No - leave here with possible changes 34 vote(s) 87.2% Pretty conclusive that the main reason this came up has been shown not to be valid for most of the membership, but we'll certainly put in the work list some look & feel changes for our developer to do. Thanks.
So in summary, people to want what I suggested. To stay here since we already have a lot of intellectual property invested; that makes sense. It also makes sense to make some changes to the look and feel of the subgroup to get a "Maserati feel". My other suggestion, which you did not ask in your poll, is to provide a direct link (Maseratichat.com, etc) to this subgroup. Do you own that url? If you do why do you not point it here? As you probably know, that takes no work. I do not intend to be confrontational, just need to understand your logic because personally, as someone that spent many years for a Fortune 50 company doing web hosting marketing, I just do not get it. Ivan
I'm onboard with all of that! Please be patient there is a bunch going on right now that users aren't aware of. Nothing bad, just a full workload for our limited staff.
Hello Rob, In haste as I am leaving for a seven hour drive: the most important thing in my view is that there be a proper direct link MaseratiChat.com so that people feel this is not the step child poor cousin section, behind Ferrari, that it is not accessed through the service entrance. Once you have that proper access there can be a lot more people reading and posting, particularly from Europe but not only and it can generate you more advertising revenue for you from Maserati corporate, official dealers etc. Some may find it not important and miss the point but this direct access is crucial for expanding the viewership and participation in this section. I have at events mentioned this section to classic Maserati owners and when I mention that they have to go through a Ferrari site their eyes glaze over and they lose interest, rightly so: why would Maserati have to be a second class citizen? One other thing, I personally use the old style Fchat -don't like the look of the new one- and would hope this remains possible, likewise I like Ivan's suggestion that the presentation and style of the page be adapted to the Maserati ethos.
That won't be a problem and I'm glad you will like the feature. However... 1) We've never had this in 21 years of Maserati forum at FerrariChat. 2) Having a direct URL won't add any traffic. It is like our old AviatorChat.com url to the Aviator forum. AviatorChat.com use to be a fairly large stand alone forum, 1,000+ users. Years ago we removed the link from AviatorChat.com to the forum, no one even noticed except Bob Parks, who had bookmarked that url. It won't help SEO to have a direct URL, if anything it will hurt it for having duplicate content. If it makes a few power users feel good, then good enough for me and easy to do. 3) Only the new style can have an updated look just for Maserati. The Classic view is just that, the way it looked until 2017.
It may or it may not. Time will tell. The real issue for a lot of us is a question of respect for the marque! Please do!
If you wanted to start a respectful large religion, would you be better off going to a remote isolated community amongst yourselves already converted or better in a large city and evangelize the heathens.
Was ONLY referring to a parallel Maseratichat.com address being made available to expand our reach. That's all.
Picking up on the exchange we just had in another section where you were surprised at how much more GT racing there was in Europe and I compared this fact you were not aware of with the fact that you don't see how many more European classic Maserati forum members you could get out of Europe, where the classic Maserati world is larger, IF ONLY you would give us a proper Maseratichat access instead of the current situation where one has to go inside a Ferrari chat site FIRST, BEFORE going to the Maserati section. You are no idiot but you seem to either miss that point or obstinately refuse to see it, like a negative magnet not wanting to get close to another negative magnet. To make it plain and simple you are wrong when you make the hurried sweeping statement that "Having a direct URL won't add any traffic." Once we have a proper Maseratichat access a lot of us in Europe can mention this forum through word of mouth to other classic Maserati enthusiasts. You made another off the hip statement not based on any solid evidence: "If Maserati had similar enthusiasm there would already be a community out there as large as Ferrari." Of course the classic Maserati world is smaller but it is bigger in Europe than in the US and you could stop being an obstacle and just let this direct proper link happen. You would be surprised...and it should not cost you anything. Please see that I and others are trying to help Fchat help the classic Maserati world and mutually so. It's about dignity, about the fact that Maserati should not be put in the position of being Ferrari's step child, perhaps you don't understand that it matters to us but please understand not eveybody is the same, lots of differences between the old and new world -not sure how much time you have spent in Europe?- so instead of turning you back to more revenue and blocking the growth of this section let it thrive.
I'm onboard with what you say, it won't hurt and doesn't cost us any resources. However, I believe you are way overestimating any traffic or financial impact. That is immaterial though as even if just an improvement for current users, that's good enough reason.
Rob, If you agree then what is stopping you from doing it? You and I know that pointing maseratichat.com to this subgroup is a no brainier. I once asked you if you owned the maseratichat.com url and you never responded .... do you own it? Ivan
I'm not sure, I don't think so. I own hundreds of domains and then Motorsport Network has some others. Either way we can find something that works.
Rob, you are making circles. You seem to say why not, yes we can, but then we see that you don't budge, arguing that we will not gain anything. Please, stop talking and move!
I wasn't the one spinning, many of the outspoken users here thought they had it figured out, I said pause a second, then after discussion y'all didn't have it figured out like you thought you did. What makes me a good admin is I'm not jumpy to a few outspoken users that then turn out wrong.
And now you are attacking and blaming your customers. I do not think they teach that in Marketing 101. Ivan
I'm being honest and if I haven't spent a single minute on this particular task while it shakes out, I have spent it where 99.999% of our traffic and customers are.
I think you might be the one that doesn't understand. Payment from customers comes from user traffic, subscribed users, and commercial sponsors. There are many ways to break it down % wise.
We are paying and are not second class citizens. If you were a restaurant manager you apparently would be the type to dote on the big spenders and treat other clients with contempt. That, after living in eight countries, visiting 22 in 57 years, dining in countless restaurants would in my experience make you the worst restaurant manager.
I never said customers were second class. It is obvious I'm very customer focused. Look at our traffic, number of subscribers, and sponsors. We've done a great job for 21 years now, 100x better than any other Ferrari forum and better than 99% of automotive forums. Sponsors
