Shake Up To Regional Meets

[Stutopia]

A small shake-up has gone on within the Meets, Shows & Events section. The regional approach has been suspended for a while due to a very large amount of old and untouched threads across many regions. By bringing the disparate regions together in one place we hope that it will be busier and easier to follow EVERYTHING that's going on. Perhaps you might even see something that is happening a little further afield than you normally look, but fancy the drive over to get involved.

 

Don't panic. Nothing has been deleted, some inactive threads are no longer visible, we can go back to the old Regional approach if we need to. You can find the unified sub-forum here:

 

https://www.350z-uk.com/forum/254-local-meets-across-the-uk/

 

As a nod to the major benefit of the previous Regional approach, please put somewhere meaningful in the thread title of anything you post up - a town or attraction or local event - so that Members can identify at first glance meets of interest.

 

Feedback is always welcome, I would please ask that we keep the 'change is not good' replies to a bare minimum and give the new layout a fair crack.

 

If you think one of your current posts has been hidden in error, please get in touch by PM with the details and we can bring it back. Likewise if you would want something pinned.

[Ekona]

I hate change, but I think this is a very good idea. Well done to all for making a brave step forward by going back, IYSWIM. 

 

Genuinely, not being sarcastic. 

[Stutopia]

8 minutes ago, Ekona said:

I hate change, but I think this is a very good idea. Well done to all for making a brave step forward by going back, IYSWIM. 

 

Genuinely, not being sarcastic. 

I can't take credit, we got a sensible suggestion from The People, had a think and decided to give it a try. Most of the Facebook type activity is not regionally split so it's a nod towards being down with the kids.

 

Fam.

 

[Ekona]

Iz a bangin idea, blud.

[KyleR]

Now for the reason I wanted to post in the "announcements" section

 

 

I'm not too fond of this but I see what the goal is. Maybe a better solution would have been to amalgamate a number of local regions to form a lesser number of larger regions?

 

The reason I think this is because Someone in Scotland isn't likely to travel to Exeter for a coffee and someone in Wales isn't likely to travel to Fife for a Krispy Kreme, but they may of course travel a little out of their area and for major events, theres already the National Events area. 

 

With keeping regions, people can still choose to "follow" the forum section for their area and be alerted when someone is trying to plan something, whereas people I think are less likely to "follow" the whole meets section for the 250,000km² of the UK.

Being one of the few from NI or Ireland in general on here, there of course isn't much going on in our section, however, when someone does post something, I'm alerted to it, whereas in the new format, I won't be and I doubt i'll be venturing in too often just in case and trawling through maybe a few pages for topics to see if theres a local one.

 

Personally, I can see this pushing people to use social media more to organise things, especially those in more remote locations.

[Stutopia]

Thanks for the comments Kyle, a good deal of your reasoning is how we had the previous format. Where we’ve got a natural barrier, like the Irish Sea, it makes a lot of sense. It’s not easy to nip over the pond on a whim for a meet.

 

Where you’ve mentioned Facebook, is that with regard to Regional Facebook clubs or the National Single Marque ones? The reason I ask is that I tend to follow club pages on FB, but I don’t go looking for local ones.

[Ekona]

Trouble is, where do you join the lines? For example being in Essex would mean I'd happily pop to Herts or Suffolk for a meet, so maybe you'd tag those together. However on a nice day or for the right meet I'd happily go to Sussex or Surrey or Norfolk, so you'd have to include those too. But then people in Norfolk might not travel as far as Sussex full stop, so it's pointless including those in a section together: Grouping only works for the individual, not en-masse.

 

The only way to do it is to encourage people to subscriber to each area they're interested in, and just accept they're going to miss a few things. Can you even subscribe per sub-forum on here? I don't know.

 

 

*EDIT* Yes you can, I just checked.

Edited April 15, 2018 by Ekona

[Stutopia]

Beat me to it.

[LRF4N]

Can completely understand where Kyle is coming from. I’m still new to this and it’s not been easy getting interest for meets up here. 3 threads, that’s more than how many cars/members so far  

 

Another Facebook page started for zeds up here and they managed to get 15 zeds together within a few days. Most were members on here. I’m not on Facebook but looks like that’s how things are going 

 

I hope Kyle is wrong about this move pushing more people that way but if it does there could be a bigger dip

[KyleR]

2 hours ago, SuperStu said:

Thanks for the comments Kyle, a good deal of your reasoning is how we had the previous format. Where we’ve got a natural barrier, like the Irish Sea, it makes a lot of sense. It’s not easy to nip over the pond on a whim for a meet.

 

Where you’ve mentioned Facebook, is that with regard to Regional Facebook clubs or the National Single Marque ones? The reason I ask is that I tend to follow club pages on FB, but I don’t go looking for local ones.

 

Im talking about localised pages, which will never take over from this forum, but can very easily take quite a bit of traffic/content from it. Facebook is so simple for most people and isn’t already taking loads of traffic from here for simple “help” posts, I can only imagine more and more regionalised 350 pages popping up to keep track.

