Rollaclub.com Suggestion Box

[curly]

Any chance of a parts giveaway section, as in FREE PARTS?????

[towe001]

^^ could be of interest

 

Had a hunt though the "Site Sponsors" section of the sale section and started thinking would be worth while in giving each sponsor their own section like some of the other forums do.

[towe001]

Another idea, one for the general mechanical section - "Tech Tips"

We have the "Tech Articles" section, how about a spot for those little tips that might just help someone before they get into a spot of bother.

Lie, say, you need the thread of a bolt hole or a nut chased (cleaned) then grab a bolt of the same size and cut four slots down the side bit like a tap and screw that into the hole in the same fashion as tapping a thread.

But i don't really think it'd work all that well as a general thread cause after a while similar tech tips will start popping up after a page or two and not to mention trawling through a thread page after page to find a tip that might be of use will just wind up getting a little annoying.

[Evan G]

locking down the engine conversion section during school holidays?

 

or have a 1day waiting period while admin/mods approve of the topic?

 

and like quick answer topics named like carby help, driveline, gearbox help where people can get a quick reply without making a new topic/hijacking someones elses

Edited July 11, 2010 by Evan G

[JDM55]

how about an engine specific thread ,in the conversions section , where people could post there projects specific to the engine there installing ,for instance if it was some kind of a rotar,there could be a rotary section ,if it was sr20s same there or beams or what ever it mite be,they had there own section regardless of what car they were going into, that way when you go looking for info on specific conversions you could go to one section that had the motor in question,would save hours and hours trawling thru thread after thread looking for some answer to a random question , just a thought from experience

Edited July 26, 2010 by JDM55

[KANE]

Sorry for the interuption. But I'm trying to enable PM's. From the link at my e-mail, but can't for some reason! Help please!! My name is KANE and I'm new to the club! :D ;)

[irokin]

You already have.

[TheNOBBLER[RL]]

Slightly different suggestion and not sure if it's the right spot for it (or if anything can be done about it) but can rc be made iPhone unfriendly???

 

Mght sound stupid but I barely get access to a computer there days and use my phone to get on the net, since the update it doesn't come up with the normal Rollaclub.com but a useless iphone version instead... Driving me nuts! Can't edit posts, go to my controls,have to go through each are of the forum to get to the sub forums (eg. Rollaclub to rc regional to Vic section rather than just click Vic), can't do bugger all!

 

Otherwise rollaclubs getting better and better!

 

Cheers, Jarrad

[irokin]

I'd rather not disable it, some like it and you save 50-300kb/page which is significant given what some people are paying for mobile data. I would like to have a link to disable the mobile skin however so I might look into how I can code that.

 

For the mean time however I should be able to fix the skin up so you can have some (albeit buggy but I'll try and patch it up) access to the userCP. Its possible to show the subforums on the main page but its going to create some nasty clutter. You should be able to edit posts by tapping on them first, then the buttons should show at the bottom of the post to reply/edit/delete.

 

Personally I found navigating the old forum skin with an iphone unbelievably tedious. The new skin with all its fancy AJAX show/hides etc etc I think it would be almost impossible to navigate it properly. I think this is largely the reason they've included a mobile skin now.

[irokin]

Actually I can do better. I've just figured out how it stores which browser you're using so it shouldn't be too difficult to add a "disable mobile theme" link. It'll disable it for that session, maybe longer.

 

That said I've used the full skin on my iphone now and its pretty resource heavy...

[irokin]

There you go, link at the bottom of the mobile skin to disable it. Be warned! To go back to the mobile skin you will have to reboot your phone or clear cookies.

[TheNOBBLER[RL]]

Cheers for that, I can understand why people prefer the mobile site, especially if there paying for there content! Would chew up your download limit pretty quickly!

 

As per the warning I will give the new full site a crack, can't be worse that any other site I cruise around on the phone!

 

Cheers, Jarrad

[ke70dave]

bit of a long shot..

 

but have we (as a forum) considered making it mandatory to have photos for car advertisements?

 

almost everyone has camera phones, almost everyone has a digi camera, and everyone knows someone with a camera phone or a digi camera.

 

of course its better to drive and have a look at the car if you are interested, but theres no way I'm driving to the other side of town to check out a car if a few simple photos could have told me that it wasnt what i was after.

 

also avoids the first 2 pages of a thread being filled with "pics please" by various members.

 

threads like this are what I'm refering too:

 

http://www.rollaclub.com/board/topic/45003-ke70-4age-up-for-trade/

[Raven]

bit of a long shot..

 

but have we (as a forum) considered making it mandatory to have photos for car advertisements?

