Some of you have noticed that there have been changes to the sticky section and to the long standing rules.

The UMW CO's have been talking since around Thanksgiving on possible changes to the UMW forum and the rules that we've had standing. Well, some tactical changes have been made prior to Spring coming upon us and the UMW getting a new pack of owners signing up.

The sticky section had a lot of 'noise' stickied. For the most part people weren't paying attention changes or posting to threads that resided there. So threads were unstickied, and the rules have been re-vamped.

• The "Introductions" thread has been unstickied, but is still active. A new sub-forum will go up in the thread's place so that members can start their own threads for managing profiles, interests, their S2000's profile, and so on.
  
• The Frapper thread was unstickied due to non-use.
  
• The Google calendar was unstickied due to a potential change in how event lists will/may be managed as sticky threads (this one still needs to be thought through); the Google calendar may make a re-appearance.
  
• The original Rules thread was unstickied and buried somwhere into past UMW threads. The new rules thread was re-written so that the UMW would have LESS rules. The UMW CO's want to moderate LESS and one way to accomplishp that is to have less rules to comply by. Hopefully this also makes it more inviting for new owners to want to participate on the forums and hopefully show up to more meets.

The ultimate goals for the changes made and upcoming on the forum are to have more inclusivity of owners and members, more participation of current and new owners on the forum, and to aid in building relationships and friendships that extend beyond this site.

The approach that Charlie and I have taken, we think, is a fairly solid one. I've been on this site close to 9+ years, have been an owner for 10 years, have participated with various car groups, teams, and clubs since 1991. Charlie is fairly a new CO, but has been with the UMW for a few years. We've melded experience and fresh ideas together to hopefully create anenvironment conducive for more participation by more members.

Please be patient, you'll start seeing some small and some larger changes in the new month or so. We will try to make it as seamless as possible having to work for the UMW community and aligning the site admins with our changes.

Thank you.

**As always, comments and suggestions are welcome...but try and not get personal with it. Remember that CO's are people too. We make mistakes, we have emotions, and we react the same as anyone else would given situations. So please try and not take anything personally; we are doing things for the good, and not just to do things.

 

Hi All

I'd like to echo Urmil's sentiments as stated above-- I'm excited to see the UMW grow this driving season and believe that the new structure of owner profiles, inclusive guidelines and reorganized schedule will affect the community in a very positive way.

As Urmil and I have been discussing these changes back and forth the general theme of the discussion has been centered around keeping the interests of everyone in the community (past, present and future) top-of-mind. As the community grows we want to be sure we're all equipped to have the most positive, educational and overall fun experience possible.

I'm excited to hear your feedback as these changes continue to take effect over the next month. Also, if you have concerns you'd like to air in private rather than in the comments section of this thread please feel more than free to PM Urmil and I.

Here's to a GREAT upcoming driving season (and hoping it starts sooner rather than later!)

Cheers
Charlie

 

I would like to echo them too, and say if anyone needs anything at all, feel free to PM me.

 

What about the track calendar? Pat just updated it with a full season of events?

Why take away things (like the event calendars) before you had a suitable replacement?

 

I am all for fewer rules/monitoring and cleaning up "noise" that isn't looked at/used. But I'm not sure about this one:

with this explaination:

i would think the calendar should be a stickied reference, and individual upcoming events could have dedicated threads to discuss details, planned attendance, etc. at the appropriate time.

 

The calendar for the laymen user only gives a one month view.

If I were to plan out long weekends based on events in the UMW for the Summer of 2010, the single month view was tedious to use for planning purposes

The interim idea was to sticky Patinum's original thread with the list of track events and dates. I would have like to keep the thread open (as open to locked in read-only state) but wanted to avoid any whoring, or inconsequential posts. Unfortunately, before any changes were made, that thread turned conversational. I did not and was not going to to edit that thread after the fact.

In anycase, Pat included a link to the post with the calendar, so it's not like the calendar was lost.

That's the interim.

The long-term solution would be/could be a dedicated sub-forum for a list of all known events in all of the UMW as a central point to see what's already planned for. We'd still do sign up thread in the main forum, but the sub-forum could give users a quick glance at what ALL events would be coming up for any given month (in a list view)...this way if someone is into AutoX, HPDE, and the show scene, he or she could plan and budget accordingly to what he/she wants to attend. Again, this hasn't been completely thought out.

The main intention was to reduce the noise up top so that when changes took place and were stickied, they'd be noticed.

 

Thanks for all the positive feedback!

 

I don't believe more subforums are going to help, but I am willing to see how it works.

However, people had the ability to sync the calendars to their personal calendars, recieve email updates and even text messages when new events are added. How do you plan to address that functionality?

 

I agree stickies were ignored far too long, no one noticed they were there... subforms means more chance for PPD!

 

Maybe this is just me and Pete, but I used the calendar A LOT when it was regularly updated. I pretty much live off the autox/track calendar (which is why I'm so willing to organize it). And now that I have a smart phone (which is becoming more and more common), I love to plan for and around S2ki meetups.

Not complaining. I just know how useful Google calendars is - for all the stuff in my life, not just S2ki. And the sharing part of Google calendars just seems ideal for a large and active community like ours.

I'd like to see a subforum too. Just don't get rid of the UMW Calendar.