 

1 hour ago, Ekona said:

Trouble is, where do you join the lines? For example being in Essex would mean I'd happily pop to Herts or Suffolk for a meet, so maybe you'd tag those together. However on a nice day or for the right meet I'd happily go to Sussex or Surrey or Norfolk, so you'd have to include those too. But then people in Norfolk might not travel as far as Sussex full stop, so it's pointless including those in a section together: Grouping only works for the individual, not en-masse.

 

The only way to do it is to encourage people to subscriber to each area they're interested in, and just accept they're going to miss a few things. Can you even subscribe per sub-forum on here? I don't know.

 

 

*EDIT* Yes you can, I just checked.

 

I cant remember how many or how small the other regions were, but in my mind I was thinking of a section for all Ireland, all Wales, all Scotland and maybe split England into 3-5 sections. Those near the boarders of the new regions would be massively in the minority, whereas now everyone is affected.

 

its hardly a big issue, and it’s unlikely to affect me much because our region isn’t very busy, but I just thought it would work better for the masses.

[LRF4N]

That would start another ‘Where’s the north’ discussion from Dan  

 

Scotland used to be all one and is now divided into 2 which has its pros and cons, I think there was maybe more spirit with it all as one

 

I think maybe with bigger regions in England it could work better?

 

Like I said I don’t use Facebook so not sure how successful that is and if it would help I’m all up for trying it. I did think the regions gave it more structure?

[Lurch]

I have to be honest here and I think the meets section on here is rendered a little obsolete by the likes of Facebook events and WhatsApp.

 

Realistically we probably had the best meet for a while last week in central Scotland, and as far as I am aware that was all because of the WhatsApp group.

 

I don't see any harm in these pages and to be honest, I think once a meet is sufficiently organised, posting them on here gives other members the opportunity to join in.

 

I think if I'm honest the best way to get a meet well sized is the regularity. for example, a once a month meet on a Sunday night once a month. it gives people the ability to plan in advance to attend.

Alongside planning it means you can come from further away and know its actually going to be worthwhile - take the Tartan tarmac meets, for example, everyone in Scotland knows they are the last Sunday of the month and they get crazy levels of attendance. 400+ cars on a good day.

 

 

I am not being critical of the new system, or the system at all, just trying to think of a better way to use it, I really don't think we need the regional subsections at all. I think if you were to have 2 subsections, maybe something for National meets - Modded Nats, Japfest etc. and then a separate section for the regional stuff. just so if I'm looking to get info on a big event - I don't have to sift through lots of posts about regional stuff.

 

I understand that from Kyles point that he is going to struggle to find Irish meets, but again, unfortunately, I feel like that is probably the minority of the users on here - not that I'm saying you don't matter, just its always impossible to please everyone.

 

 just my thoughts....

 

 

[Ekona]

Or maybe ditch the regional meets altogether. If no-one is using them then just let FB et al take all the traffic on there, and use here for the national big meets.

[coldel]

OK look, the team made a call on trying something different based on pretty valid feedback - like anything in the world 100% of the people will never agree with 100% of the decisions. But for anything to work everyone needs to give it a try, if it doesn't work then we ditch the idea. Its called Test and Learn and is a good approach to have to developing forum spaces.

 

And on a personal note, please don't take forums for granted, the GT-Four forums all died due to some poor management of them and everything is now on FB. There is no community, no banter, its a very transactional experience and not a good one from an ownership perspective. Just saying.

[KyleR]

3 minutes ago, coldel said:

OK look, the team made a call on trying something different based on pretty valid feedback - like anything in the world 100% of the people will never agree with 100% of the decisions. But for anything to work everyone needs to give it a try, if it doesn't work then we ditch the idea. Its called Test and Learn and is a good approach to have to developing forum spaces.

 

And on a personal note, please don't take forums for granted, the GT-Four forums all died due to some poor management of them and everything is now on FB. There is no community, no banter, its a very transactional experience and not a good one from an ownership perspective. Just saying.

 

I completely agree, Facebok groups are great for problem solving, buying/selling and meets, but they miss out on the community feeling that forums have and I sincerely hope this forum doesn't go the way of many others and filter out.

 

I applaud the team for trying to change things up a bit if it was deemed to not be working and I'm just giving my 2 pence worth and an alternative idea to what I think would work better. 

[LRF4N]

Definitely worth a try Colin. For us we have had low numbers for a while so nothing to do with the layout of the forum, it’s the members who make a meet

 

England has been much more active lately so the local REOs can suggest how to Mo r forward 

 

I think definitely keep the regional section though. Adapt with Facebook but not lose it altogether 

 

Our meet was organised by a new Facebook page so I’m planning on working with them in future to get things moving, might mean I finally join faceache 

[KyleR]

#lightbulb

 

How about pinned topics at the top of the section that can only be updated by REO's and we can link to the threads in our corresponding areas?

