Sent: Friday, August 24, 2001 10:21 PM
Subject: Basil still needs your help!
> Ok folks, your humble forum administrator is starting to get a bit
depressed. I started the British Car Forum after hanging out on the
Corvette forum and seeing what a blast people were having exchanging
technical info, tips, or just plain shooting the breeze with other Vette
enthusiasts. I belong to some "email lists" which are nice, but there was a
certain synergy the Vette guys had via their forum. So, I thought, "gee,
why not start one for British Cars?" After realizing (to my amazement
frankly) that the URL name "britishcarforum" was actually available, I
snatched up the name, the web space and bought the same software the
Corvetteforum was using. I spent about a month designing and setting up
"British Car Forum." Finally, on Christmas Day 2000, I turned on the
lights and the BritishCarForum was born. I placed the URL in every search
engine I could, got reciprocal links from vendors and other club sites, and
awaited the members to flock to the site. I have !
> even purchased a couple of ads in British Car Magazine. Unfortunately,
members have not exactly "flocked" to the site - more like dribbled in
actually. But we are up over 210 members now, which is sort of ok, but not
great.
> The problem is that, while there are lot of folks registered as
members, there are scant few of you who actually post in the forums. In
fact, of the 210-plus members registered, only about a dozen or so have ever
posted even a single message. This has me baffled quite honestly, and
that's why I'm writing. You see I have no ulterior motive for running the
forum. I am paying for it out of my own hide for one reason and that is to
help promote the love of great little British Sports Cars (and not so-sporty
British Cars), but as you can probably tell, I am getting frustrated by the
lack of interest. Am I just expecting too much too soon? I don't know, I
just know that the British Car Forum could be a great place if the activity
level would just pick up a bit. I think it might be one of those "catch 22"
things: people don't post because they don't see much activity, and there
isn't much activity because people don't post! I've also had people tell me
"I'm more comfortab!
> le with mailing lists." (and we all know how hard it is to brake old
habits). But what to do?
> I have tried to make the site layout as simple and easy to navigate as
possible, but if there is something about the forum that needs improvement,
please let me know, as I am open to suggestions (but post them on the forum,
don't send me email)!
> So there you have it. Basil is looking for ways to make the forum a
better place and to increase the level of posting activity by the members.
I'm turning to you for suggestions.
>
> If you made it this far, thanks for listening to me whine,
> Basil
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