220 replies to this topic

[Jim Boemler]

I don't think a redesign will accomplish much. You closed the old neighborhood bar and people don't take to change all that easily. That's just the way communities work.

+1. The new site works quite adequately. The stuff that annoyed me at first I can't even remember now. Nothing wrong with improving, but "nostalgia" for the old site just isn't really worth anything.

[Alberto]

I'm usually on "View New Content" looking for something new, like the old site, it's easy. I can always look farther back if I want. Like Craigs List.

All the different class on the front page make it difficult and overwhelming for some, even more if you're on a phone. "Where do i go? what do i do? Ah forget it".

If you want to know how people are using the site have a poll.
What do you do when you get to the site.
Click, View new content.
Use Search.
Scroll down and see who's here.
Click on your region.
Other.
J~

I agree. There are many sections that I don't really understand the need for.

[Johnny D]

Start at the beginning of the tread.
http://mazdaracers.c...t=0
J~

Some of you may not be able to see this thread so here's some comments.

Overall I think this...
"View New Content" should be on the main page with the rest on the right.

But if you don't want to rip everything up then...

Paddock
I don't think it should be at the top.
Announcement important info but not the rest.

Mazda Club Racing
Should be at top
Difficult to read Subjects across page.
The Subject should read as bullets, like SM.com,

SM
SCCA
NASA, (separate)
MWC
MX5
all the rest, like SM.com

Have "location" of unit being sold in the classifieds
Have a button for new comers, link to explaining/tour thread
More Emoticons if possible.
I still would like pictures popping up but I don't think thats going to happen.

Just cleaning/tuning up the basic structure.

My orig comment was you(JD) had a successful site and a great/simple working foundation.
The same foundation/structure wasn't put in, in this site.
In Windows you don't totally change everythig in a upgrade, it shouldn't have happen here either.
I do love all the new bells and whistles.
Same structure, new bells and whistles, all the best of both worlds.
But you can't make everyone happy all the time.
J~

[Mark McCallister]

I think it's mostly been covered. I think the big thing is bringing View New Content front and center. Other than that and cleaning out the huge confusing list of empty boards, I think the site is pretty darn good. (this is where I would put that old thumbs-up emoticon) EDIT:

I would like to be able to keep scrolling back in time on View New Content like a Facebook News Feed with a "View Older Posts" button at the bottom, and not have things disappear like they do now. There is a reason why there are 750 million Facebook users - the News Feed is a very natural format. Sort of like the chronological filing of things on my desk.

+1 on more emoticons. There are many more choices, including racing-specific ones, on other sites.

My suggestions for a greatly reduced set of boards (get rid of all the sub-boards completely) are:

Site Announcements (there has been confusion about who's announcements they are)
Spec Miata/MX-5 (fold in Rules & Competition, Safety, etc.)
Spec Miata/MX-5 Garage
Other Mazda Racing
Videos
Off Topic
Northeast
Southeast
Great Lakes
Central
Midwest
Southwest
Rocky Moutain
North Pacific
South Pacific
Classifieds (Just do classifieds in a forum, I like to browse classifieds in chronological order and can't now)

It's always better to start with too few boards and then split them when traffic gets too heavy, than to start with too many and have dead ones.

Best,
-Mark

[Johnny D]

I would like to be able to keep scrolling back in time on View New Content like a Facebook News Feed with a "View Older Posts" button at the bottom, and not have things disappear like they do now. There is a reason why there are 750 million Facebook users - the News Feed is a very natural format. Sort of like the chronological filing of things on my desk.

You currently can. (At least for me) At the bottom of the main page there is "Today's Active Content" Click on that, and at the bottom of that page I can go back 24, week, 2 weeks, month, 6 months, year.
J~

[Tom Hampton]

Combine Pit Lane, Pit Board, and Off Topic none of these have enough traffic to warrant separate forums.

Combine "Mazda Professional Racing" and "Racing News, Events, and Press Releases". they are both basically the same topic.

The Mazda Club Racing subgroups should be by Car, in particular, Combine Spec Miata and MX-5 groups of forums. NC is a different beast from NA/NB but there is zero traffic on it.

Each <car> grouping could have one forum per major race class. But, again its easy to get too fractured which is worse than not enough. I think it would be better with just a general discussion, and a garage, and maybe an FAQ forum. There isn't that much difference between SM/SSM/SM2/SMT/ITx etc and there is a lot of cross-over.

The Spec Miata/MX-5 grouping has too many sub-forums, most of which only have a small handful of topics. However, many of these have little reason to be a "spec miata" specific topic: tires, safety, data acq, smulators, smtv, or smack talk.


SMTV has been superseded by "Videos". Kill it.

SMack Talk is unused. Kill it. What's wrong with smack talk being posted in the SM discussion forum (or a regional specific forum, as desired).

