladly travel up to a 400 mile return journey for a worth while meet:)
My problem is that i would love to take part in varius discussions but most of the forums are closed and i don't have permission eaven to read it! How come?
Then again we wold like to invite you to meetings in Scandinavia to but the problem is where to post it!
Looks good Revtor. Seems to simplify the whole process. Agree entirely re empty sections.
Zitat von revtor;78494Alles anzeigen
- Information
- German
- French
- English
- Main Discussion
- Technical
- How To
- Classifieds
- Off topic
- Meetings
- Germany, Swiss, Austria
- France
- United Kingdom
- Scandinavia
- Benelux
- Spain
- Italy
- North America
Can you live with this? Do you have ideas for improvements, or perhaps objections? Please let us know!
That looks much more user friendly.
Looks good to me - and I'm grateful there are those happy to do this on our behalf. Thanks.
I agree on the setup mentioned.
However I would like a meeting calendar as well.
many users travel across borders to attend meetings, and it could also be an aid to people planning meetings to avoid having two meetings at the same time.
This year there is a prime example in September where there is a 3 day event in Holland, and a large meeting in Germany the same weekend, a pitty as I would have liked to attend both and now has to choose.
Not anymore Egil, so you don't have to choose....
Zitat von DickB;78533
Ok.. I missed something... which one moved???
Ah.. the German one is moved to October.....
Well.... with a meeting calendar we could avoid moving meetings when we find that we have doubble booked.
Zitat von revtor;78494Alles anzeigenInformation
- German
- French
- English
- Main Discussion
- Technical
- How To
- Classifieds
- Off topic
- Meetings
- Germany, Swiss, Austria
- France
- United Kingdom
- Scandinavia
- Benelux
- Spain
- Italy
- North America
Can you live with this? Do you have ideas for improvements, or perhaps objections? Please let us know!
Excellent Revtor i agree 100%
Now it's time for piece of the action!
Fabrice
Two-penn'th from a newbie.
I'm hoping to join the e31 fold soon once I've sold another car that's in a similar postition. I've had a 1992 TVR Griffith for three or four years and both TVRCC and PistonHeads are having similar 'issues'. The issues being they were pretty much 'niche' cars when new and haven't been made for many years. The cars are no longer on the road, they're owned by Barry Boys or we've owned them for so long we have no more questions to ask.
It was a small market which can only get smaller as time passes. C'est la vie. So ist das Leben.
Revtor,
I think your proposed changes make a lot of sense. I agree with them.
Zitat von CarstenL;78504My problem is that i would love to take part in varius discussions but most of the forums are closed and i don't have permission eaven to read it! How come?
Your profile suggests you have access to the English ("Z01: UK-NA"), German ("Z01: D-A-CH") and French ("Z01: FRANCE") groups of 8er.org, but if not review your group subscriptions. However, there are two private club forums at 8er.org - "G06: D-A-CH" and "Z02: FRANCE". Access is only granted through a subscription fee which is used to support the forum and club activities. You are always welcome to become a supporting member, but I must add that the advantages are rather limited for users who do not speak either German or French.
It is true that for foreigners it is kind of awkward. We restricted the francophone member forum to the members only. To become a member the fees are 25 euros. This money will be used to maintain the site, pay the club registration, give calendars, flags, pens, stickers, personal membership card... to the members in a near future.
I give a free access only to the members of other clubs. For example a spanish, german or dutch who already pay a subscription to their club won't have to pay a fee to us to have access to the french forum. But here comes the problem for the other countries who don't have a club such as US, UK...
Nevertheless, you are more than welcome to support us because it takes a lot of time to maintain such a site.
You can develop new ideas here. Your point of view is very much appreciated.
Fabrice
We have the same rules as Fabrice mentioned, only we have at this point not a restriction of being a paying member, if you are member of f.e. the 8er.org, you can as a not Dutch speaking member get access to the closed forum(except a few members-only-topics).
You can register with your 8er.org name and when you give us a PM than we activate you.
I'll think that all clubs should do that at some time, it will hopefully makes us closer at one time.
Keep up the good work!
I have been absent from the site for a couple of months, nothing about the site, its fantastic, just personal stuff like redundancy, then a 3 weeks trip to Australia, then focussed on setting up my own business. I guess, with the summer months too, people are going on holiday and the number of posts will decline.
Having returned my company car, my * is going to be my daily driver so I will be more involved. Please do not let this site die - it has been a God send help to me over the years of ownership, and there is a definite feeling of community as you get to "know" the regular contributors.
Gerry's contributions and modifications are always appreciated, not that I can always afford them, but interesting all the same.
So my vote for a more open structure and it's up to us to keep this board going!
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