I think there should be more attention paid to keeping threads on track.
I posted a thread about a timing belt issue, looking for good advice on a serious point. The thread has now drifted onto changing head gaskets by the side of the road.
Whilst it's fine for some conversations to drift, I'm not sure it's so fine for others. Thoughts?
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It's a difficult line to walk moderation wise as well - light touch or blue pencil, it's hard to get it right..
I'll speak to the others.
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That was a fine win for West Ham in last night's Carling Cup. Let's hope it kick starts their league campaign now ;-)
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>> That was a fine win for West Ham in last night's Carling Cup. Let's hope
>> it kick starts their league campaign now ;-)
>>
I prefer my bacon crispy.
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What's wrong with a bit of Anarchy now and again, Lud thrives on it :)
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While I agree that thread drift can be a pain for people looking for specific information, and there is a wealth of it here, when a thread drifts it is usually because the subject has been exhausted. If a prompt from the OP does not retrieve the thread maybe another source of information may be preferable, like a model specific forum.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Wed 22 Sep 10 at 11:28
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The long overtake thread was last seen covering public sector severance terms. Quite like it that such things are allowed to happen.
Mapmakers question would probably have been better filed in technical but of course would have got far less exposure.
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Leave things as they are.
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>> Leave things as they are.
... but allow them to deteriorate. Don't try to keep them as they are if they want to cascade downhill in a hopeless degringolade of ideas, principles and information.
A decent internet forum should resemble a nice pond full of heaving green slime, seems to me.
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>> Mapmakers question would probably have been better filed in technical but of course would have got far less exposure.
>>
Indeed it should have been, and would have.
Maybe the best result would be to post technical enquires in technical, and also post a pointer to it, in motoring?
I also agree, allowing thread drift, on the whole suits this site, but can go to far at times.
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Personally I like a little thread drift, especially when it injects a bit of humour.
Lets not start waving the big stick. So far the moderation on here has been excellent.
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I'm pro thread drift because I don't always read every thread if the subject line doesn't grab me by the bullocks,
but then when it goes on and on and on, I'll have a butchers and orten be pleasantly surprised,
as I was with the "end to the four mile lorry overtake", I didn't realise AE had gorn AWOL.
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>> I don't always read every thread if the subject line doesn't grab me by the bullocks
Yip. The quality of subject line's has gone downhill hasn't it. I remember when i were a lad...
:-)
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Drift is a feature of forums. It doesn't matter; however, if you want to do something about it, say "Why not start another thread about this" to the drifter, or even start one for him. People (or the OP) could also change the title they're replying to, to make it clear in the thread.
However, I wouldn't expect too much - people even have trouble simply replying to the correct post, so given this level of ability, any threading would degenerate into a dog's dinner anyway.
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Didn't seem much point putting it in technical as nobody ever goes there! Tried it on HJ, in technical, and got no responses at all.
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The beauty of this forum is the thread drift - I used to scan HJ and know what threads would interest me and what wouldn't.
But on here just because the title says one thing, means the subject matter will have changed direction several times!
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>> Didn't seem much point putting it in technical as nobody ever goes there!
Pity you didn't try. Now we'll never know. We need to try and build up a technical database - to attract new visitors, if nothing else.
>> Tried it on HJ, in technical, and got no responses at all.
That's because a lot of the people who replied to the technical questions are now here.
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Depends what you want this website to be...
If its a place where all those currently here and the very occasional addition can chatter away, then thread drift and vague moderation are perfectly fine and easier all round.
If, however, you wish to make this place valuable and or marketable, then you'll need to think about how to achieve that. And if that is the aim, then meandering meaningless coversation with difficult to find techical information wihtin it is doomed to failure, however good that knowledge.
HJ has got it right. He's not there to build anything other than a business. And alll sorts of people pay him in different ways for different types of access to that site, as well as it being a tool to add to his credibility and substance.
There was never any wish on his part to have a Backroom forum at all. And most certainly he didn't want any of the chat stuff, in fact none of us did. Those forums were started up SOLELY to keep the mindless chatter out of the technical information.
