AMCA Forum is a backwater of the internet

[tfburke3]

Tom,I think all the experts in any technology have unanswered questions,but like you,share their expertise.
I suggest the club send you a tee shirt,then you will have to make an effort to return it.
BTW doesnt it make you smile when you see your search result time in milliseconds?A subscribe button that takes a whole page line and doesnt work anyway.
I understand the "what you see is what you get".We bought it and now were stuck with it.Its not like a site with an owner who has a financial incentive to increase traffic or subscribitions
The photos are better and thank god no pop up adds.
Thanks to all the posters and moderators.

Tom

[joe fxs fxr]

I'm new here, but still an old rider. There are so many marque-specific forums competing for our screen time, it's not surprising this one gets the short shrift. However, what we do have here, are a some really good experts in their field, and I enjoy reading their posts, even if they don't pertain to me. CAIMAG got a lot of traffic in its day, but most of it was worthless to me, so I didn't bother to read much there.

I agree, the organization could be better, but then you are going down that business rabbit hole, horizontal or vertical organization? i.e. organize by marque or by parts of the bike? I think parts of the bike would be better, because sometimes technique is more important than specific parts. I would read about someone's Indian transmission rebuild, even though I'm a Harley guy, just to see how the person approaches certain tasks that are universal.

IDK if this is allowed, but here's a Harley forum that gets a lot of traffic, and is organized differently. Thank goodness for the 'New Topics' tab! https://f88773fdccdd-004278.vbulletin.net/

Finally, thanks for the work you moderators put into this site, I do appreciate it, and will be contributing my 82 FXR rebuild when it gets started. It won't be AMCA Judged level, but I will strive for originality. Maybe that's what stops people from posting? Intimidation?

Joe

[T. Cotten]

..I nominate ... Tom Cotten for his shared carb expertise...

What if I ignore it, Tom!

There is no way I can be declared an 'expert' when dozens of my questions go unanswered.

(Undoubtedly there are members who had the answers, but kept it to themselves. Egos are already a problem, and the last thing we want to do when encouraging new participation is to become even more elitist.)

The format needs to be thinned out to be friendly. Who bothers with 'trending', or the 'tag cloud', or "Groups", or 'Recent Blog Posts"? Visitors don't need Department of Redundancy Departments.

....Cotten

[exeric]

This was an active site years ago, and I don't think it's current 'backwater' status is due to the site itself. Quite the opposite in that it's now much better technically, offers new options to explore, and is well maintained. I believe it's the membership that has changed the dynamics of this tool. The brain trust is aging and dying off, and getting crankier, which can intimidate neophytes, and possibly older members are just getting bored with old bikes. Also, the influx of big money collectors has diminished the inventory of old bikes, combined with their greed, fear, and paranoia has made them go into hiding and not share the bikes, or their knowledge with the very people they have tried to impress. Cynical; yes, but inevitable with a club that has grown so large, and has a focus on objects that have become so desirable. My biggest regret about the new face of the AMCA is the true antique motorcycles are becoming invisible. Even though Pioneer era motorcycles are rare, expensive, and basically un-obtainable, their history is at the nucleus of this club.

Having said all this, I still love the AMCA, this Forum, and can't wait for the Florida meet.

[tfburke3]

I also think the format needs some already suggested tweeks.
I think more content would attract more participation.
I would guess the old pic thread probably accounts for more than half the traffic.
How about recognizing people who contribute?Maybe a free annual membership for best build thread,or best documentation of an amca meet or best tech article.
How about a winner circle photo history?
A technical section would be nice but it needs contributing experts,and I think they should be recognized.
For this month I nominate Boschzev for his multiple threads on magnetos(not easy to find now)and Tom Cotten for his shared carb expertise.
Tom

[pisten-bully]

What the very low visitation and posting rate means is many people are unlikely to post to this site since they will rightly conclude that very few others will read what they write. Similarly, other people are unlikely to come to this site because the very few posts means it is unlikely they will find the information or discussions of interest to them.

BoschZEV, interesting conclusions you've come to, though I think it's much more complicated than you think.

It's a matter of expectations, I believe. This forum is not Facebook, Twitter, or any other site that relies on page visits to gain revenue. One can always visit this forum and read the content, but in order to post something requires that you join AMCA. That limits the content here, which is fine by me because I believe if you remove the worthless content from the AMCA Facebook page and leave only the content that helps AMCA members restore, preserve, and enjoy their vintage motorcycles then you'd be left with a similar volume of postings.

And as far as being a "backwater of the internet", again I think it's a matter of expectations. I get what I need from this forum, it's a good forum... I always learn something when I read something new, and it's not clogged with postings and advertisements unrelated to our hobby.

