Is Mike expanding a good idea

[Gerry]

I have been a bad boy.
STICK with me here please
I joined Hamb a month or so back and today posted a few pics of the Fad. Its astonishing the number of posts and threads that place gets in just a few hours.
So WHAT.

Well, Mike was posing the question of expanding the Forum or was it starting a new one to attract more traffic and its associated rewards (not just for Mike but for all of us). I think that would be a great idea for the following reasons

1. Bigger is better within reason
2. A bigger audience gets more input and offers everyone a more diverse outlook on our passion
3. More sponsors
4. More people can be turned on to Ts
5. We need to grow to keep going for many years to come.
6. I have no problem with this forum getting bigger and diversifying so long as the Bucketters maintains it position as a stand alone entity.
7. We have a great attitude and exceptional amount of experience between us
8. The forum is run in a civilized and polite manner (Something the other ones could learn from)
9. We never talk down to people (as above)
10. We are simply the best Forum in the rodding scene

Oh and finally

Mike has too much spare time on his hands LOL Bet hes sitting back with a coffee right now. looking for something to do!!!!!!!

gerry

 

[fordsbyjay]

I find it very hard to keep up with the posts on the hamb. Twenty minutes later you can be on the next place already, and to be honest I hope it doesn't ever get like that here. I am curious as to how one goes about getting more traffic or expand the site though. Are we still thinking of just T's or expanding to a larger selection of rods etc?

 

[deckofficer]

That is what I'm trying to figure out. Of the last 2 "T only" events I've attended, There is only about 3 of the 100 new people that I've met are on this forum. I think this forum would be busy just with T owners if they just join in the fun of this forum. On the events thread, I just asked Dennis why we don't have more T folks on this forum from those 2 events.

Bob

 

[Gerry]

I agree with the 'too busy' thing. Hamb is just too much happening in too many ways too quickly.
Gerry

 

[Northstar T]

I had understood Mike to imply that it would be a new hot rod forum altogether. not connected to this one. I'd be the first one in the door if that were to happen, as I've been on quite a few hot rod forums and they all seem to gather the same "me to" group of idjets and the ones that post "my car just stopped alonside the freeway and I need you to tell me what';s wrong with it". then about three pages later the guy discovers it's out of gas. The hamb is just too big to remain personal, as well as leaning a bit heavy towards what is perceived as "traditional" for my taste.

Russ

 

[Keeper]

The hamb is just too big to remain personal, as well as leaning a bit heavy towards what is perceived as "traditional" for my taste.

Russ

That is what the HAMB is all about. It does get very busy there and things get lost very fast unless you use the subscribe feature. On the other hand, there is a TON of info over there.

But it cannot compare to here, here there are no stupid questions and folks genuinely want to help. Post a dumb question on the HAMB and you are more likely to be told to F off. Can get pretty hostile at times.

 

[fordsbyjay]

But it cannot compare to here, here there are no stupid questions and folks genuinely want to help. Post a dumb question on the HAMB and you are more likely to be told to F off. Can get pretty hostile at times.

Sounds like the yellow bullet.

Is the "other" t-bucket site that people talk about the BBS at the NTBA? I can't stand that outdated format if it is. I think we just need to get the word out better to increase traffic here but we need to keep in mind that T-buckets make up a very small market of the the street rod industry (even thought they get the most attention ).

 

[Gerry]

(even thought they get the most attention)

Now thats what I cant figure out. When the T is at the trans shop, everyone. well almost, has to look at it and ask questions. But I bet only 5 people over the last years have said Ooooo a T bucket. One even said whos is the FAD?
Were missing something here, but I cant figure out what.
Gerry

 

[Mike]

If I decide to do a hot rod/street forum, it will be a separate site. I don't want to dilute this site with discussions about other types of cars. this is a T-bucket site and it will always be a T-Bucket site. There won't be any changes happening here, for at least as long as I own the site.

It's still very early in the 'what-if' process and I don't know it would ever come to be. I could have a rudimentary site up and running in a matter of 3-4 hours, but there are a lot of things that need to be considered. Coming up with a good domain name and a hosting package are just two items on the list that seem to be holding me up. I spent a couple hours researching domain names a few months back and had come up with some good possibilities, but the cost of hosting was holding me back. And today, that list of domain names is nowhere to be found. :shrug: If I could come up with a good domain name, then I need hosting. Then I need some forum software, which isn't too big an issue, I still have some vBulletin licenses and I have one IP.Board site that is showing signs of being in its death throes. So then, you throw all the software up and then you spend a couple hundred hours tweaking files and templates, in an effort to get things right. Then you need good people to help moderate the site. It can really be a ton of work to open a new site and get it running. Then you gnaw on your fingers, wondering if the site will ever take off.

For those that haven't been here long, I opened this site up as a hobby site. I figured I could use my Web/forum site knowledge to set up a site where like-minded T-bucket owners could come together. I figured this was going to be a very tiny niche and my goal was to end up with 200 members. I figured if we ended up with 250 members, that would exceed my wildest imagination. We opened in mid-October 2006 and by January 2007, we had a grand total of 6 members and some 90 posts. I figured I would chalk it up to a learning experience and announced I would be closing the site within the week. (Remember those days, Rick?) That very day, we got a couple more registrations, so I left things as they were. And we're still running today.

