new forum

[paul.wirdnam]

While people prefer to use the older style "newsgroup" format, then it's going to be tough to take it away and tell them to use this layout.
Yes, it's my opinion and yours, that a modern forum is a far more flexible and useful method of internet support and communication but that shouldn't outweigh what other people are happier using.

It is a shame this forum didn't appear a few years ago...before the mass uptake of smart phones like the iPhones and the Androids.

I'm a great fan of forums and am very active on several wristwatch forums but smart phones have injected a new lease of life to emailed-enabled Yahoo newsgroups. If you're always on the move, then it is much easier to keep track of newsgroup discussions when posted topics appear in your smart phone Inbox.

Several years ago I asked the Accutron Yahoo Group why they hadn't moved across to a forum...within about 10 minutes, I wish I hadn't . Many reasons were given but included such comments "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" etc. One valid reason, and often forgotten today, is that not everybody is on broadband...so trawling a sophisticated forum (with much code behind it) on a dial up connection is a painful experience...far better to receive lightweight emails.

Forum would always be my preference...every time. But the sooner you get rid of one or the other, the better.

[john.nash]

...but smart phones have injected a new lease of life to emailed-enabled Yahoo newsgroups. If you're always on the move, then it is much easier to keep track of newsgroup discussions when posted topics appear in your smart phone Inbox.

Given the age-range, of the AOMCC, I'd have to ask how many people actually own and use a smartphone ?
Mind you, maybe we should be asking the same question on internet usage ....

This forum won't, at present, email complete new posts out.
You can subscribe to individual threads and to an overall forum "group", but that just advises you that a new response/message has been posted. PHPBB (what powers this forum) is being updated all the time, however.
That said there is already a "modification (mod)" to allow a digest of all posts made in a day/week to be subscribed to:
http://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/mod/e ... s/details/
In itself, it's not as good as an email for every post, instantly.

Who knows what the future will hold, in terms of forum design and capabilities.
Maybe older Newsgroup formats (like yahoo) are the way forward and we'd be sorry if we moved away from ours, in a few years ??
What I do know is that we're far better hosting a forum as a club, and keeping the advertisments and complex registration procedures (designed to capture your "business" and sell you more stuff) out.

[paul.wirdnam]

...but smart phones have injected a new lease of life to emailed-enabled Yahoo newsgroups. If you're always on the move, then it is much easier to keep track of newsgroup discussions when posted topics appear in your smart phone Inbox.

Given the age-range, of the AOMCC, I'd have to ask how many people actually own and use a smartphone ?
Mind you, maybe we should be asking the same question on internet usage ....

Indeed! I would say that email has reached all ages groups but participating in forum discussions seems beyond many people.

I'm basing this on a friend of mine who rides a 1930 Douglas S6...a strange machine

[john.nash]

"..that when it comes to technology, all the gadgets around you when you were born are seen as perfectly normal, anything invented until you turn 35 is neat and terribly exciting, and anything invented after your 35th birthday is against the natural order and quite possibly the beginning of the end for the entire human civilization"

'nuff said