It worked in that they sucked the drivel out of the usefull threads. I guess I never realised how much of a life of their own they would take on.
But right now HJ seems to have a similar level of valuable traffic as before but possibly without all the chit-chat. Has he lost anything he values or cares about with the creation of this site ? I doubt it.
I guess that the chatty forums have a value in that they are part of the mechnism which promotes the site, but little value beyond that. Even with the advertising the regular visitors were immune and blocked most of it.
And you mention new visitors; what about this site would attract a new visitor ? Technical information ? Can't find it easily and there doesn't seem to be that much in the scheme of things. Found out the good and bad of a car, what to watch for etc etc. Well, there's little or none of that. Found out where to get a good deal on a car ?
Perhaps they'd be attracted by the opportunity to join a large clique, where everybody knows everybody and cracks in-joke after in-joke ?
You can all dive in and tell me how wrong I am, but just how many new members are there here ?
Much is said about the strong moderation in the other place; Obviously I hadn't visited it for some years, but it was always intended to be strong. And other than whatever happened about the upgrade, that approach proved to be the correct one. The site increased in traffic and value and held the cost-only chatty forums to a comparative minimum in their box.
HJ created a business. Even a pub is a business to the landlord and people who come in, use all the facilities, monopolise conversations but don't spend any money are not welcome or valuable, even if they do occasionally read an advert on the wall or thrown an occasional dart.
In my opinion if this site wishes to become commercially successful it will have to follow something close to HJ's model. However, I suspect that it will not do that and further that at some point it will simply whither away.
If you don't want it to whither away and you'd like it to become important and perhaps valuable, then you need to decide what it will become and then drive behaviour in that direction - and that drive comes from moderation (editorial control).
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HJ himself or disciples interpreting the great man's words and thoughts were constantly reminding users that it was a commercial site. Mainly when yet another user complained about pop-ups.
This site doesn't seem to have that constraint, and is paid for by a fairy godmother who cheerfully pays all the bills, and doubtless peers down from time to time to chuckle over another bit of outrageous thread drift.
It's brilliant - don't change anything.
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IMHO Mark's broadly right in his medium / long term prognosis for this site and Mapmaker's right in his complaint about thread drift.
There is a tendency for many threads to descend into reminiscence about days gone by which has tipped the wrong side of endearing indulgence.
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As I've written several times, I'm astonished this site has survived as long as it has, with no focus, no direction and no new members, but it has. I hope it goes somewhere, but I cannot see why it would.
There's a thread that's been started on the interesting point about the morality of appealing speeding fines, that turned into a discussion about football before it had even started.
Re HJ, IMO he won't get the posters in technical, if they're not attracted with a bit of banter, that's what's QED. I don't think HJ can run his site without the banter corner & contributors. It would be a great shame if two good forums are killed off.
For all that he wanted the forum to be commercial, he missed the point of what made it commercial - community.
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>>IMO he won't get the posters in technical, if they're not attracted with a bit of banter,
That may very well be true and remains to be seen. I have previously tried to understand that, and there always used to be a lot lower cross-over then you'd think; The people answering most of the techie questions were not prolific posters in the chatty side. Although it is largely impossible to understand how much of it they read and thus were attracted by.
I don' t know how it is these days.
Ref: the other comment about being rimnded of commerciality when questioning pop-ups - it is ironic that typically those people who complained about pop-ups never bought a car using any of the offers on the site, were not significant contributors to answering technical questions and therefore the only value they represented to the business was that of being a pair of eyeballs looking at advertisments - and they wished to dodge that value as well.
The bit that HJ missed was that getting people to look at ads was the site's job, not a duty of the visitor.
Another comment which I noticed was "how about you add OT to your topic when going off-topic?". I make no comment about whether or not that would be a good diea, however what it would be is a rule. Some people would not follow that rule either becuase they didn't know, they forgot or they simply couldn't be bothered. That would require moderation. People would complain about increased moderating activity.
