What improvements next for FerrariChat.com?

How many people want the vintage section split up in 3 parts, general, specific and technical? I think there is not much difference between general and specific and not much traffic in technical so 1 vintage section would be enough and faster to check all the new posts because I still want to see them all.

 

And maybe it is possible to include the size of pictures in the HTML code, that way the space for the embedded pictures is already reserved, so the page doesn't keep jumping up and down until it is fully loaded. At least I think so, not an expert.

 

Rob, LEAVE IT ALOOOOOOOOOONE! Leave it be brother. You are already up to your ears with taking care of this great little site of yours. Why would you want to create more work? For crying out loud, you just finished changing this thing and now you wanna do more. You are nuts. Believe me when I say the site is just fine how it is right now. We are very happy with it, at least I am anyway. It took me a little bit to adjust to the new format, but now that I have it's fine. Relax enjoy the FerrariChat 355 Challenge car. I say waite until the summer next year to see what things need to be fixxed, THEN mess with it. But for now leave it be.

 

Rob, the site is by far the best thing that ever happen to Ferrari owners! As I am completing a full ground up restoration on my 308 I would be lost without all the countless recommendations, tips and help I receive from fellow Chatters. I was on a Jaguar Chat for years and can tell you who spent how much on their car and what kind of wine they drink! Who cares! Ferrari Chat members are true car lovers and show it each time a question is answered. Congratulations on your success and hard work!

 

Rob,
Another site I frequent is www.gm-trucks.com

They have a different layout, different features. Some things good, some things not so good. Give them a look, and maybe you will see something you like or something you see that doesn't work for us. They are not just a forum.

One thing that stands out is some of the signatures are HUGE and at times distracting. Also, you can only post pictures linked to somewhere on the web. A good thing is the articles, and many catagories. But they are run by about eight guys.

 

Rob, have you considered using a drop-down menu for the set of links beneath the logo? That in itself would allow the pages to minimize properly. (Currently, those links stay in a fixed position while the rest of the page collapses to desired proportion).

Folks, if it gets deleted, as Rob indicated is a possibility - I saved the "Links" uh, link as an html file in case someone misses it.

 

I agree with Willis360. We need to bring back the full names again. That was a nice feature of the old site.

 

Look to the right of your avatar

 

Doh! I'm an idiot. Thanks for pointing it out.

 

Is this a good time to discuss groups and subgroups? If so here a couple of comments:

- We talked in the past about splitting the Racing group up in active racers and armchair racing.

- How about a group for replicars and rebodies? Recently we had some good long threads and I'd like to see all that information collected in one place for the next time somebody brings up a P4, Mc Gurnie, 250 GTO Velorossa or whatever discussion.

Just my dos pesos.

 

Not sure how you would take to this, but in respect to the registry, will you link up to registries already on the web for specific models? I'm mentioning this not because of mine (well, actually yes), but there are the 330 Register, 250 Registers, etc...

 

Rob, think the site is great, but was wondering if the idea of having a dedicated "New and Prospective Owners" section has been discussed before. I've been on another site where they had this, and it was really useful to parse questions related to the following topics (which we seem to get a lot of):

(1) Good price for xxx car?
(2) Best place for a PPI inspection in so-and-so-place?
(3) Low mileage Model 1 at so-and-so price vs. high mileage Model 1 at so-and-so price.

And other such related topics. You get the idea. I think if all of those types of questions were put in this category, it would make the most sense.

Let me know if this has been kicked around. Again, only offering this up because I know it worked so well elsewhere.

Regards.

 

My top suggestions:

Fix the search engine. It does "whole word" and some other things that cause it to be fairly ineffective. For example, "garage" doesn't find everything that "garages" does.

Split out more eras that just vintage. From the prior thread on this, I like:

• Vintage (1947-1974; Daytonas, Dinos, and earlier)
• Classic (1974-1995; 308 and Boxer through 348 and Testarossas)
• Modern (1995-later; 355, 456, 550 and later)

Then General and Technical can be left for non-model-specific stuff like comparisons between supercars, Fiorano laptimes, awesome garages, and of course bikinis on Ferraris!

I think that would help a lot... for example, there are some great threads in Technical that I would not want to miss... but the bulk of the 3x8 activity there does not interest me at all. I imagine there are plenty that aren't interested in all the 360 discussions going on. And so on.