Net & Central - *POLL* Cast your votes!!!

[pat15312]

I thought since so many people in the Net & Central thread posted saying there should be a poll, I'd go ahead and do it!
This isn't a genuine or official "vote for what you want to happen poll". It's just to help demonstrate the general consensus of the group(s).
I think if anything, the results of this poll will give the respective forum owners something to think about.
For the record, i'm not stirring up any politics... I would just like us al tom be one big happy scirocco family, in one big scirocco shaped house
A forum is about community...
LET THE COMMUNITY SPEAK!

p.s. i hope you all enjoy the irony of me posting this thread in both forums...

[jc74]

Would make a lot of sense, since you end up reading pretty much the same threads twice!

[Turbo]

my got when i voted in the 2 polls the precentage was the same in both haha freaky

[Evil Derboy]

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[pat15312]

nothing will probably come of this at all! but if we don't ask, we don't get!
the logistics of the situation aren't by any means impossible to get over.
see below my business strategy

Which identity is retained? Net or Central. What would the impact be on search engine rankings?

new identity! start a fresh with a new name. im sure we could all help come up with ideas!
then, you google optimise the pages by putting references to the two old websites. google page rankings to make sure you get high up on the search results is quite an easy thing to do and doesn't cost that much to get a pro company to do it for you.

Who retains control and how is any joint control split?

partnerships do work. i've never been a believer in them much unless they're family run... this is probablly the biggest hurdle...

What about site revenue? Who controls it? How? Where does any money made go?

split down the middle between the two owners. any money needing to be reinvested is first agreed between the two partners.

How does a combination affect any sponsorship deals that are currently in place?

i would have thought this is a benefit of having a bigger joint website. bigger sites attract a greater number of sponsors. also, im sure current sponsors wouldn't mind being placed on a larger website.

What pitfalls are involved in merging the site databases together? What server issues would this cause?

it would be a case of running the two forums side by side (as they are at the moment) but over the coming weeks/months starting a new forum with new servers (investment needed obviously...) and copy and pasting existing information onto the new servers.
this could give the lads an oppertunity to filter out the rubbish and keeping all the good stuff!
we can all name things that one forum does better than the other, this would be a great chance to collate all the good bits and throw away the bad bits.

anyways, like i say, just throwing it out there...

[Evil Derboy]

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[Kev]

Some of those points are not quite as complicated as they might seem.

If there was a whole new site you can easily redirect from the two original addresses until a new site had enough to sustain a good rank on its own. About 3 months would do it given the amount of traffic it would produce.
Control would be a straight 50-50 I would assume.
Site revenue is manageable by either an elected/delegated member or by the owners. I would assume sponsorship revenue already paid could be refunded as a balance of the deal left and new deals set up. Most site revenue goes towards server costs and things like paying for development costs of sites or merchandise etc.

The really tricky bit would be a database merger.

Every user who is on both sites has two different user IDs. For instance, ED, you are ID 1189 on here but 1058 on net. Every post you've made would have that attached ID. There is a script to merge databases which looks at the IDs and names and tries to match them up. This is doable but tricky.

IF it was to go ahead I think I would favour a new board for several reasons. One is that no one site then feels like it's been 'taken over'. Secondly you have a new identity to start off a new footing on where you can both blend together the best bits and remove the bits that don't/didn't work. Lastly I don't think the post archives would really come in to it much as, in reality, most people just read the most recent couple of pages. Any other common issues that have been brought up before would be collated into a FAQ or wiki or How To guide and within 2-3 months you would have several thousand new posts and discussions to act as an archive. Any old favorite posts could have their content copied over or bundled in to some old archive forum.

I'm not so sure about another site springing up. It's a fairly niche model. Golfs and Polos etc have been around for a very long time so the user base is there to accommodate several boards. The scirocco market is quite small. Look at the MkI and II boards. How many are there? Two? Three at the most? if you make a site that's likeable enough, you can grab all the users. The car has been out for very nearly a year and we're still the only two boards in the UK dedicated to it. I think if there was room for another it would have started up by now. You might get someone else trying it but the relative impact would be very low for the first 5 years at least.

[Evil Derboy]

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[pat15312]

just as i was about to double post my latest reply from this thread on net, kev comes in with a ray of light!!!
this certainly is encouraging news!

[Kev]

By the way, I wouldn't want anyone to think this has either been discussed with Tony at great length or is a foregone conclusion based on the results.

Yes we have chatted briefly about it before. It's a option if we both happened to agree on it for the greater good. There would indeed be a huge amount to discuss not only regarding the running and management but the logistics, costs and effectiveness of it.

If a third site did start up I think you have to consider the impact relative to what we have. At the moment we have two very similarly matched sites in terms of users, posts, knowledge and features. If another started up it would have a lot of ground to make up and always be seen as a lesser site in comparison but large sites always survive as the main focal point of any subject. You would have the userbase to not be too concerned about more sites starting. Plus you're more likely to be found on a search so more likely to pick up the users, thus expanding the gap.

[pat15312]

i think you and tony need to get the pints in a get chatting! lol
but yeh, you'll do what you think is right for both parties and we'll all respect the conclusion you come to.

[jc74]

Sorry to pee on your bonfire but you are totally oversimplifying!
...
So again. It's a nice idea in principle but a logistical nightmare in reality.

This is how you distinguish managers from engineers!

[johnjm]

I tried to register on scirocco net but the symbol display wasnt working. I emailed the admin to tell them that im struggling to register and in 2 days have received no word. not a good thing IMO.

[ReubenGT]

I found net first and tried to sign up but never could...

[trix]

I found net first and tried to sign up but never could...

ah well Reuben, their lose our gain, I hope we are satisfying your thirst for all things scirocco

S

[ReubenGT]

I'm well impressed with this site!

tough to them!!!

[Evil Derboy]

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[rimshot]

i signed up for .net, got the email stating my regiistration needs to be approved, but then never got the approval email.. =(

[Evil Derboy]

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[infinidim]

Both sites are really good sites.... well done to the administrators

If the merger goes ahead then that will make it even a stronger and better single site.....

Infinidim