TRUNCATING THE MESSAGEBOARD

Ferrari Message Board Archive 10/00-8/02
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TRUNCATING THE MESSAGEBOARD

Post by wwwboard »

Posted by Tom Yang

Hello All,

This Messageboard has been in exisitence for almost 2 years, and has gotten quite large. I'm thinking about deleting it, and starting from scratch. I know there is a lot of useful (and not so useful) information on it, so I want to give everyone some time to get the information off this board before I delete it completely.

Running this site is very time consuming, so figuring out a way to archive the messages is too beyond my time and energies. If someone would like to try, I welcome it, but deleting it is the easiest option.

Your thoughts?

Tom Yang
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Re: TRUNCATING THE MESSAGEBOARD

Post by wwwboard »

Posted by Michael

How about putting this wwwboard aside and implementing the latest php bulletin board from

http://www.phpbb.com ?

This way, users can become more intereactive with one another, as well as have the option to customize the way that the users can discuss any issue.  Also, without going into emails, one could send out private messages to any users.  There are much more options!!!

As one of the website moderators, I am obliged to make these modifications if the users like.  This board will of course be moderated by one of us to insure that the content is clean, spam-free, and organized.  I have been to more than a dozen online forums, and the original UBB layout is more appealing than this "newsgroup" style.  Nevertheless, I am only here to suppliment the codes, not to moderate the site content.

Regards,
Mike.
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Re: TRUNCATING THE MESSAGEBOARD

Post by wwwboard »

Posted by Deane

A few noteworthy items have crossed the board that would make sense to save in an FAQ:  cost of ownership; what brake fluid should I use; synthetic vs. regular oil; knockoff wrenches; tire choices; balancing borranis; wrinkle paint; insurance; exhaust systems; others??.

It's been a great board so far.

We used the php bulletin board at a previous company. It was easy to set up and use.
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Re: TRUNCATING THE MESSAGEBOARD

Post by wwwboard »

Posted by Deane

A few noteworthy items have crossed the board that would make sense to save in an FAQ:  cost of ownership; what brake fluid should I use; synthetic vs. regular oil; knockoff wrenches; tire choices; balancing borranis; wrinkle paint; insurance; exhaust systems; others??.

It's been a great board so far.

We used the php bulletin board at a previous company. It was easy to set up and use.
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Re: TRUNCATING THE MESSAGEBOARD

Post by wwwboard »

Posted by John Vardanian

Tom,

What has made this site what it is today is the useful information that is within.  I think it will be a terrible waste to indiscriminately erase what has been compiled here.  It is true that this is Tom Yang's site and you are Tom Yang, but you have built this site to a point that it has become a serious depository.    There may be many Jaguar, Alfa Romeo and Austin Healy restoration sites, but how many vintage Ferrari sites are there?  I would guess none that there are significant as this.  Better yet, how many Ferrari owners work on their own car?  My guess would be that only one out of 10 vintage Ferrari owners work on their own Ferrari.  Thus, we owe it to ourselves to save the material.  Albeit, about 50 percent of the material here is useless chatter (like our doctor’s who is offering boob jobs in exchange for a motor rebuild).

Here is what I propose:  We should sift through all the material and only keep the messages that are of substance.  To do this you may select a group of people and give each a group of postings and ask them to sift through the garbage.  I would be a volunteer.  You’d be surprised at how much less room you would need for the material that is really worth keeping.

john

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Re: TRUNCATING THE MESSAGEBOARD

Post by wwwboard »

Posted by Tom

Hi John,

If I can get a list of volunteers, perhaps we can create an archive page. I have tried to distill some of the information, and add it to the "tips" section on this site. I could add an archive page in the "tips" section and have volunteers create topics that they have have pulled out of the message board.

Tell me what you think.

Tom
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Re: TRUNCATING THE MESSAGEBOARD

Post by wwwboard »

Posted by Tom

Hi John,

If I can get a list of volunteers, perhaps we can create an archive page. I have tried to distill some of the information, and add it to the "tips" section on this site. I could add an archive page in the "tips" section and have volunteers create topics that they have have pulled out of the message board.

Tell me what you think.