The purpose of moderation is to facilitate the achivement of the site's aims and goals. i.e. if you can make more money by stopping people using the word [insert expetive] then you stop them. If it is counter-productive then you don't stop them.
Typically those people who want it all left alone and believe it should or can live in a state of benevolent anarchy are usually wrong, and in any case are never the people paying fo rit.
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As you can edit the thread title then perhaps adding OT to your post when you go off topic would mean people could scan through and not read those if not interested?
How about adding an off topic button to the forum when you post so you can easily mark it so those that weren't interested could filter it out but those that were could read it?
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easier still, if your post is off topic and you know it why not start another thread, linking to the original if you like or if you believe there is some connection.
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We will continue to behave as we do. HJ will do his thing, VxFan will do his and we will keep on doing ours.
Quite a few people used to post on technical as well as any-old-crap (the saloon bar/taproom for blokes banging on about cars, girls, football, the universe and everything) on the HJ forum. Bell boy springs to mind, but I did too on the rare occasions when I knew, or thought I knew, something relevant to a technical thread.
I liked the HJ site and strongly approve of HJ as a professional car hack and website owner. The slightly over-finicky moderation on politics, coarse language and religious irreverence probably had more to do with the Telegraph connection than HJ personally.
This forum seems to have that about right. It still isn't a place stuffed with yobbish vulgarity and distasteful attitudes. We still have to keep those to ourselves, and a good thing too.
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Suggestion on the thread drift: The person who creates a thread has the right to moderate it by deleting/hiding posts. That was a thread can be dragged back OT.
No FM2R - whilst I agree that it doesn't make sense, the evidence is there in that many more technical posts on HJ have no responses since the Spring. Previously on a page there are maybe 1/2/3 unanswered queries, now there are 6/8/10 per page.
The other thing about a forum is that it improves google search rankings. Google likes activity.
I must add it's not entirely clear to me why HJ wants a technical forum anyway.
Last edited by: Mapmaker on Wed 22 Sep 10 at 15:00
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>> I must add it's not entirely clear to me why HJ wants a technical forum anyway.
Surely because his main public activity is answering questions, often technical, from readers in his Saturday column in the Terrorflag? It's a natural extension of that.
My impression was that he quite enjoyed the forum, warts and all, but that it was bothersome in some way we don't know about.
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AC>> Surely because his main public activity is answering questions, often technical, from readers in his
>> Saturday column in the Terrorflag? It's a natural extension of that.
But he's a used-car-dealer-turned-journalist, not a technician - nor even a mechanic - and is inclined to write the most dreadful nonsense the moment he strays into law, physics or mechanics - in fact anything other than suggesting used cars for people.
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>> not a technician - nor even a mechanic - and is inclined to write the most dreadful nonsense the moment he strays into law, physics or mechanics
You don't have to be a technician or mechanic to know detailed stuff about cars, and to know where anything you don't know can be found out.
Perhaps HJ did descend into 'dreadful nonsense' sometimes but I can't say I ever noticed him doing that. He did give quite a lot of hard-headed, sensible, pro-motorist advice to people who often seemed helpless.
I would add that some of those who post on both forums who have some technical or engineering qualification are themselves strangely unhelpful and uninformative, much more interested in arguing and scoring silly points off people than in informing anyone of anything. Jargon for the sake of it. Pettifogging pedantry. Call it what you will.
Not much of that carp from HJ though.
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>> Pettifogging pedantry.
I know it's yet another little drift but some of the language on here is wonderful :-)
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But HJ assumes members will answer the majority of the questions. And the new forum software drove people away. And with the new forum software basically came practically zero moderation which is not what the original HJ site was all about.
If the volumes picked up on HJ, without the style of moderations started by Mark et al (and I did my bit I think) then it would soon be anarchy there too.
And the ads generate money whether you look at them or click on them or not. Just need your web browser to show them. And the amount a website charges is based on traffic - so the extra traffic the old forum generated meant HJ could charge more for the ads. Simple really.
