Sam
Moderator
Premium Member
Registered: 24th Dec 99
Location: West Midlands
User status: Offline
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Hello friends, what can we do to help make CS busy again?
Making it mobile-friendly is one thing that Ian wants to do and I've just been a bit shit helping him sort a CSS layout to do that 
But, some other ideas I've thought:
- install a valid SSL certificate because Google probably thinks it's dodgy as fuck and downgrades it for SEO purposes on search engine results pages (Ian?)
- reorganise the forum lists maybe?
- a fresh new design for the 21st century lol
- reinstate premium membership (and "PL") so people can upload pics of their cars
- make it easier to embed images and vids
- maybe a blog system where people can create journals for their project builds instead of the current forum section
- some kind of discounted or free system for doing car checks for premium members (dunno if that's possible - Ian?)
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SetH
Member
Registered: 15th Jul 01
User status: Offline
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I was taking to Ojc about this not so long ago. Still puzzles me how we can go from many thousands of members that were very active over the course of many years to practically no participation at all.
CS was a huge part of my life, I spent much more time on here then I ever have done on current social media platforms. I am grateful that the site is still up, despite the search function not working it is still possible to go back 100's of pages and revisit threads from many years ago. It literally is like an online diary/journal and i've spent many hours giggling at past threads as well as frowning at some of my comments/behaviours (although this has given me good life insights into the old me as a result of looking back)
Where are our users?
Truly is a real case of 'where are they now?' for me, there are dozens of people in which I'd be interested to hear about what they are up to these days. Many, many characters I would still enjoy having discussions with.
why did they leave?
We have had many threads about how social media killed forums over recent years. What are the key reasons for this? as for me it did not. To this day I still spend a lot of time on the Pistonhead forums, I never got into 'car groups' on FB.
We know it is not because they sold their Corsa and moved on to other brands as even back in the early 00's many of us had moved on but this did not influence our participation on the forum.
I expect most have forgotten their log in details, they may no longer have access to the registered email address. Can a tactical simple password reset solution be implemented on the site?
i would be very surprised if we don't have dozens of lurkers that stop by but just don't log in. Either unable or unwiling.
Would new users join
This one I am not so sure.
A) I don't think Corsa's are popular, maybe a committed following for the VXR/CS/Burg? I can't see the revival of the GSi brand being appealing to young buyers. Gen Z want Audi/BMW/Merc's and they can afford them as so many of them seem to stay with parents well into their late 20's and possibly beyond. With the popularity of leasing and living at home they have the disposable income to drive around in a premium german brand. Let's not forget that these manufacturers now make entry level (all be it still expensive) models such as A1, 1 series etc. I can remember a time where if you drove a Merc you had a successful professional career but now these brands are accessible too many on modest incomes.
B) Do Gen Z use forums? or is it all insta and that chinese data harvesting/national security breaching turd that is tik tok?
Redesign for 21st Century
For me, CS is the greatest example of 'if it aint broke, don't fix it', however I have to caveat that with the mobile user experience.
What would be the value of premium membership? for me back in the early 00's it was the benefit of photo hosting and of course the various threads in prem. In 2022 there are numerous cloud storage options with GB's of storage for free or very little monthly cost.
A blog system for project builds would be a great feature I agree
I'd love to see some of the old crowd back, pipe dream I think. I don't think CS would ever get back to its original mission statement which I assume was just a forum to discuss all things Corsa so what would its future look like? The long term members were CS....
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3CorsaMeal
Member
Registered: 11th Apr 02
User status: Offline
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1995 VW Corrado VR6 here. Waiting for the come back of CS so I can post some pics
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micra_pete
Premium Member
Registered: 23rd Apr 03
Location: West Yorkshire
User status: Offline
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Fuck it, I'm in. Gonna buy another Micra.
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Ian
Site Administrator
Registered: 28th Aug 99
Location: Liverpool
User status: Offline
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- install a valid SSL certificate because Google probably thinks it's dodgy as fuck and downgrades it for SEO purposes on search engine results pages (Ian?)
Yes, should be easy but I've no idea what I'm doing
- reorganise the forum lists maybe?