Oh, and feel free to hit the "like" button here

[maxglass]

Greetings
I also frequent this site most days and am always surprised at how few posts there are. Having said that , I havent posted much myself. The reasons vary , but it has a lot to do with no follow up on existing posts. As far as suggestions for getting people to post here, I have some thoughts. I also don't do Facebook, but did go and check out the amca Facebook page. I don't think it would hurt if there was a link to this site and a small blurb promoting the forums. I don't think most Facebook users know this forum exists. My other suggestion is to make the forums available to anyone. Allow people to post who are not members of the amca. Facebook is free, that's hard to compete with when you charge. As far as all of the "guests" I would guess there bots, not unsigned in viewers. The number of guests and the hours there on make it unlikely there people.
just some thoughts.
Max

[Lyle Manheimer]

I like the new forum and I visit every morning. I am also similar to most of the motorcycles I ride, old and set in my ways. I find the information here useful and helpful. I don't do Facebook, Twitter or any other social media crap. I like my computer and my flip phone. My 3G flip phone costs me about $100 a year and I turn it on whenever I break down on an old motorcycle. Much to the dismay of ATT, Verizon, Cricket, Sprint and any of the others that have brainwashed people into believing that a cell phone is a necessity not a convenience.
BLB, I don't have any idea how to get these visitors to join. I would guess they are here to glean any information being shared as useful to themselves. Sadly they are missing out on the fun and friendships that can be forged by joining, not to mention a magazine that has evolved from a pamphlet to a first class publication since I joined in the 1970's.
Getting people to join has always been a problem, I had to join to vend at Ft. Mott but I was overcome by the bug and have continued to be a member for all these years and so it goes. Solutions are hard to come by and unfortunately there are fewer and fewer of today's generation interested in the hobby which for me evolved from the joy of riding.

[Omarttentmaker]

Yes, a tech section is a good idea. I usually go to the panhead and flathead site after I view this one for tech questions, problems with assembly or repair, etc. Anybody out there have any more sites they look at regarding these subjects? The more info, the better, in my opinion.

[BigLakeBob]

The item I noted when logging on this morning is 4 AMCA members viewing and 140 guests on line. How do we get those 140 guests to become AMCA members?

A member can view without signing in making him/her a guest.

[Steve Slocombe]

The item I noted when logging on this morning is 4 AMCA members viewing and 140 guests on line. How do we get those 140 guests to become AMCA members?

[Peter Cooke]

"One thing I would like to see use create is a technical article section."

Very good idea.

[ihrescue]

Thanks Charles for bringing this up.

One thing about what causes low participation in a discussion forum is that its more likely to be a number of factors causing it. So it is important for us to trouble shoot this and start to figure it out. Charles and I exchanged an email off of the forum and here is how I responded to his at the time, proposed New Topic.

Yep that can be a problem with a forum Charles. Of course the collective membership is the source of all content. It is a cooperative effort if you will. One area that I want to start is a technical article section written by members that have an interest in contributing info and thus helping to increase available helpful information. I have an idea of how to format it but I need to recruit some authors to write up articles. This would of course only be one area of adding possible interest but one person earlier commented that as a new antique motorcycle he needs guides on how to accomplish some of the tasks, he needs technical info but doesn’t necessarily know what he doesn’t know HaHa. I need to also send out an email to all members of the forum maybe once every two weeks to highlight recent interesting posts to get them interested. I will also do some sort of a short survey to get feedback on what is lacking I the forum. Again a successful forum is all on the content contributed and discussed by the members.

Okay that said lets roll our sleeves up.

1) One thing we won't be able to change is the general over al look. What you see is what you get. However if we make it as user friendly by reconfiguring the forums, condensing to less forums, creating directories that link to specific useful stuff I think it will be an improvement.
2) No we can't go back to the former software version because it is no longer supported with upgrades or support from the the vBulletin Forum producer. It was not working well and I was relieved that we were able to get an upgrade when we did. There is little customization available for the look or the basic components.
3) I have asked for admin privileges to move the furniture around in the forums. We should be able to really just shuffle the deck and move stuff to more general categories to make easier to navigate around the forums themselves. I am going to depend on member input on what stays, what goes, etc.
4) I will create a survey to send to all registered members of the AMCA Community Forum asking for their input. I will create this in Google Forms and when people respond it will collect their answers in a spreadsheet so I can analyze it and get a better idea of what will be useful as we move forward, This will require a bit of work , time and preparation together it set up but I will get it done asap because I think it is important. from there we can look to next steps.

One thing I would like to see use create is a technical article section. Something that takes a specific technical area related to antique motorcycles and presents the whole subject, smaller pieces of the subject, or even differences in a subject area and comparing the various makes and breeds of antique cycles. An example could be Introduction to Magnetos. I am sure that with the expertise of our members we could make available some useful technical articles. Member contribution to our content is fundamental to our success.

Mike Love

[BigLakeBob]

It took me a couple of weeks to get used to the new format here, but I for one like it. I think some people asked for more sub sections and I think its fine too. I do not post all that much, even though I frequent daily, but I do have to say the uploading of pictures is the cat's a$$. Very quick and whatever size you want, a +++ for this forum. A friend of mine brought up the smaller font issue, but we just went to settings and an enlargement to 110% is perfect in my opinion. I don't like viewing the forum on my phone and I think that is where the problem could be, more and more people use their phone for everything.

[Chris Haynes]

The new format is a PITA. REturn to the old format which was easier to navigate and more pleasing to the eye.