Well, it’s probably time for me to chime in since I see there is some renewed attention around the usability and features of the community software.
I admit, I sincerely wish we had gotten farther along with enhancements, features, and usability requests that have come in from informed community members over the past year. I could lay out all the reasons - funding, competing priorities and demands, non-profit bureaucracy, etc. but I realize these are just excuses. I don’t want folks to think that our lack of movement has anything to do with how we feel about the community and the loyalty of the participants. Replies to posts like this: http://community.cartalk.com/posts/list/1395809.page remind me how great this place is, even when the, um, constructive criticism flows.
Anyhow, I haven’t forgotten about your requests. I still have a list. They still are important to us. We still want to address them. I even went yesterday to folks at NPR to remind them why it’s important to do this stuff. Keep in mind that we have made SOME enhancements from your suggestions - like fixing the spam and kicking out the trolls. Requiring registration and allowing edits in comments. More comments per page and the ability to track/watch specific discussions. The cursor in firefox and the flaky login issues. And a whole bunch of stuff to help new users get in and get on easy so that people can at least post their questions.
There’s a whole bunch of good reasons why we’re not using off-the-shelf discussion forums (sorry). Maybe I’ll save that for another post. But for now, we haven’t forgotten about the things that need improvement and I’ll hopefully be able to post sometime soon with progress on what we can and will address next.
It’s not features, but heavy-handed censorship which is at issue and driving respondents away. Most other sites don’t exercise such adversarial tactics on their forum contributors as Car Talk.
NPR needs to be aware, and care, that the “community” isn’t happy about the current stance by them, and their “tighten-the-screws” resolution.
I remember a forum for specific hybrid cars and problems, but can’t recall the 4th one. I’d like to see an off topic forum for some of us to just chat and talk about non-car related stuff.
it seems most of ya’ll are “half empty” kinda people. maybe we could wait and see what happens!!! maybe things will be easier. also i’m pretty sure that if each one of you worked hard building a website to help people help themselves, and people were using that site to promote their own business, i bet you’d take measures to protect your name, investment, etc, etc. when someone on this website promotes a product or service (no matter how sleasy or far fetched it sounds it is still infered, by virtue of being on the site, that it is a endorsed by cartalk. i don’t know about you but i’m not in the habit of endorsing products i’ve never seen or heard of. my glass is half full and i’ll continue to visit cartalk untill the day comes (if it comes) when i don’t like it anymore.
just my $.02
If the folks at Car Talk Plaza don’t want users to advertise other competing sites, that is their right. That isn’t what this is all about. This is about them making this an issue while they allowed spam scams to continue. There is a real double standard in letting dishonest promotion continue while making an issue of a legitimate forum that could complement this one. It would all be okay with me if there was consistent application of the rules. It is also about posts being deleted that in no way voilate that policy. Seemingly inocous posts have been deleted with no apparent reason or explanation.
If you have to change the subject in order to make a point, you have not made a point. None of us defectors think it is unfair for the folks at Car Talk Plaza to modify their policies. Policies should, however, be applied consistently, and posts that don’t voilate the site’s policies should not be deleted without some kind of explanation.
I have frequented the board for a while and enjoy it.
First great on the Report a Post feature, as the annoying stuff seems to fall of the board.
On format, I am completely indifferent to it and simply adapt. I am thankful it is free and has the name recognition to attract people so it is never stale.
On the new board I hope for the best to all who create and participate there, however it is severely lacking on the hardest thing to attain, web traffic…
On the new board I hope for the best to all who create and participate there, however it is severely lacking on the hardest thing to attain, web traffic…
I won’t talk about the other board, but have you noticed how many questions are going unanswered here? This isn’t normal. Take a look at all the car questions with zero replies. This place is starting to look like a ghost town.
I believe those seeking help will eventually follow those who are willing and able to help them.