Perhaps but not our biggest issue, plus how to move a load of threads about, manually or using some pattern match on the titles? They're not new threads so we're talking about old stuff. Or making new empty forums that look empty.
- a fresh new design for the 21st century lol
Device agnostic CSS would sort of achieve that. But no, there's no requirement for it to look different or be slower.
- reinstate premium membership (and "PL") so people can upload pics of their cars
That's two things not one, pic uploads yes. Prem perhaps although I don't think image upload is the USP.
- make it easier to embed images and vids
Yes
- maybe a blog system where people can create journals for their project builds instead of the current forum section
If the UI is that much better than a big linear post which given most are chronological tends to work fine.
- some kind of discounted or free system for doing car checks for premium members (dunno if that's possible - Ian?)
Yes that would be more akin to the type of thing that prem benefits would bring, there are lots of places that will discount for bulk and CS could pass on that saving. Or I've also a fair bit of data like the MOT set which as well as doing the standard stuff like history (which is not USP as its available everywhere) but if you have access to the whole set locally then you can do things like wildcard searches on number plate, aggregate functions on things like colour and model etc. so you can see how rare things are, bit like howmanyleft but if you join to other data sets you could discriminate on things like cc and colour which howmanyleft don't do.
There's also historical records, GSi register etc. which would be a prem perk, I've got the full list of GSi out of the Vauxhall build records, join to that to the MOT and tax records and you can speculate how many are still alive, join that to the CS garages and ANPR it and you can get pictures of a lot of them. Be a nice thing when its up and might be a reason to sign up.
Although I'm sure prem benefits were mostly never the main reason people paid, a lot just wanted the site to survive.
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Ian
Site Administrator
Registered: 28th Aug 99
Location: Liverpool
User status: Offline
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Where are our users?
I suspect that's a big raft of answers and not one single cause.
Why did they leave?
Is PH still as busy as years ago? I'm not sure if still being active on PH and not being in to FB car groups is reflective of all old members. I'm a fairly big consumer of FB car groups despite blaming them for the downfall of forums. Also old members having left is not what killed it. The real death is new members not joining.
Log in details I can sort out no problem but its a when I get around to it issue as I can only do it on one laptop at home and I'm trying to not have computers run my life these days, poor excuse I know, shouldn't be dictated by my availability.
Lurkers yes perhaps.
Would new users join?
That's the big one, but I also think that's a question about what the new paradigm looks like and not how to attract people to an old paradigm.
Question for me is what can you do to become relevant and at the risk of being a gen Z cliche wanker, can you disrupt things sufficiently to gain share. That's such a bigger question than can we make a web site busy as for sure these days you're not just talking about a web site. You'd need a brand that spans and engages across platforms which is a major stickler as that also boils down to either a major body of produced content, or remarkable software. Both of which have a very poor ROI while you're starting.
I've always dreamt fairly big and there are loads of examples of me talking about stuff and not doing it, mostly because the actual solutions are massive and if you're going to plan something you may as well plan it massive. On that note its quite clearly not going to be called CS if its going to be busy. If 1000 users a day is the aim - and that's the critical mass for the early 2000s CS experience - then what you're describing is just what happens when you put 1000 personalities in close proximity and give them the space to roughly abide by a framework of topics and a loose interest in the same thing. I can tell you more about how it needs to look like than what its called.
[Edited on 31-01-2022 by Ian]
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DaveyLC
Member
Registered: 8th Oct 08
Location: Berkshire
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by Ian
- install a valid SSL certificate because Google probably thinks it's dodgy as fuck and downgrades it for SEO purposes on search engine results pages (Ian?)
Yes, should be easy but I've no idea what I'm doing
- reorganise the forum lists maybe?
Perhaps but not our biggest issue, plus how to move a load of threads about, manually or using some pattern match on the titles? They're not new threads so we're talking about old stuff. Or making new empty forums that look empty.
- a fresh new design for the 21st century lol
Device agnostic CSS would sort of achieve that. But no, there's no requirement for it to look different or be slower.
Who's the host?