[Stutopia]

36 minutes ago, Ekona said:

Or maybe ditch the regional meets altogether. If no-one is using them then just let FB et al take all the traffic on there, and use here for the national big meets.

Without being defeatist in the face of competition from Facebook (and it’s Russian robots) I don’t think forums in general can compete with the ease and accessibility of FB, I got talking to a Mustang owner about his mods yesterday and he was telling that me that “you can go on Facebook and get info on things”, which I think we all appreciate is a useful and easy thing for people who maybe won’t go the extra yard to join a forum.

 

Where I do think we can not only compete with FB but out perform it, is the quality of content we can support. More in depth information with proper guides, longer posts with more content, easier to find critical info, more nuanced and interesting back and forth discussions over technical issues, and (without being too snobby about things) I genuinely believe that making a bit more effort to log into and contribute on a forum actually means we filter out a lot of the noise that comes from FB being so accessible.

 

Anyone remember when myspace was the only social media platform? Where are they now?

 

For clarity for anyone reading who disagrees with me, this is how I feel about it as a Forum Member, not a reflection of The Team’s position.

[Ekona]

Sorry if my earlier thoughts came across a bit negative Col, I don't think there's an answer that pleases everyone anyway. Although as long as you please me then I'm happy enough

 

I'd never, ever use FB for anything technical, as it's simply crap at storing info. That said, for stuff that you really don't need to store info long term for (like meets) it's perfect. Also you're spot-on about noise filtering Stu!

[glrnet]

Totally agree Dan, the number of tech questions on our FB page that I KNOW have already been answered here does my head in.  People are lazy too, even if I give a link to here often the questions keep coming and as you say a day later it's sunk into the FB abyss.  I found this place invaluable when I bought my Zed because most if not all questions had already been asked and answered, just a matter of a quick search and job done. It's like a reference section, FB is not, it's just the "go to" resource because it's easy, yes you might get your question answered but it's not then readily available for the next guy who asks the same question 2 weeks later and the question gets asked again.....................ad infinitum. Rant over.

[glrnet]

6 hours ago, KyleR said:

Now for the reason I wanted to post in the "announcements" section

 

 

I'm not too fond of this but I see what the goal is. Maybe a better solution would have been to amalgamate a number of local regions to form a lesser number of larger regions?

 

The reason I think this is because Someone in Scotland isn't likely to travel to Exeter for a coffee and someone in Wales isn't likely to travel to Fife for a Krispy Kreme, but they may of course travel a little out of their area and for major events, theres already the National Events area. 

 

With keeping regions, people can still choose to "follow" the forum section for their area and be alerted when someone is trying to plan something, whereas people I think are less likely to "follow" the whole meets section for the 250,000km² of the UK.

Being one of the few from NI or Ireland in general on here, there of course isn't much going on in our section, however, when someone does post something, I'm alerted to it, whereas in the new format, I won't be and I doubt i'll be venturing in too often just in case and trawling through maybe a few pages for topics to see if theres a local one.

 

Personally, I can see this pushing people to use social media more to organise things, especially those in more remote locations.

Personally I think you've underestimated the "draw" of a Kripsy Kreme

[KyleR]

55 minutes ago, glrnet said:

Totally agree Dan, the number of tech questions on our FB page that I KNOW have already been answered here does my head in.  People are lazy too, even if I give a link to here often the questions keep coming and as you say a day later it's sunk into the FB abyss.  I found this place invaluable when I bought my Zed because most if not all questions had already been asked and answered, just a matter of a quick search and job done. It's like a reference section, FB is not, it's just the "go to" resource because it's easy, yes you might get your question answered but it's not then readily available for the next guy who asks the same question 2 weeks later and the question gets asked again.....................ad infinitum. Rant over.

I completely agree, this place is a great resource and I too have found it invaluable for solving issues with a search, however people are lazy and think every problem they have is unique to them so feel the need to post specifically about them, that goes for on here too. How many times have we seen 3 posts in as many days about the exact same thing? Does my mapper in. 

[Ebized]

Having never had the desire to sign up to FB (and I suspect I am not the only one on here), the forum has, and continues, to serve my interest in the 350/370 perfectly well.

 

Yes, the interest in meets has gone down over the years for various reasons and clearly the growth of FB post the formation of the forum back in 2006 has not done anything to prop up meet interest as time has gone by.

 

I do suspect though that Whasapp is more commonly used for friends to meet up for drives/meets  (speaking from experience) as that avoids the timewasters.

 

So as for the Regional meets being banded together that seems a way forward and I never shyed away from traveling long distances to enjoy a good drive etc - after all, the 350/370s are great cruisers, so why not?

[coldel]

Guys, can we keep on topic please. I am sure there are various reasons for the above posts but lets rise up above it.

[Jay84]

I'm happy going to and organising meets on here or Facebook, and the meet I organised had attendees from East Mids and West Mids folk. However I always post the link from here to fb to encourage more onto here. There is a lot of talk about WhatsApp used for organising meets, and stuff too which I've not tried. 

I think it's always worth trying something new though.