I'd like to see what Khoo systems have planned for this site.
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[do bear in mind that I'm not involved with the BR any more and haven't been for some years so what follows is IMO only)
>> it's not entirely clear to me why HJ wants a technical forum anyway
He didn't (doesn't, for all I know). It was intended to be an extension of his Telegraph column but it went all technical. Bear in mind that HJ is a car dealer, not a mechanic. And the level of technical knoweldge required, the breadth of vehicles and subjects, and HJ's own time availability made it inevitable that a technical forum would spring up.
All the other forums were merely different ways of protecting the quality of that technical forum and yet still make it an attractive place to be.
What HJ wanted, and I thoroughly supported then, and support now, his goal, was to be a place where people went to get good advice and deals on car acquisition and he wanted to be paid by the people with those deals for those leads.
The Backroom is not what he wants and represents little direct contribution to revenue. Of course its eyeballs on adverts, but they're not well paid and people spend all their time dodging them anyway.
How much you need the Backroom to hold up overall traffic levels is another matter. It may be that someone who comes for a technical answer later returns to buy a new car. Or it may not, its difficult to know. At best the BR is an indirect benefit albeit that its traffic levels did support the site int eh early days.
I very much doubt that it would matter to HJ one jot if the enitre BR disappeared tomorrow PROVIDED that the main site remained an attractive and visited place for those wanting deals and those able to supply them.
I couldn't say whether or not advertising revenues have increased to change that in recent years, but I would be very surprised if they had.
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>>The other thing about a forum is that it improves google search rankings. Google likes activity.
fair point.
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And with higher ratings, you charge more for the ad space. The new site is designed to generate more clicks than necessary. Moving around creates more page hits these days. Clever for generating money but not good UI design.
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>>This forum seems to have that about right.
But it isn't going anywhere. That might not matter to us, since presumably we like being here, but at some point it must matter to the people funding it who presumably are business men who like a profit, even if they do occasionally buy dodgy people carriers. [Hi Stephen].
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If you look at the thread that Mapmaker is referring to, I think it was perfectly acceptable for it to drift.
He posted about a technical problem, he got a lot of sympathy and a lot of good technical help, mostly from Fenlander, who knows about the beasts. Mapmaker got a series of things to chase up with the guy who was clearly at fault, the original spanner monkey who masquerades as a mechanic. No one can offer Mapmaker a silver bullet that will get his Subaru back on the road in a jiffy.
The thread should have slept at that point, pending an update from Mapmaker about his chat with the monkey.
It didn't, it rather logically and naturally moved on the the aggravation about changing heads in general on modern cars. The thread is still there, the OP can haul it back to topic with ease when more feedback is provided.
Based on that, do we really need to worry about thread drift and rules? The OP has a responsibility, as the originator and thread owner, to keep threads on topic if so desired.
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And yes I am back. If the forum is going to die and go nowhere, then I might as well be here at its death as well as its birth.
Let that be an end to the speculation. Lets have no comment about it, its unseemly.
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Like I said. Last word freak.
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I was merely concerned you'd found where I live and had come with your can of expanding foam to fill my street cabinet ;-) It all went quiet.
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Welcome back Zero, Nice holiday?
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Oh God. Someone's left the door open and there's a zigzag trail of what may be pee leading to the door of the Gents.
Was that a shout and the sound of breaking glass coming from the comfort station?
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This forum is entitled 'Car4Play'. If Mapmaker wanted a belts and braces answer to his cambelt problem with hopefully no thread drift, then he should post it on a Subaru forum. As it is, he got some sensible advice from the thread. You can't expect people on a forum like this to remain on one subject from start to finish. Unless this is Ehow or Answers Yahoo :-)
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Some of the best C4P action for me has come from threads which have drifted.
I made a sarcastic remark about the drift in the lorry overtake thread, which was ignored, which is fair enough.
The majority of members appear to enjoy drifting threads.
It would take an awful lot of modding to stop it.
