That site is only good for its marketplace... It's like eBay for Minis. They also have lots of good info in old posts from people that did lots of mods on the Gen 1's. Those people have moved on but the info is still very useful from time to time.
That's pretty much all I use it for Dave, as a Wiki for MINI Gen 1s. The few times I posted I never got responses, so screw them for that.
The fact there are so many "drive by posters" who want the world on post ONE, and never give back to the community is also kinda bad...\ About 90% of the stuff is highly repetitive....how many :my ps pump turns off or will not turn off, my car blew up, where did the oil go? etc threads do you need. If the person has been around a bit, has a bunch of posts, I try to help them, especially when board..... but is IS ALMOST AS EXCITING AS FIXING SOX!!
That is an issue on every forum. You will always have people that run into an issue, find a site in a search and then ask their questions. They get an answer and move on. It's a fact of forums. The trick is trying to engage that user more than the one time they come by. That is where you have differences in site management. Does the site management actively try and assist all users or tell users to go search for it. Long time members get tired of the same questions again and again. But yet it is a fact of forums. Ideally, the search functions are excellent and can extrapolate what the user is looking for by the intent of their search. Not even Google is THAT good yet. There is the 90–9–1 principle - a hypothesis that more people will lurk in a virtual community than will participate. For more on 90-9-1 see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule_(Internet_culture) Without trying to blow my own trumpet I'd like that Motoring Alliance is different. Stats do bear this out on M/A 19% of all visits are made by <1% of the members that visit the site at least 2x a week 51% of all visits are made by 30% of the members that visit the site at 2x a month 30% of all visits are made by 70% of visitors that visit the site 1 time in a month. These are long term stats that cover the site from 5/4/09 till yesterday (10/25/12) What makes M/A different. A number of factors. Members that care, they like the tone and tenor of the site and therefore support the site. Management, that would be me, is engaged. Members email, PM's and site feedback comments are addressed in a timely manner, at least I think they are. So...how can I help you make the most of your M/A experience?
On a side note, this is what NAM has become.... There was a payday loan company spamming the site with threads phishing for business. I replied in one of them: "I would like a loan for 1.3 trillion dollars to help pay off the national debt. My name is Obama, I live in a big White House, look for me..." 100 permanent point for discussing politics, when the intent was poke fun at the payday loan company. Give me a break.... I'll only post on the marketplace over there. That site has one purpose, and one purpose only--to deepen the pockets of IB via vendors. It is no longer an informational site, except for the garden variety "how to change my oil" type of posts you can find anywhere. The community part of the forum is shot, it exists secondarily only to push products. And that's how they want it. I can't believe how they've sold out over there--if the moderators aren't getting paid, I'm stunned at how they can't comprehend how they're being used. If they're getting paid, then at least it makes sense how they're running the site, despite the fact that it doesn't nearly resemble what it initially was. The MINI2 model I guess. I've come to the point where even though, just because of sheer numbers that site has the most traffic, I'm going to try and sell/buy my stuff here first, and only use NAM as a last resort.
Actually, I only need another 50. It's why I won't post there anymore. Funny thing is, the only reason I was on the site to begin with was I got an email notification of a pm, someone was asking for some information. I made the mistake of browsing the forums after answering the pm. Lesson learned! I've filed it away as a wonderful anecdote. It will fit in nicely for a project in the future.
Mentioning M/A will get you banned from what I hear. I've seen that besides censoring MotoringAlliance to **************** now M/A when written like that is now showing as ***. I can't tell you how flattered I am that they consider Motoring Alliance such intense competition that the mere mention of M/A causes issues.
Having links in our signatures to M/A ruffled feathers:lol: As did letting everyone know that PMs are not truly private, that put the proverbial nail in my coffin, but it did get the IB big wigs involved:crazy:
I always wondered about the pms. I've written things in pms that would have gotten me points on the boards... I don't want to sound paranoid, but it seems clear there are vendettas over there. I suspect if someone else had posted what I did, they probably wouldn't have even got a warning. Someone, who we'll give the initials "M.O" for the sake of anonymity, chose to read way too much into what I wrote.... I was actually so dumfounded by it I actually wrote the mod in question a pm. I've moderated once before, on a site slightly twice the membership of NAM. I'd never do it again, but it was fun for a period of time (and in agreeing to do it, I set a time limit on how long I would do it, which was the smartest thing I did). Anyway, I wrote that in my experience that some mods are pragmatic, and understand the spirit of the rules. They tend to do a great job (and I added that is why Nate is so sorely missed on NAM; Nate does about as good a job as anyone moderating). Then there are those that are entirely dogmatic, following the rules to the letter, often obscuring or totally missing the rule's purpose, at times using those rules to the moderators purpose, rather than to the purpose of the rule. Those moderators tend to generate a ton of complaints, and I think that holds true.