big kieko ....Nigels been quite over the last couple of months and he kept it rolling......
NIGE WHERE ARE YOU
Hi, Steve, here I am
I've not been away from the forum, as Moderator, I look in a few times a day to check everything's ok with the running of the site. I have however been extremely busy with organising a local festival that took up all of my spare time & more, eating into the time I should be working. So, I've not had any free time to devote to posting on here unfortunately. All of that is now over for the time being so I can now get actively involved here again now.
Ok, to address the problems that we seem to have here. Yes, we're a relatively small group compared to some forums, however, we currently have 758 members and to be honest that's a healthy number of people to have as club/forum members. The over riding problem that we have is that people don't post enough stuff on here to make it busy,......PERIOD !!! As Billybob says, we have had this discussion on here before, but no-one else seems to do anything about it. Billy has been really passionate about this, but even he doesn't post frequently, with some months there only being one or two posts made. That's in no way intended as dig at you Billy, far from it, but it's to show that even people who are passionate & want more traffic/banter here don't post up for whatever reasons. Life gets in the way I guess.
We can't just rely on a few people posting on here, we need to encourage more people to use the forum. If it's busy then people will get involved in posting & join in. Prior to arranging the Festival, I used to come on here daily & post up new threads & answer others, and on times I'd post up around 10 or 12 new threads per day. The response to that was, in all honesty, pretty dismal. Some posts didn't even get a reply & yet they were pretty much all Camaro related, with quite a few "views".
We started a daily greet, which was intended to get everyone talking to each other each day, but as soon as I stopped posting it up every morning it only lasted a few weeks & then it was pretty much ignored. The same happened with the "post a picture" thread, where I'd daily post up pictures of interest from around the internet. I also started a video thread & once again, as soon as I stopped posting stuff on there that died the death not long after. With organising the Festival, I didn't have time to put stuff up, but no-one else really kept the momentum going.
Ray (78 Camaro,... Moderator) & myself, can't keep this place going on our own, we need you guys to post up regularly. If you each started a thread daily, we'd have an awful lot of traffic on here. If you each took the decision to reply to the threads, then again things would be very busy around here. At the moment this isn't happening.
We could have as many members as lets say Rods n Sods, but if no-one posts up stuff of interest and then replies to those threads, then all the members in the world won't make this place busy or successful.
The Mustang Owners Club & the Mopar Muscle are "one manufacturer" forums just like us and those forums are really busy, and that's because people have a passion about their cars and actively post up on a regular, daily basis. For whatever reason, Camaro/Firebird owners don't do that with this forum. This is YOUR forum & you can mould it as you want it to be.
We've had some new members of late & they're slowly starting to post on here, but unless this place gets busier, then the likelihood is that they'll only look in infrequently, which in turn gets to the point where there's no reason to look in anymore as nothing much is happening.
There's just a handful of regular contributors on here (you know who you are
)that post regularly and for that Ray & I thank you for keeping the place ticking over. We could advertise the club/forum better, as has been suggested before, but without regular contributions from you guys, what is the point??? The newbies will lurk first of all to see what's happening & to get a feel for the place & then no doubt think "it's a bit quiet" and after a while not log into here again.
SO
To make this forum a success, it has to be busier, with more new threads of interest on a daily basis with replies to those threads.
IF you want to have a good forum dedicated to Camaros/Firebirds, then it's up to
YOU to do something about it. Make a concerted effort to to post up new stuff, do this daily, not weekly and make this place grow into the premier forum for our types of car, where people would want to come for information, knowledge & a common friendship.
Over to you guys to make this happen
cheers...Nige