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>> The majority of members appear to enjoy drifting threads.
>>
>> It would take an awful lot of modding to stop it.
Almost impossible. I've gleaned some useful information from thread drift. The only problem is trying to find it again under the right subject using search!
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Mark (No FM2R) has the difference between the forums just right. This one is more like a club, and will continue (provided there are no financial problems) as long as it members want it to.
We don't mind thread drift on HJ either - it's how conversations happen - although we get less of it than on here as people come on to the Backroom mainly to ask for advice. Moderation is more easy-going than before, as it is on here - in both cases rightly - but we're there when needed.
As I've said here before, I very much hope that both forums will continue to flourish.
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...Mark (No FM2R) has the difference between the forums just right...
Possibly, but he had a bit too much to say about forum management for my liking.
It is just not possible to direct people to participate or not, or behave in a certain way when they do.
Conversations develop naturally, you cannot make people talk or shut up, or focus on one topic or another.
That applies in the real world and online.
As regards finances, I'm guessing this place 'wipes its face' - it costs next to nothing to run and brings in next to nothing in ad revenue. :)
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>> As regards finances, I'm guessing this place 'wipes its face' - it costs next to nothing to run
>> and brings in next to nothing in ad revenue. :)
It might bring in a bit more than it costs - but one of us could run this site for all its data needs from home without problems. It costs not a lot at the moment. Khoo systems did have plans. Lets hope they move them forward.
For those local to me on here like Ted and Rattle I'm starting to think meeting every now and then might be more interesting. You up for it? I used to live in your area for 12 months (1990/91) too on Beech Road :-) Could fix Ted's V+ problem and see Rattle's Panda.
Rob
Last edited by: rtj70 on Thu 23 Sep 10 at 00:29
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...but one of us could run this site for all its data needs from home without problems....
rtj70,
Don't undersell yourself, you are on of probably only a handful of people on here capable of running a forum from home.
All the rest of us could do is ask you nicely to do it.
Come the day, your gazillion megbyte broadband might come in handy.
I'm glad you mentioned it. :)
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>>Possibly, but he had a bit too much to say about forum management for my liking
I looked up "Pompous" in an online Thesaurus.
"affected, bloated, boastful, bombastic, conceited, flatulent, flaunting, flowery, fustian, grandiloquent, grandiose, high and mighty, high-flown, highfaluting, imperious, important, inflated, magisterial, magniloquent, narcissistic, orotund, ostentatious, overbearing, overblown, pontifical, portentous, presumptuous, pretentious, puffed up, puffy, rhetorical, self-centered, self-important, selfish, showy, sonorous, stuck-up, supercilious, turgid, uppity, vain, vainglorious, windy"
Just goes to show they're more useful than I thought.
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...I looked up "Pompous" in an online Thesaurus...
NoFM2R,
You have my comment, you don't like it, big deal.
No need for name calling.
And here's a bit of advice which you won't heed, but should do:
No need to use 50 words where one would do.
Pompous squire?
I haven't even started.
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Oh wow, some cracking words in there, makes you glad to be an English speaker.
I have to disagree with you though.
I don't think "Flatulent" is a suitable replacement for Pompous.
I just thought I would slip that one in, or out as it were.
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...I don't think "Flatulent" is a suitable replacement for Pompous...
Maybe not, but it can be apt, particularly after I've had beans on toast for tea.
But I don't suppose any of you wanted to know that.
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>> beans on toast for tea.
Times still hard up in "increasingly less" leafy North Yorkshire? Caravan life can be hard I know.
Still never mind, I may let Fifi slobber over some of my left over Fillet Mignon this evening. You are welcome to come and rummage in my bins if you like, Wednesday evening is best, there is far more choice in there and some of it has matured nicely.
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...You are welcome to come and rummage in my bins if you like...
You look in the dustbin for something to eat,
You find a dead cat and you think it's a treat,
In your, er, Surrey, slums.
I don't regard beans on toast as food for the impoverished.
Cheap, I grant you, but also very tasty.
