Survey about website changes

The latest Team MightyBoy news and updates, plus your ideas and feedback
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What changes should be made to TMB?

Leave it as-is. I use the forum/website regularly and don't like FB.
14
88%
Move to Facebook completely, it's where the cool kids are.
0
No votes
Downsize the site a bit, and expand social media.
2
13%
I have a better idea and will leave a comment.
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 16
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Brayden
Posts: 9101
Joined: Sun Apr 11, 2004 3:09 am
Location: Canberra ACT
Contact:

I've been looking at web stats, and it is becoming clear that visits to the website and forum are declining. You probably won't find it surprising that the decline is being matched by increasing popularity of Facebook groups/pages.
Sadly it is getting to the point where I'm considering the viability of running the website/forum as it is, vs downsizing and running most activities from the blue beast. This comes with many benefits, and some pretty major drawbacks.

Pros
  • Bigger audience
  • Most people already use it
  • Mobile friendly/easy to use
  • No maintenance/low cost
Cons
  • Can't structure information (terrible for technical discussions)
  • Searching for information is difficult
  • Repetitive questions (because of the above two issues)
  • Easy access means you get a fair few dreamers/dickheads
  • No way of storing/archiving content for the future
To be honest, cost is not a concern for me and I'm not going to abandon TMB completely, or simply delete the website/forum information that so many people have contributed to over the years. What I'm looking for is the solution that meets your needs, and helps our community grow, not wither and disappear.
There are many options - things can stay the same with a bit of tidying, we could move entirely to Facebook, or use a hybrid model where the site is downsized but focused on technical discussion and social media is used for general daily discussion topics. Or you might have a much better idea - let me know!
F8B EFI turbo - Three pots and a snail.
Zeeky
Posts: 19
Joined: Sun Mar 20, 2016 1:01 am

You gotta keep the forum going cos there is so much information here about suzukis. Facebook would be much harder to catalogue the information on the forum.
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86BOY
Posts: 120
Joined: Thu Sep 06, 2012 2:40 pm
Location: Bundaberg Queensland

+1. There are more active people on Facebook than on this Forum as we know, but I'm always going to come here for any info and of course to update anything on my own projects (which I don't really do on the FB page). I'm all for keeping it the way it is currently, I even liked the layout change from the older setup.
Just about all the info would be covered on here, I guess people haven't tried the search function or aren't on the Forum itself to gather this info, so that's when Facebook comes in for another source of info with a reply just around the corner.

My vote is towards leaving it how it is even though I don't hate on the Facebook idea what so ever. This Forum is a great source not just for MB's but a few other Suzuki's too. I like seeing what people are doing to their MB's on Facebook, I just think this should stay put for as long as it can.
Boosted F8B Pocket Rocket.
slyinsider
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Apr 14, 2017 5:24 pm

Having only recently found the forum ( 12 months ). and having recently bought a MB the amount of knowledge on these pages is phenomenal. It would be a shame if it was all lost. Although FB has its place its not upto standard for technical talk and forum style discussions.
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Jeo
Posts: 115
Joined: Wed Jul 15, 2015 10:42 pm
Location: Canberra

Not a fan of discussions like these moving to FB but can definitely see it happening. It works fine for the daily conversations and idle BS stuff, but it's got nothing on a forum for a anything even remotely technical or something like a build thread.

Catch is that I'm fine with FB on my phone but even with apps like tapatalk, I never got into to forums on the phone, and I'm on my phone significantly more than my PC.
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Brayden
Posts: 9101
Joined: Sun Apr 11, 2004 3:09 am
Location: Canberra ACT
Contact:

Sadly Tapatalk isn't an option I'm interested in anyway. I had a friend looking into it and the security bugs are too risky.
F8B EFI turbo - Three pots and a snail.
User avatar
arklan
Posts: 392
Joined: Fri Oct 14, 2011 1:31 am

hello
i dont come here anywhere near as much as i used to...
that said, i search this forum pretty regularly for information and can almost always find what im looking for to be asked and answered :)
i would repeat what everyone else has said, that for technical information you just cant beat it.
but, if you were looking at generate some more traffic, you could open it up to jimnys :)
the incredible wealth of information and experience locked in peoples heads who frequent this site is amazing, so i think it would definitely get some interest.
that said if you are looking to down size due to time constraints, you could possibly appoint a moderator or 2?

anyway, i hope this site doesnt go down :)
User avatar
Brayden
Posts: 9101
Joined: Sun Apr 11, 2004 3:09 am
Location: Canberra ACT
Contact:

There's no chance of deleting the site entirely, or any of the information that's here. I'm just accepting that most people have migrated to Facebook, and figuring out how to make that work for the community. The toughest part is that anyone can start a Facebook group, and that fragments an already small group of people.

Time spent moderating isn't an issue when there are only a few new posts (and a bit of spam) each week. The time soaks are maintenance, upgrades and security fixes.
F8B EFI turbo - Three pots and a snail.
Zuffen
Posts: 72
Joined: Thu Feb 09, 2017 2:45 pm
Location: Warrawee NSW

Brayden,

I'm a Moderator on the lextreme.com Forum (for 1UZ fans) and it has basically died in the last 4 years but of late it is picking up traffic.

I think as people have said, FB is easier to access so people hang there but you can't beat a Forum for information.

I have a FB page but haven't checked it for over 2 years as I'm over all the crap that goes on there.

I've read almost every Thread on this Forum, trying to get up to speed with Mighty Boys and FB would have been of no use for that.
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Brayden
Posts: 9101
Joined: Sun Apr 11, 2004 3:09 am
Location: Canberra ACT
Contact:

Thanks for the feedback. I'll have to do some research and see if there's a better way of integrating the website and Facebook - I'm sure there are other car forums who have found solutions.
F8B EFI turbo - Three pots and a snail.
danJa
Posts: 11
Joined: Sat Sep 30, 2017 11:15 am

Well I'm a new comer but the info contained within this forum is incredible, when I google search almost anything about the mightyboys this comes up number everytime!
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