An Open Letter to YarisBueller and VitzBoy

[tomato]

Oh, shoot, almost forgot why I came back to this thread in the first place! Here goes:

TK-421 (hehehe, by the way, funny name) you wrote a really nice letter. I don't know about the rep level either but for the initiative, and the letter itself. Well done!

[tk-421]

Originally Posted by ChinoCharles

You were right on having mods from different time zones. That would help with the spam thing.

See? I knew you weren't completely opposed to my points above. Can mods change their poll answers?

A captcha for signup would also probably eliminate 90% of our spam.

Thomas should have had admin status from the get-go.

Agreed on both counts.

As far as how this forum treats new members, I wholeheartedly disagree and I've grown a little disenchanted from all of the negativity regarding how people are treated on this board. This is the most docile, kind car forum I've ever seen, yet there seems to be some level of striving for a forumtopia among a small contingent of our members. I just don't get it. I really don't. I'm an active member of three car forums and visit another 2 or 3 and I can honestly say this one is a puppy in a lion's cage. Try as you may, you'll never legislate perfection, and to try to do so is overly tiring.

Well, some of us may well be overreacting in this respect. But you have to agree that negative members/topics/replies have become much more commonplace as of late. I can take a bit of this negative vibe. But I also think we should have some contingency steps at the ready if this problem gets out of hand in the future.

I always meet YW improvement threads with a good dose of meh.

Oh, I've kinda noticed my friend...
Still, I do appreciate you taking the time to respond.

Originally Posted by ChinoCharles

And about the wiki... it would serve the forum no proper purpose to set a wiki up because referring people to an off-the-forum wiki detracts from the search engine rankings of the pages of the forum itself. If I don't know these forums exist and I Google something and land on a wiki, theres a good chance I'll never find them. That is all bad.

Actually this can be easily solved by providing a link to the relevant YW forum thread inside the wiki article. SEO would actually be strengthened, since you have a link to a relevant (though not the same) topic. For a good example of this, check out mp3car.com. They have all sorts of stuff (wikis, forums, blog, store, etc) and they make it all look like just one big site. Google rankings are extremely high for them too.

Originally Posted by PK198105

i refrained from voting since, its kind of a waste of time , no disrespect to you TK, but if i remember correctly in the last 6 months we had at least 5 other Poll threads with improvement ideas and it did nothing, we still get spammed, people still bitch at each other and might as well take off the search and FAQ section as no one is using them.

Actually, I think you would've wasted less time by just voting, but I may be wrong.
Thanks for your input nonetheless, Pavel. I really appreciate it.

Originally Posted by AlexNet0

I personally believe a wiki section will improve the ability of new members (and a good "finite" collaboration area for seasoned members) to find and improve/build/revise upon proven concepts, homemade mods, etc. I personally hate sorting through (as others have said) 5 pages of bullshit to pick out the 10 helpful posts to get something done.

Thanks for your input, Alex!

I do, however, believe that this also should be moderated by select members, perhaps a "post and get approval by poll" before being added type system, that way it wont be clogged by useless posts, being the point for such a wiki in the first place.
To address the issue about not being directly linked to the forum, templates can be edited, links and graphics can be added, it can be made very clear that that piece (wiki) is only a very small part of a much larger community effort.

I completely agree with the above. There are many ways to have wikis and forums co-exist without deterring from each other's importance.

Originally Posted by tomato

TK-421 (hehehe, by the way, funny name) you wrote a really nice letter. I don't know about the rep level either but for the initiative, and the letter itself. Well done!

Thank you, mater! Took me a little while to get everything out without it sounding offensive. I'm glad it came out OK.

Originally Posted by toad

my .02(if anybody cares). i've been on here a couple years now and bought my second yaris partially because i discovered what a valuable resource this was after buying my first!

The above should serve as a testament of how YW has truly served as a great resource for lots of ppl around the world.

rep points are silly because(as again already stated) most of us 'regulars' already know who is full of knowledge and who is full of....it. heck, get rid of post counts for that matter.

If it were up to me, I'd place the post counts inside each member's profile area (where one leaves personal messages and stuff), and I would certainly remove them from their usual place.

As far as the "rep points" idea, I am not completely married to it. Please post some ideas on the subject if you have them!

Originally Posted by advocate

As someone who is almost completely car illiterate, a wiki would be great to save me the embarrassment of asking things like "what does LSD stand for?" Rather than find out the hard way after 4 days of seeing the term used so many times that someone finally posted the un-acronym version.

Thanks for your comments, advocate!

[jclo3313]

All I can say is that I have made some new, and might I add good friends on this forum. That being said we are in need of help and I would gladly donate any of my circuits or gears if it would help.(If you catch my meaning) I miss YW of days gone by. I'd love to see it brought back to it former glory. This forum weighed heavily in me even buying my YARiSin the first place. I know that I have not been as active as I once was in part do to real life holding me back, but also due to some of the concern mentioned in this thread. I'm rambling but I'm back for good (I never really left) and I will do what I can to help.