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>>I don't regard beans on toast as food for the impoverished.<<
Beanz on holy ghost is a healthy meal I'll ave you know ... wholewheat bread & reduced sugar beanz of course.
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...wholewheat bread & reduced sugar beanz of course...
With half a pat of butter on the toast.
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>> With half a pat of butter on the toast.
...and a deep covering of grated mature cheddar on top.
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>>With half a pat of butter on the toast.<<
Put all of her on it - see if I care :-)
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>>Oi:)<<
Good morning Pat, well - its almost afternoon really, down here anyway :)
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And wet, I think?
All my Cornwall webcams seem to have given up on me today!
Pat
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>>And wet, I think?<<
Nay lass, I've been up since 6-00am and haven't seen (or had) a drop ... yet!
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Might as well suck damp carpet tiles.
Toast needs to have large quantities of full fat thick yellow salted butter, sufficient quantities that it drips off.
Last edited by: Zero on Thu 23 Sep 10 at 09:25
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"I don't regard beans on toast as food for the impoverished.
Cheap, I grant you, but also very tasty."
Beans on toast is a luxury for me, you can't get proper, square, fluffy, English, sliced, white bread and beans are a quid a tin.
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Marketing opportunity then, open a shop for the expats.
Beans, bread, proper butter, birds custard, bisto gravy, etc etc.
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"Marketing opportunity then, open a shop for the expats."
Believe me, I've thought about it. There's a company called Corner Shop that will deliver to Expats anywhere in the world, but you can imagine the prices once shipping has been included.
The first English Chippy opened in Warsaw a few months ago and they offer to bring over anything you like with their shipments, for a fee...
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B'Beanz are good for your heart.
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As this has now become a baked bean thread, may I heartily recommend the Branston brand.
Absolutely lovely, for just a few pee (or should it be pence) more.
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>>may I heartily recommend the Branston brand.<<
I've gorn back to Heinz Beanz lately - reduced sugar & salt *without* added sweeteners.
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>>*without* added sweeteners.
Wife to investigate tomorrow.
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The best beans used to be Crosse and Blackwell, but they pulled out of the beans market. The next best is indeed Branstons.
Heinz have never rarely figured in Palace Zero, having thin, pale, watery sauce.
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"Heinz have never rarely figured"
I'm struggling to get my head round that double negative...
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yeah - poor cut and pasting at work.
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>>having thin, pale, watery sauce.
Wife will not investigate tomorrow.
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We know there is not a lot of moderation on HJ... this thread was not very well edited (check the main topic which has not been changed) ;-)
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=86983
Lucky there's not too much traffic over there.
EDIT: Give you a clue Avant... the thread is still 'If you have a technical question.... '
Last edited by: rtj70 on Thu 23 Sep 10 at 00:24
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Who put Nick Clegg in Scunthorpe?
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Is the coalition made up of a conservative with a small c?
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"EDIT: Give you a clue Avant... the thread is still 'If you have a technical question.... ' "
The title should have changed when I changed the heading on the thread. There's no accounting for software.
(What's this got to do with this forum?)
Last edited by: Avant on Thu 23 Sep 10 at 20:59
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Been to IKEA then Martin ?
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>> Been to IKEA then Martin ?
>>
No no and NO. Still despite my reply they are Swedish Meatballs from Tesco no less. Delicious and you should try them. Erin doors adds a bit and then.........mmmmmmmmmmm.
As for ickier or whatever that flat pack garbage place is called I have never entered or intend to do so. Her 'asn't been either. Us country folk venture very little. Shopping is for when one wants (needs) something, NOT for browsing. I can browse the lanes with a Labrador or two and go to the pub. Much better for the nerves.
Martin.
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>>Swedish Meatballs from Tesco <<
I wish they'd put some cooking instructions on the packet so I could try them.
Is there a Haynes manual available?
Pat
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Haynes manuals are for those who need instructions to micorwave their pet hampster..
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Thread drift = anarchy - R.P.