As is SMulators...but, perhaps a general sim-racing forum is still warranted? Dunno, there are other better forums on the net for that sort of thing, nothing other than iRacing is specific to this group of people.

Make a Racing Technology grouping to include: Tires, Safety, and Data Acq. I think these are all sponsored forums anyway...so, I know they can't go away. Besides, removing the SM specific flavor should increase the value to the sponsors. Heck a lot of the "setup" discussions apply to the other car types, too. Maybe move the "setup" section, as well.

I think there should be one forum per region. Is it really that hard to separate out NASA and SCCA conversations in the same listing? I don't think so. Most of what we discuss in the region forums is only about a region....and not specific to either organization.

In summary, the above would look like:

Paddock

• Announcements
• Pit Lane (complaints, suggestions, random topics)
• Racing News
• Your Videos
• IRacing

Mazda Club Racing


Miata

• General discussion, Garage, FAQ

Mazda 2/3

• General discussion, Garage, FAQ

RX2, Rx3, Rx7, RX8

• General discussion, Garage, FAQ

HPDE / AutoX / TT / Rally


Racing Technologies


Tires, Safety, Data Acquisition


Regions

• NorthEast, South-East, Great-Lakes, Central, Mid-West,
• Southwest, Rocky Mountain, North-Pacific, south-Pacific,
• NASA, SCCA, MWC

[Caesar Vielmas]

Thank you all for your feedback. Johnny D / Tom, thank you for creating a summary for us.

To clarify, the new boss did not ask my team to do a redesign of the site; I agree with most in that the site is "pretty darn good". What Drago asked us to do is to tie up a few loose ends on the site. Many of the suggestions mentioned here are items already in the pipeline and we will get to them as early as next week, others will come as more time and budget allows. I'm sure they will be many more and we will continue to imporove the site as time goes on.

We spent our time this week working on the servers and tightening things there. Next week is when we are going to start seeing some of the changes in the front end.

For now, we have a few priorities that are really pressing...like "emoticons" - who knew that was such a hit?!!. We are on it!

Consolidating categories, cleaning up, and moving a few is at the top of the list.
Today's Active Content, top of the list.
A few functionality changes to classifieds and the store.
And a few other surprises to the SM category...just because many of us DO miss the old site.

Again, thank you all for your patience and support as we make this transition.

[Tom Hampton]

I would like to say that I'm stoked to see an active admin around....and he's from the SouthWest, too! Dunno what happened to the old ones, but its felt like it had gone open-loop for a while. Maybe they are still around on the backend...I see that some of them have logged in recently, and other's haven't for months.

I've felt since day one that this new system has a TON of potential. It was a good start when it went live. But, going back to before the sale from JD1 to JD2: JD1 was too busy to direct the tweaks needed to address the legitimate gripes from the gang (hence the eventual sale). Then of course, there was the required transition time to JD2. In all, it led to a sense of "who's driving this ship anyway?".

At one point I volunteered to assist with admin tasks. Although webdev isn't really my specialty, I didn't want this place to stagnate. So, its good to see active attention from Caesar and Co. AND its nice to see that JD2 has a plan, and is making the investment.

Now, where's that ::thumbs up:: emoticon?

Signed, "excited to see what comes next"!

[Todd Green]

If you want to know how people are using the site have a poll.

Running an analyzer on the web server logs probably couldn't hurt either.

[dmq]

A "how to" section would be nice.

[Caesar Vielmas]

Graemlins are back!

[Johnny D]

Wow like a 100 ???



Found out you can't put too many either.
J~

[Keith Novak]

Pure awesomeness!!

[Gatoratty]

Tired of selecting "New Content" and it tells me no new content. I also want my animated Gator back as my avatar! Really miss being able to scan all of the categories for interesting threads.

[Tom Hampton]

Yipee!

[Johnny D]

Tired of selecting "New Content" and it tells me no new content. I also want my animated Gator back as my avatar! Really miss being able to scan all of the categories for interesting threads.

You currently can. (At least for me) At the bottom of the main page there is "Today's Active Content" Click on that, and at the bottom of that page I can go back 24, week, 2 weeks, month, 6 months, year.
J~

Hope this help^^^. Also stop signing out.
Can't help you on your Animated Gator.
J~

[Tom Hampton]

Alright, i have to say it:

All hail Caesar!

[Mark McCallister]

You currently can. (At least for me) At the bottom of the main page there is "Today's Active Content" Click on that, and at the bottom of that page I can go back 24, week, 2 weeks, month, 6 months, year.
J~

Ha, cool, thanks! I never saw that because I always went to the View New Content link on the top. New bookmark for me!

[Jim Boemler]

All hail Caesar!

Yeah, but by March 14 it better be 100% !

[Johnny D]

The new site works quite adequately. The stuff that annoyed me at first I can't even remember now.

Yeah, but by March 14 it better be 100% !

J~