Site upgrades - your input needed
 

Hi all,

We are going to start the process of upgrading Madabout. Its long overdue, the current site has served us well but it badly needs an update.

This will be a site wide upgrade, the forum will more than likely go to VBulletin 5 the rest of the site will be custom code.

We have a number of ideas relating to new functionality, useability and features but would like to put it out to all you good peeps to get an idea of what you think is missing on Madabout that you would like to see and use.

Be creative as you like, it might well be possible :typing:

We will also do the same for KitcarUSA and Classic-kitcars

Cheers, John

Hi John, I am a member of other car sites as I would imagine a majority of your members are also. I have seen some good sections covered from site to site and here are a few that you might like to consider

A Classified Section with For Sale, Wanted and Links which aim towards auctions and sale etc. of an item that members have knowledge and wish to share.

An Events section that will give details of local and national events of interest to members either shows or auto jumbles for example.

A Safety section covering warnings and help where members have been put at risk when either building or using their vehicle also anything that will improve on processes being used..

Have a look at http://www.talkaudio.co.uk/index.php/index.html - these guy used to run vb3 like this site does but moved to ipboards (I've been a member there for the last 10 years). Topic is car audio but I think functionally covers in interesting array of elements such as news, forum, classified, gallery etc that makes for a structural model worth considering.

Classifieds could be useful but brings it's own pitfalls dealing with spam/sellers/complaint etc. TA used to have free classifieds but you needed to be a member to 30 days and have 50 posts. Now its a small fee per advert or you can pay an amount per year which also gives you assess to a paid members forum section with offers related to a company with close links to the forum. The more positive side of the classified / paid member is that the forum can be come financially self sustaining.

The news section facelifted with more functionality such as comments or social sharing could be useful.

Event lists would be really use and a dedicated gallery with user uploads.

User blogs could be useful for people who want to create a build log but don't want to use the forum format or a blogging service.

A video gallery could be quite nice which gathers together grouped kit car videos, technical videos etc.

A technical forum subsection might be quite good to gather together general tech threads that might be useful for all kinds of kits.

I moderate on another site http://cliptheapex.com/ which uses Xenforo software http://xenforo.com/ . I will admit to being a complete Ludite when it comes to programming (my job at Clip the Apex is to stop the children fighting!) but the guy who runs the site seems to think this software meets his needs and, from the suggestions above, has the sort of functionality you are looking for.

Thanks for your input so far guys. Sounds like more site wide integration is needed to pull things together a bit more. Certainly looking at IB forum software as VB5 has its own problems at the moment so a change of forum software might be on the cards (IB is quite pricey though)

John

Take a look at SELOC if you can, thats well established with loads of content and would be a good template / ideas for the re-vamp.

Also a mobile version of the site and/or android app would make a good addition.

wrt the paid suggestion above, the bristol kit car club has a paid member section which allows you access to negotiated discounts with various suppliers.

Rovertech also has a "rovertech delivery network" so you can try to arrange "free" delivery for s/h parts e.g. if someone buys something in liverpool and you live in devon you can ask if anyone is passing that way to pick it up and bring it down. Obviously this requires an element of trust but its worked for a good few years on that site.

John
Don,t know much about web sites but could you make it easier to post pics please as I feel it is overly complicated.
Thanks
Dennis

I know what you mean Dennis. Hopefully the new version will be easier to upload pictures, especially for build threads.