hotbox05

what you need to do is get rid of the toyotalife forums and lexuslife forums. no one here uses them and they take up scionlife's bandwidth.

or whatever it is you call those sections of this site. and I know it's using up yer bandwidth cause even tho the headings say toyot or whatever the web addy says scionlife

scionlife

Well, this is a call that I had to make some time ago. I want this site to continue to grow for the next few years and as Scion owners trade in their cars for Toys and Lexii I don't want to force them off the site.

When the site started I felt that clubs needed a helping hand to develop since the cars were so new. They were meant to be temporary until the clubs grew large enough to support themselves. Now that Scion is established, and so are many clubs, it is time for those clubs to create their own online presences if they want a private space for themselves. I am NOT kicking them off the site, they can still use the regional forums to communicate with each other.

Administering the club area is a pain in the butt. There are MANY steps to creating the forum area, group, titles, moderators, group moderators, etc. As things on this site evolve this was one of the things that I planned on eliminating.

By the way, although you can access the various Toyota and Lexus forums through the ScionLife domain name, their true homes are here:
www.lexuslife.com/forums
www.scionlife.com/forums
www.toyotalife.com/forums

Tomas

Sad to see the 'private' areas for clubs being done away with as that leaves the clubs with nowhere on ScionLife where they can talk amongst themselves without extraneous input from non-members.

cjastacio

Just an idea.........But what about trying to hit up Toyota for some sponsorship and kick some down for better servers. It seems as though this site is an important guage for them on scion owners and they may be willing to at least listen. After all, what's the worst they could say? No? I know that when I joined this site it was a great resource for what clubs are around the area and what is going on with local clubs. If you get rid of club forums it may have the opposite effect of what your looking for. It may actually cause less input from less people because of less exposure due to no club forums. Maybe rambling on my part but also some input from a loyal visitor.

hotbox05

exactly. I post on the team nvs forums at least once a day as do most other team nvs members.


doing away with the clubs function will make it so as that many members will leave scionlife.

it's sad cause it will make it very hard for us to get any new local owners. without having an on site portion.

i guess like almost every other change on this site nothing any of us ever say will ever seem to matter.


basically what i'm saying is keeping clubs on the site will give you way more views and way more traffic , whether just for in club talk or for every section like I am . without clubs some people will be intimidated or bored by the non essential (for them) info.


just my two cents......

there's gotta be another way to speed up the site other than killing off the clubs.


maybe kill off the semi dead/ hardly posted in clubs.

OldYeller

Trade in my Scion for a Toyota or Lexus!! I am 55 and can afford just about any car I want. What need have I for anything beyond my XB?

hotbox05

the reason toyota made scion was to lure in young buyers , then have them move into a toyota then into a lexus after that.

dugzilla

I don't think I will be buying a lexus anytime soon, nor do I come on here to read about other cars. I think most people on here are strictly scion.

Guest

What he said!

FrankenScion

I am going to have to actually agree with Darren on this one, not the site owner Darren but the postwhore Darren......lol.

I'm actauly glad it's happening though, cause it will divert a huge amount of traffic to our new site.

hotbox05

it will make it so team nvs loses at least half of our recruiting of new members.

scionlife

I would love it if Toyota kicked in, but they don't. To tell you the truth, I think Toyota treats SL as free advertising and they know that we will be here whether or not they help support us. It is the same way with all of the other enthusiast sites that I know of -- Honda doesn't support Honda sites, etc.

As for better servers, that isn't so much the problem.... it is just that we need better streamlined software and MORE servers. I am working on those problems... I am trying to get us onto another SQL server to speed things up.

The PRIMARY reasons I am dumping the club forums is because they are a pain to create and administer. You might ask that I just leave the few remaining club forums up and not create any new ones... well that is what I have been doing but EVERY little club in the US emails me begging for their own forum.

I don't feel that every group of three Scion owners should deserve their own forum, and I feel that the large clubs should have their own forums on their own sites anyway.

You gotta remember, it's just two people that are working behind the scenes here, there is a LOT of work that has to be done on a daily basis to keep things going smoothly. I would rather focus my energy on creating more content like tech articles, features, etc, than spending my time for just a very small percentage of our community.

scionlife

Oops, I am not going to remove the usergroups that SHOW club membership... so club members can still have it listed under their usernames on posts.

FrankenScion

That's a plus.

hotbox05

well I understand that but nvs is the only northern cali group that's free. big plus.....

and what work do you guys do on club forums? we have club moderators so...


whatever obviously it doesn't seem to matter what i say. sooo thanx...

it's a shame

Stu_Gotti

I would reccomend making a listing of the clubs in each region.. maybe having individual stickies with each club and carry on bout your business that way.. or better yet.. most clubs should get their own website and possibly their own forums..

Scionara_tC

At the very least there should be something directing people to the club sites. I mean, you mentioned that clubs will have until April to set up their sites, but no time was given for them to post a change under their club forums here.

I was there last night, and went to go in today and poof! gone with no idea what happened.

My suggestion would be to post ONE message saying something like:

"Club Forums have been removed to help speed up the site. You can find these clubs at: (list of sites for clubs that have one)"

You could keep this on until the deadline to give people an idea of where to go find the club info.

Just my 2 cents.

FrankenScion

The forums are still there, the dropdown menu is just gone.

https://www.scionlife.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=103

Our new site will be done shortly, I've been getting sneak peaks.

Stu_Gotti

Just check out what I did in the Mid-Atlantic forums.. making a post, or "registry" if you will, of all the regional clubs and linking them to their own respective sites would be the easiest solution. Forums aren't that much to get going or websites for that matter.. just my opinion..

Tomas

Right, the SL club fora are still there, it is just harder to get to them because the basic listing of them that a lot of folks used to use has vanished.

Most folks probably were totally unaware that the club forums were going away, or expected to still have the same access to them until April.

Probably the easiest way to get to the club fora now that the main listings for them has been deleted is to go to the bottom of any other forum page and use the "Jump to" drop down until it, to, disappears.

Since the club fora used to always have a listing under "FORUMS" at the top of the page, most folks did not set bookmarks for their favorite forums - they depended on those links.

With the sudden changes happening, it would probably be a good idea to bookmark your favorite places here at ScionLife so you can continue to reach them until their demise.