 

almost everyone has camera phones, almost everyone has a digi camera, and everyone knows someone with a camera phone or a digi camera.

 

of course its better to drive and have a look at the car if you are interested, but theres no way I'm driving to the other side of town to check out a car if a few simple photos could have told me that it wasnt what i was after.

 

also avoids the first 2 pages of a thread being filled with "pics please" by various members.

 

threads like this are what I'm refering too:

 

http://www.rollaclub.com/board/topic/45003-ke70-4age-up-for-trade/

 

I agree with this too.

 

The picture should HAVE to be uploaded to the Rollaclub server, not by way of 3rd-party websites and a link to it.

 

This way, it can be automated via script and you don't have to process every sale as if it doesnt see that its been uploaded, it wont go any further until it is.

 

If someone happens to have uploaded a pic that is not the car for sale or just some random picture, then they get a warning and the thread locked/deleted and a 24 hour ban from using the sale sections :)

 

My 2c.

Edited November 7, 2010 by Raven

[irokin]

I haven't replied to a lot of posts directly but rest assured I have definitely read them and the ideas are still in mind. Bit of a long winded post so I've broken it into a few sections.

 

For Sale areas

Mandatory image upload is possible but I'd have to look at the code side of it closer. Really though do you think you'll get those people uploading photos or just not advertising? So ignoring ads without pictures would be essentially the same? (Yes I am trying to avoid spending time on this :P)

 

I'd like to avoid using moderators as servants too. If someone can't be bothered putting the time into the quality of their advertisement then it shouldn't be up to a moderator to have to pull them up on it. Sure, we expect the bare minimums and I've automated that as much as possible but I still find it ridiculous that something like 90% of the moderation is in the for sale areas. Thats all time taken away from being able to make Rollaclub better.

 

All that aside, I believe there's a new addon product in development from IPS (the people who do the forum software). I can't seem to find the development thread again but last I saw it was in beta. Even something like this aftermarket addon. I believe the official one is very similar but a bit further along in development from memory http://dev.millne.com/community/index.php?app=classifieds

 

The FAQ/Wiki

This thing needs a major tidy up! The format worked well initially when it was bought over from Jamie's original FAQ. Now that its grown to encompass more models and a broader range of topics its become fairly messy and difficult to navigate unless you're familiar with it. I think its to the point now where new information has ceased to be added to it as its easier to find it in the forum.

 

What I'd like is for group of members (or one very dedicated member) to get together and take the task on of reorganising the wiki so that it can become a valuable resource again. Much of the information is there, certainly there's more that could be added but I think the primary goal would be to create a structure for future growth that is easy to navigate for first time users. I'm happy to provide a dedicated forum for the group to discuss how to go about achieving this and provide technical input. I'm also happy to assist in some training in how to edit the wiki, it is a different setup to the forum but you really can't mess it up, every change is able to be reverted back to an earlier state.

 

Beyond that helping people add more information to the wiki would be the long term goal. Hopefully that will remove the need for some of the "The XYZ Thread"s as an attempt to accumulate information. These make me cringe because in the long term the information will be lost in the sea of threads. Hopefully if the same information can make its way into the new format wiki it will be valuable for as long as it needs to be.

 

Introduction tour/guide/email/whatever

This is coming out of these few posts:

http://www.rollaclub.com/board/topic/46183-5k-hp-and-a-query/page__view__findpost__p__478624

http://www.rollaclub.com/board/topic/46183-5k-hp-and-a-query/page__view__findpost__p__478693

http://www.rollaclub.com/board/topic/46183-5k-hp-and-a-query/page__view__findpost__p__478700

 

Yes, love the idea but like the wiki it needs some people to put their hands up and put this together. Again I'm happy to provide somewhere to discuss ideas and put together the guide. I'll be there to provide support on the technical side of the implementation and other guidance if needed.

 

New forums/threads

There's a fair amount of consideration given before a new forum is implemented. I try not to overdo the categories too much because it makes navigating difficult among other issues. Tech Tips is definitely one I like though so we may see that in the near future.

 

As I said before threads covering entire topics is not something I'm a fan of and I'm not sure why they've gained in popularity of late. I honestly don't think there could be a worse way to compile data on a forum. Threads are easily lost (and we can't pin everything), the linear nature provides little continuity and there's always the chance sometime down the track someone who's contributed to the thread chucks a tanty and edits all their posts out. Ideally someone would take the time to compile all of the info gathered in these threads in a neat fashion and translate it all across to the wiki.

 

 

I'm sure there's other things I haven't covered so I might pick this up later.