Hey folks,
I was just going to do this change and deal with the fall out, but then I thought I'd tell people it was happening and hopefully the removal of shock of the unexpected may make the change less traumatic
This idea has been around for a while, at first it was just a tshirt idea I drew up four years ago which I thought really summed up the philosophy of the forum (and made for a nice phrase). Then as is the way of things life got in the way of me doing anything (and the design wasn't really very good in retrospect), moving, jobs, car shows and all that stuff. Now I've cleared the deck of stuff the idea of Dream Build Drive* repeatedly crept back into my thoughts. Then I needed to work out what that meant for the forum.
On the back of last week's "What content would you like to see more of?" thread I started to think about forum structure again (something I review every so often anyway), and at the same time I was thinking about this dream build drive concept and it all started to click together. So here is how it breaks down:
Dream - Inspiration for cars, ideas and builds (basically the General board)
Build - Readers Rides, technical stuff, garage communities, etc.
Drive - Events and Meetups section (which I'm likely to add a Motorsports board to as well)
Then we'll also have Marketplace, International boards and Website stuff still.
New Boards!
Along with the structure changes, and I'm working out where these fit, I'm going to add the Models and Toys board (focus on the models hopefully) which has grown out of our Readers Other mods board and a desire to do a bit more of this stuff myself. Also we'll be adding a DVLA, MOT, SVA, Etc. board for technical/legal questions around construction and regulation. The old Useful Threads board which languishes at the bottom of the forum will become part of Build as a Guides/How To board (also we may find a permanent home for some of that content on retro-rides.org as a way to repurpose the content).
There are a few bits and pieces I'm still not sure what to do with, so I'll find a place for them at the moment, but may move them around again later (or get rid of them entirely if the new structure dictates that).
On the subject of Readers Rides, I hinted elsewhere that I'd like to divide it down some how because it moves so so quickly, but I most certainly don't want to do it on age, so that won't be happening at the moment, and may not happen at all.
I've got so many things I'd like to do with the site, the forum, hopefully I'll get to do some of them and it will improve everyone's experience of owning and modifying retro cars.
See you tomorrow, hopefully in a "this is awesome" thread rather than a deluge of "this sucks I hate you" threads.
*I suspect somewhere in my subconscious was buried Microsoft's old developer competition "dream build play"
I was just going to do this change and deal with the fall out, but then I thought I'd tell people it was happening and hopefully the removal of shock of the unexpected may make the change less traumatic
This idea has been around for a while, at first it was just a tshirt idea I drew up four years ago which I thought really summed up the philosophy of the forum (and made for a nice phrase). Then as is the way of things life got in the way of me doing anything (and the design wasn't really very good in retrospect), moving, jobs, car shows and all that stuff. Now I've cleared the deck of stuff the idea of Dream Build Drive* repeatedly crept back into my thoughts. Then I needed to work out what that meant for the forum.
On the back of last week's "What content would you like to see more of?" thread I started to think about forum structure again (something I review every so often anyway), and at the same time I was thinking about this dream build drive concept and it all started to click together. So here is how it breaks down:
Dream - Inspiration for cars, ideas and builds (basically the General board)
Build - Readers Rides, technical stuff, garage communities, etc.
Drive - Events and Meetups section (which I'm likely to add a Motorsports board to as well)
Then we'll also have Marketplace, International boards and Website stuff still.
New Boards!
Along with the structure changes, and I'm working out where these fit, I'm going to add the Models and Toys board (focus on the models hopefully) which has grown out of our Readers Other mods board and a desire to do a bit more of this stuff myself. Also we'll be adding a DVLA, MOT, SVA, Etc. board for technical/legal questions around construction and regulation. The old Useful Threads board which languishes at the bottom of the forum will become part of Build as a Guides/How To board (also we may find a permanent home for some of that content on retro-rides.org as a way to repurpose the content).
There are a few bits and pieces I'm still not sure what to do with, so I'll find a place for them at the moment, but may move them around again later (or get rid of them entirely if the new structure dictates that).
On the subject of Readers Rides, I hinted elsewhere that I'd like to divide it down some how because it moves so so quickly, but I most certainly don't want to do it on age, so that won't be happening at the moment, and may not happen at all.
I've got so many things I'd like to do with the site, the forum, hopefully I'll get to do some of them and it will improve everyone's experience of owning and modifying retro cars.
See you tomorrow, hopefully in a "this is awesome" thread rather than a deluge of "this sucks I hate you" threads.
*I suspect somewhere in my subconscious was buried Microsoft's old developer competition "dream build play"