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Ian
Site Administrator
Registered: 28th Aug 99
Location: Liverpool
User status: Offline
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OVH
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Ian
Site Administrator
Registered: 28th Aug 99
Location: Liverpool
User status: Offline
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Email is not working either, need to sort the DNS, pow was looking at it but not sure how difficult that is. Issue being the email boxes are hosted at TSO and the web server is OVH and the DNS, who knows
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DaveyLC
Member
Registered: 8th Oct 08
Location: Berkshire
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by Ian
OVH
And they wont throw in a top level SSL cert? 
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Sam
Moderator
Premium Member
Registered: 24th Dec 99
Location: West Midlands
User status: Offline
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There's always OpenSSL, their certs are free.
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Kif
Member
Registered: 13th Jan 05
Location: Doncaster, South Yorkshire
User status: Offline
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I’m probably not gonna have any ideas on how to revive CS, but I’d love it to happen.
I remember like SetH spending hours scrolling through. I used to get into trouble at work for my browsing history!
I lurk quite a lot and always have a look at the new/old posts that get TTT’d!
Good luck in getting it back and busy again!
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Novaneil
Member
Registered: 26th Oct 06
Location: Leamington Spa
User status: Offline
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I noticed the PNG website went through a similar phase, but then interested started spiking again.
I don't come on here much now, but will more now I actually have a Corsa I use!
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Kurt
Member
Registered: 23rd Oct 05
Location: Hi
User status: Offline
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Make a Facebook group? Or even a discord?
I found recently using Honda forums they were dead and the adverts on some of these forums are so annoying, blocked content, caused posts to jump as they resize, insisting on tapatalk etc
But Facebook groups get pretty much instant replies, however it’s harder to find the info again I feel.
Discords are pretty good though as you could pretty much recreate the sections, but you lose the individual posts as such.
Discord has voice chat too which could be interesting, just call it the “pub”
Edit: Just had a quick look and you already have a Facebook page and group.
[Edited on 11-02-2022 by Kurt]
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Ian
Site Administrator
Registered: 28th Aug 99
Location: Liverpool
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by DaveyLC
quote:
Originally posted by Ian
OVH
And they wont throw in a top level SSL cert?
Who knows, not even looked
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Gary
Premium Member
Registered: 22nd Nov 06
Location: West Yorkshire
User status: Offline
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Lack of interest in corsas as they're now a bit shit and Facebook are the issues. Not sure how you'd get around either of them
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Ian
Site Administrator
Registered: 28th Aug 99
Location: Liverpool
User status: Offline
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Facebook membership falling #justsaying
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SAL
Premium Member
Registered: 19th Dec 05
Location: Radlett, Hertfordshire
User status: Offline
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I use the Transporter forum, crazy busy! Like it was here back in the day, I guess as the T6 and T6.1 are still in production so the forum will be busy.
It’s not really changed here since I was on 24/7 and on my phone it’s terrible
Big up the old members, especially Willay you legend. That massive meet ending up at the farm for a tea…good days
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Ian
Site Administrator
Registered: 28th Aug 99
Location: Liverpool
User status: Offline
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That's reassuring to know that indy web sites can still be busy.
Phone does need sorting, do you know what their solution is? Tapatalk app is apparently good but this software is too old to integrate in to it.
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VegasPhil
Premium Member
Registered: 16th Jan 05
Location: Fareham, Hants Drives: Octavia VRS
User status: Offline
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Yep there are a couple of busy forums that I frequent. Transporter forums and mini related. Briskoda was busy when this place was quieting down. Facebook is busy but my word the posts and replies. You can see why companies like kwik-fit ARE in business. The average person is stupid. There is a much better quality in replies on a decent forum.
Corsa 2.0 16v Vegas - Sold
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Ian W
Member
Registered: 8th Nov 03
Location: Wirral, Merseyside
User status: Offline
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Pistonheads is still very busy and they have kept the very simple layout, works well on a phone screen also.