We were hosted by a Gawd-awful host and there were days the site would just not run, because server loads were so high. Loads were never below 9.00 and the coders at vBulletin recommended auto-closing the forum if loads went over 5.00. I can remember on bad days loads would regularly swell to 30.00 and even as high as 50.00. It could take as much as 3 minutes to get a forum page to load. It was grim. I found another host and they did us a pretty good turn, until we grew to a point where we were just too big for their packages. We moved to our current host and things have gone well on that front, ever since. I just checked server load and it was all of 0.16.

We're now at 2196 members, a number I never dreamed we would see. To be honest, the only person that had the vision to see how big this place could become is B.C. He just kept chuckling and telling me we were going to keep growing. Bob, you knew what you were talking about.

The downside to all this? 2196 total members and only 100 or so are actively visiting the site. Another 75-100 visit infrequently. If I were to delete all the members with zero posts, the site would be considerably smaller. If I were to delete all the members who have not visited the site in the last year, the site would shrink a bunch. This software has a feature that saves me a load of time. When someone registers a new account, the forum sends them a confirmation e-mail and places their account in a Validating usergroup. They have 168 hours (7 days) to confirm their e-mail address is correct. If they do not complete the confirmation process within 168 hours, their account is automatically deleted.

It's the 10% rule. How many of you are active in your church, in a Lodge or another organization? I'll wager if you determine the total membership of that organization, you'll find only 10% of that number are actually participating within the organization. I don't understand the phenomena, myself. I don't join anything, just to say I've joined. If it doesn't interest me, I'm in the wind. But, if it does interest me, I will do my best to promote things through my participation. I'm the exception to the rule, as I regularly see new members registering here, only to never return.

I don't know, maybe I need to start searching for snazzy domain names for a hot rod site again. We shall see...

Gerry, you were certainly right about one thing. :nod: I always have a coffee near at hand. It's pretty rare for me to not have a cup of coffee sitting here at the desk.

 

[Gerry]

Mike
I ll put my thinking head on and come up with some ideas. Bet they all been thro your head but what the hell.

I have just had a call from the editor of our Gasser magazine. Its the UKs , NSRA, bi monthly to members. The yella fella is getting its mug shot in it so I have asked Nick (the editor) if theres any way he can mention our little forum.

I am considering murdering someone for the publicity. And then saying If i had stuck with the Bucketeers this would ave never happened... after all theres no bad publicity.
Maybe i will write to our car mags and see if I can get a PR in them for us. Just cant think of a premise at the moment.

I m asking for money for the Forum this Xmas from friends and family. Its a better present for me than sox, ithings or the usual stuff. Have to say here the Merlot ask, will take presidence
Gerry

 

[Gerry]

Hey guys it worked
Just had this back from the editor of Gasser

Gerry, I am more than happy to do that, but it will have to wait until the issue in January as this issue is now complete. However, this gives me the opportunity to put some images with the info you have supplied. All the best Nick

 

[Mike]

We'll certainly be thankful for any exposure we can get.

I don't imagine too many of you have Web sites of your own, but if you do happen to have a blog site and would like to insert a link to this site, I would be appreciative of that, as well.

If you're using HTML code on your site, the code for the link would look like this -

<a href="http://www.tbucketeers.com/" target="_blank">T-Bucket Forums</a>

If you're posting on another forum, you can also use BBCode to link back to us and that code would look like this -

Damn, I can't get the code inserted without it parsing. It would be a left bracket, an opening URL tag, an equal sign, the URL for the site, a right bracket, T-Bucket Forums, a left bracket, a closing URL tag and a right bracket.

With this second option, please be sure the other forum's owner doesn't mind you inserting the link. I have to admit I generally remove links to competitive sites, so please don't wind up another forum owner into thinking you are trying to spam his site with links back to this one.

We've kicked around the idea of business cards and bumper stickers, but that stuff all costs money. After the Great T-Bucket Forums T-Shirt Debacle, which still makes me ill uke:, I just can't get too excited about investing money in any of those items. We bought cases and cases of contingency decals at the shop and we still had a tick over a dollar in a pair of decals. By the time you add an envelope, print the address on the envelope and pay the postage, you've added another 50¢ to the expense. Not to mention the time involved to process the requests and put everything together. I'm better off spending my time working on the sites, rather than running back and forth to the mailbox.

 

[deckofficer]

Mike,

Very interesting and informative posts. The last 2 events I've attended, I have met about a 100 T owners that maybe 3% are active on this forum. On Fred's Fun Run I told participants that all the pictures I took would be posted here. I've gotten emails from some of them saying they were unable to open the thumbnails. I just gave them the URL to my Photobucket page. Can non members of this forum open thumbnails? I just don't understand of all the T owners in the 7 western states, not more are here. This is a great "T buckets only" forum with all the bells and whistles. If nothing else, I still believe this forum and t bucket ownership will increase over time just because the large population bubble we call "babyboomers", are getting to that age that they can start spending money on themselves instead of paying for college for the kids.

Bob