Motoring Alliance is just under 5 years old as I write this. 4 years 11 months and 18 days, but who's counting... It's been just about 2 years since I last asked. This site was built for you, the MINI owner and enthusiast in mind and to that end I want to know how we are doing? What do you want to see that is missing? What is good about Motoring Alliance? What is not so good about Motoring Alliance? The M/A staff and I listen to your comments, we want this site to be comfortable for you to use. If you would rather not make your comments public please feel free to email or send me Private Message. Thanks for your support. Please consider becoming a Supporting Member.
I wish I had some constructive criticisms but I don't. You are doing a good job, even though we can be a demanding bunch. Thanks for a great Forum!
I like everything just the way it is because it has a very nice balance. We all welcome new members and us older members all know each-other and help everyone out. We only have the occasional thread that goes off topic and gets crazy but that dealt with correctly unlike the Mods on the NAMless site. I just wish the site was a little faster to load sometimes.
Thumbnails for the classifieds. A sticky with a calendar of events, in chronological order. More random, gratuitous nudity, but not of any members. Just seeing if you truly are paying attention. My relatively worthless take on what this site has evolved into: The site has become the go to site for the hardcore MINI crowd in the U.S.. Kind of like the American version of MINI Torque, except with better language and no gonadal punch button (which actually was a stroke of genius, I wouldn't mind one of those but it'd conflict with what I have to say next). That's good. Trying to look at it in the eyes of an outsider, or if I was Nate, of whom it's in his best interest is to grow the site, I think it's probably difficult for many (not all, but many) newcomers to step right in and feel comfortable because so many of us have been around so long we trample around like Bulls in the Motoring Alliance China shop (yes, I admit I'm as guilty as anyone). That's bad. We have to do a bit better there more so the new F56 crowd isn't put out, and those that want to put eyelashes on their cars can talk about it (but just not in any of the performance threads). I think it's time for a slight attitude shift, but that's more on the members than the site. Otherwise I'm worried we'll become a site of grumpy old men. I'm actually ok with that, but the site has to attract some young blood to keep it viable. I've said before if you get rid of the hardcore MINI crowd, all you're left with is "what's the best type of oil" threads. In other words, NAM. On the other hand, people still need to be comfortable enough to be able to start a "what's the best type of oil thread", because with time some of those people may evolve into meaningful contributors given enough time. I guess what I'm saying is it'd be nice to either structurally, within the site, or psychologically, amongst ourselves, distinguish between the performance aspect, where it's going to get rough and tumble at times, and the community aspect, where we need to live and let live. It's probably an impossible order, but if we could manage it, the site would grow and accommodate a more diverse group of people.
Too much clothing in those for me. It irritates me to no end that NAM has 154,000 members, and MA slightly less than 10,000. Now, NAM had been around a lot longer and many of those members are gone; it's a misleading stat, but really, the numbers here should be higher, the MA site is orders of magnitude better.
M/A has a curated membership list. Spammers are removed, not just banned like most every other site. Bounced emails are investigated. If the person has not logged in in some time and has no posts they are removed from the list. After MOTD the annual mass PM to gather bounces will be sent. You'll see the membership number actually drop after that. Very few other sites curate their membership roles. If you would like more scantily clothed advertising thats fine by me. Those of you that want that I'll be glad to add it to your profile. From there you just need to go out and surf site such as those you want to advertising for, Google will be happy to handle the rest by delivering you the ad type you seek.
I still consider myself a new-comer to the Mini world and the various Mini forums. Of the several I've checked out this is by far head and shoulders above any of the rest. I'd say everything is fine just the way you have it Nathan.
Ghost ship? - North American Motoring Interesting. Have they given up over there? Have the moderators finally figured out they're being used unmercifully by IB to promote the brand? I didn't think they were that smart, but maybe I was wrong. We need to invite that Trenster dude over here. Actually, I did. Give him a warm welcome if he shows.
I'm pretty good with the site overall, though maybe the Library section could be a little more prominent for newcomers. It took me a long time to understand that the Library contained How To information.
I agree with every thing cct1 said. When you are new it is easy to misunderstand some of our post, they can sound harsh. But once you get to know everyone you realize that we are having fun and its ok to have spirited debates or what ever that word was for it that Nathan found I can't remember. Maybe a interdiction email to people when they sign up. You could even include cards so they would know the players. some like..... Nathan - our fearless leader Dove.0 - OCD about clean cars, Meth pusher, helpful and sarcastic, don't put your hand in his cage. Mettleman - well metal Steve - stays out of trouble, race fan Me - perfect, always right, and lives in a dream world You get the idea.
To help with the chafe between "what's the best oil" threads and real productive tech threads you could consider a form of tiered access. I used to be part of the DSS hacking scene and one of the largest sites was the Pirates Den. There were some areas with restricted access, so new members could get the picture and post all their "how do I get free HBO" or "why is my screen black" threads but didn't get to see or post in the tech section. Once sufficient time and or post count passed, or with a staff or member recommendation, they could see but not post in the tech threads. Only the people actually writing code could post there. This worked pretty well to enable the folks actually testing to share and collaborate without their conversations being derailed with n00b questions that had already been asked and answered a million times.