Tom
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Re: TRUNCATING THE MESSAGEBOARD

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Posted by Richard Hills

OK, no comments on my past subject manners.
I would volunteer to go over some of this also.
It is not that I agree with alot of it, but if it is usefull to some, and again we are talking about vintage Ferrari information, then it is worth keeping this information alive and available to all of you that need the help.  And for me to have a good laugh once in a while, no seriously, it is a usefull tool and should be kept alive. I volunteer to help go through this stuff and get rid of the garbage like the CLOWN stuff, who needs that stuff! The rest is is usefull information.
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Re: TRUNCATING THE MESSAGEBOARD

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Posted by BryanP

I agree w/ John that it would be a terrible waste to let go of the vast majority of the posts made on this forum in the last 2 years.  I'm not a web-manager person, but it seems like it might be less work to create a searchable forum archive like on www.british-cars.co.uk (I've searched the MG bulletin board archive there dozens of time and it is HUGE) than to distill all of the relevant topics into 'tips.'  The british cars site system might be the same as the system Michael is describing.
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Re: TRUNCATING THE MESSAGEBOARD

Post by wwwboard »

Posted by BryanP

I agree w/ John that it would be a terrible waste to let go of the vast majority of the posts made on this forum in the last 2 years.  I'm not a web-manager person, but it seems like it might be less work to create a searchable forum archive like on www.british-cars.co.uk (I've searched the MG bulletin board archive there dozens of time and it is HUGE) than to distill all of the relevant topics into 'tips.'  The british cars site system might be the same as the system Michael is describing.
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Re: TRUNCATING THE MESSAGEBOARD

Post by wwwboard »

Posted by Tom Wilson

I agree with the FAQ concept.  I have used this information extensively and am early enough on in the restoration process that I know I will use even more in the future.  I too will be happy to volunteer to cull down the information into a more easily accessable system.  However, one thing we need to be aware of is that most of the threads have contained multiple answers to the question asked.  We probably need to post all the answers in order to let the future reader choose which one works for them.
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Re: TRUNCATING THE MESSAGEBOARD

Post by wwwboard »

Posted by PETER GABRIEL

you could delete the site. while there is a lot of valuable information posted, < questions/answers>. a newcomer to the site has but to ask a question, and he/she? will be answered by all you guys. kind of like starting over. is it possible to put everything on a disk, and offer it to the newcomers?
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Re: TRUNCATING THE MESSAGEBOARD

Post by wwwboard »

Posted by Pete

Peter Gabriel has a good point. Even with the forum as it is the same or similar question gets asked over and over as they have not been able to find it.

Thus it is not the answers that are valuable it is the contacts, deleting it will not be a problem. Thus I am more concerned with what is going to happen to this site when you have finished the restoration.

It must be costing you to maintain this site and also the disk space allocation ... and I thank you for doing this, but are you intending to continue?

In conclusion my suggestion is that you allocate a certain size to the forum and when it hits that size, delete it and start again.

Pete
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Re: TRUNCATING THE MESSAGEBOARD

Post by wwwboard »

Posted by Pete

Peter Gabriel has a good point. Even with the forum as it is the same or similar question gets asked over and over as they have not been able to find it.

Thus it is not the answers that are valuable it is the contacts, deleting it will not be a problem. Thus I am more concerned with what is going to happen to this site when you have finished the restoration.

It must be costing you to maintain this site and also the disk space allocation ... and I thank you for doing this, but are you intending to continue?

In conclusion my suggestion is that you allocate a certain size to the forum and when it hits that size, delete it and start again.

Pete
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Re: TRUNCATING THE MESSAGEBOARD

Post by wwwboard »

Posted by Tom Yang

Hi Pete,

Thanks for your concerns about the future of the site and my expenses!

The deletion of the messageboard is mainly to shorten the load time of the initial page of the bullitin board. Loading the 500K file hundreds of times a day from everyone checking the board hits my server pretty hard, and takes a while for dial-up users. I'm simply trying to give better service to everyone around the world.

Yes, the site costs me money, but time as well. I do it because it I have fun doing it, so I don't plan to stop. There's no need to worry about that. What I am going to do after I'm done with the 330 America is more an issue!

I certainly cannot afford to buy another Ferrari in boxes without selling my 330 America, so that's out of the question...for now. I'm hoping with my ever expanding reach of the website, I may find a forlorned Ferrari that the owner would be willing to let me have with the promise of seeing it restored and brought back from oblivion, but that would probably never happen.

Do you guys have any ideas how I'm going to spend my Fridays after the America is completed?

Tom
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