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Fonz
Premium Member
Registered: 12th May 06
Location: Newbury, Berks
User status: Offline
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I think the issue is greater than what people have suggested here and more a national social/cultural shift away from "modded cars"
I am not suggesting the industry is dead or even dying (i doubt cars shows are smaller or poorly attended compared to 20 years ago and if so only a small %), but the likelihood of seeing a modded Saxo/Corsa/Fiesta (or at least a 2020 equivalent) nowadays is a once in a blue moon event now rather than the one of every street we were used to in the 90s and 00s.
I suggest this is a reason as the modified car scene is the reason I joined CS. I had a minor issue i hit google to fix and found the forum, it wasn't long before I was back and I landed on the site again wanting to know how to do X or what is better Y or Z product and before I knew it I was visiting just to read the chat going on.
I accept its 15 years later and I have bought and sold a house, bought a family home, had three relationships, got married and become a Dad in that time so my exposure to seeing these cars in "Halfords car park" #cliche is less likely as I now move in different circles, but when I had my Corsa I knew I wasn't the only one in town with a loud exhaust hatchback, and certainly not the only one with a lowered car - yet nowadays I am more likely to see a Audi or BMW played around with....or some 80s classic pimped up than a "run of the mill" first car hatch with big wheels/exhaust and low ground clearance.
the cars of today simply are not as easy to play with as they once were. A ten year old poverty spec hatch is still useless handling, underpowered and looks like it was designed in the dark - but for not silly money a tidy spec of the same model can be purchased and the 17-21 yr olds today are happy with it without having the desire to play around with it.
quote:
Originally posted by SAL
I use the Transporter forum, crazy busy!
I think this kinda proves my point. I suspect the Mini and LR (defender) forums are likely to be the same - those "classic" car types which people will always have as a second car/toy and want to improve/get back on the road/keep running.
Many of the users of CS had a Corsa as their only car and so when they changed car may have stuck around for the banter but lost interest in the technical/Corsa specific topics. Soon it wasn't just "my last car was a Corsa" but "my last car was a hatch"/"i had a Corsa/hot hatch once upon a time" and in doing so their experience became less relevant to offer input to questions posed and the banter wasn't enough to stick around for (arguably because SM ticked that "escape" box we used CS for as a distraction for 10 minutes)
Although it has been a while since i have been on track, I still attend car shows but my frequency is once a year rather than 3 times, and only if other commitments (family) allow. my interest in cars remains, it is just squeezed by everything else going on in my life.
Car groups on FB haven't interested me, but i doubt they have the same appeal as the forums of the day and much more of a message board of "how do I....?" style posts rather than the wide variety of topics a forum can create, particularly by separating into various themes - FB doesn't filter such comments to separate SetH comments about tits from someone else asking how to replace a brake caliper.
I do feel that a mobile phone compliant version is essential. A forum I use regular is about 50-50 pc-phone use but i think @Ian has it right - it is the lack of new members which is significant...and comes back to what I said at the beginning - there isn't the same "car modding scene" as there once was.
As I type this and think back to why I first visited CS I think i was ICE related, changing the head unit or speakers or something like that...walk into Halfords today and the in car technology has shift from audio to navigation and dash cam. I am not saying they don't sell car stereos but it is a smaller range than they had which i believe reflects the difference/shift in culture.
why this has occurred i cannot say, probably a selection of small factors when combined have changed what the 17-25 year old car made drivers have an interest in
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pagey
Member
Registered: 30th Nov 04
User status: Offline
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Wow guys!!! Short of reading all through this, we need to somehow get a meet organised like billing where we bring back old school. I think it starts there. Of course there are a lot of VXR people and newer cars around. A lot of us though still have ours and if a weekend show is on the cards then we get the feelers out and do it, there will be a lot with young families etc… however somewhere like billing is perfect for that. I don’t know about everyone else but I’m not too fussed about a 1/4 mile strip I am happy appreciating everyone else 90s motors! How you sort the forum I am defo shit with but do agree it has gone from thousands to a few at best! Hope we sort something lads I feel a comeback on the cards 🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻
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Steve
Premium Member
Registered: 30th Mar 02
Location: Worcestershire Drives: Defender
User status: Offline
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Can anyone revive my willy?
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SetH
Member
Registered: 15th Jul 01
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by Steve
Can anyone revive my willy?
Sassy minx can
UDDER UDDER 
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