Ideas for improvement of the website

If your posting to this thread, please keep it concise.


A board for the Espace Turbo and new Clio Turbo? maybe we COULD include a board for every new turbo'd Renault, but it would detract from the tuning stuff, so the way may be to create a separate boards cars section for, say pre '91 cars and those with pre-91 engines, but include the sport versions of later models, and create one for the newer eco turbo'd models.


What about Classic and Current?

Classic
-- 5 GT Turbo
-- 9 Turbo
-- 11 Turbo
-- 21 Turbo
etc

Current

-- RenaultSport 1x2
-- RenaultSport 197/200
-- RenaultSport Megane

the option to "Thank" and "Like" posts
MultiQuote
Share a thread to FaceBook if it's in the non members section?

Mouse over to larger version of avatar photos on the threads views.

easier use of mobile devices. Items such as tapatalk

Sub sections within sections to make searching that much easier. :)

:agree:

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Originally Posted by andybond

easier use of mobile devices. Items such as tapatalk

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Android/iOS app that notifies you when classifieds get listed (if tapatalk does this, then great).

Better search options, for posts and members.

Better calendar with "I'm attending/not attending" functionality

Gallery view of classified ad's to easily see picture of car/part and price without actual uat clicking into the ad.

Reputation points for answering technical questions

The option to hide sub forums and posts in them. Eg; I don't own that car, and I don't want to read about it. This is probably more useful for non- gt turbo owners.

Better advertisement of new technical articles that get written.
Reputation points for writing good technical articles.

The upcoming events page in your face with a list of attendees like we had on the old site
The home page updated monthly with news and events and anything club related (almost a live link to it from members but approved by committee)

I used to do that homepage news. It needs to be done manually but there's only the lack of someone to do it. Do you want to do that Matt?

The old Mark Philips site did work better with that aspect and I also lament the loss his events calender. Even though Scoff really put a lot of time and effort into the one we have built into the vB.

It's not impossible that one could be written outside the vB forum and work like the old one. Even if this was temporary until something like that could be incorporated with a forum software package. Again it just needs someone to find a programmer, and perhaps another to specify what's needed.

I know this is stating the obvious and is the most basics of day to day planning and web stuff that we've been already doing for many years especially each time we've evolved the forum or site. In about 2006 I had a 40 point list of tasks like this that we were going through.

But I post it here so that people who don't know what goes on behind the scenes can know that we know this already :)

>>Upgrade to latest version
>>Find someone capable
>>Trial site for look/functionality
>>Cutover plan, communicate downtime, contingency planning (Systemic and People)
>>Independent backup in case of failures (Copy everything so its never lost)
>>Promote to live at communicated time

>Stabilise and bug reporting
>>Fix bugs (if any)
>>Discuss plug-ins and additional enhancements (This thread)

>Upgrades
>>Start to introduce plug ins and additions. One at a time so we can attribute issues to a single change
>>Feed back and opinion
>>Monitor usage (And going forward unused features can be removed again)

If you are looking for a fully featured CMS ( content management system ) then I am not sure vbulletin is the one ?

In its current iteration v5.x.x it doesnt have a CMS. Its rumored to be released at 5.1.x release.

Have you ever used wordpress ? Thats a truly stunning tool that can have the forums linked in with it.

I love WordPress, I use it for my blag.

I use wordpress on giraffeit.com , http://www.countryscapeslandscaping.co.uk/ , giraffeit.com/football ..

Awesome tool

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Originally Posted by Ian S

I used to do that homepage news. It needs to be done manually but there's only the lack of someone to do it. Do you want to do that Matt?

The old Mark Philips site did work better with that aspect and I also lament the loss his events calender. Even though Scoff really put a lot of time and effort into the one we have built into the vB.

It's not impossible that one could be written outside the vB forum and work like the old one. Even if this was temporary until something like that could be incorporated with a forum software package. Again it just needs someone to find a programmer, and perhaps another to specify what needed.

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Ian. Im sure I could spare the time to update the front page with news etc. As long as im fed the information or I pull info from the club threads/committee discussions?

If its easy to do make it from immediate effect, if not then I guess will have to wait untill the new revision of the site?

:agree:

Dear god all these threads are making my piss boil.

I don't comment or express my opinions on these threads normally as I'm a firm believer if your not willing to step up and help don't comment.

It's not even 10% of the club that's causing this ground hog day complaining!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyBSrBqogPY

I've been here with the club for over 14 years now and have seen what has happened with Rach, then Bruce and now repeatedly with Miller (I can understand why he keeps such a back seat from all the argro he receives).

We are a small club that for the last 6 years or so have had two exclusive club events a year, at the pod and our track day. Not forgetting our numerous euro trips which is punching well above what most clubs our size can do. Thanks to the committee for organising these events and I'm thankful for all your work. :agree:

Things are on a downward spiral its inevitable car numbers are going down and no matter how we repackage this club to promote it, we are mostly GT turbo owners. Numbers have settled to around 500 paying members a year, this is decreasing to less members which have Renault turbo's but who stay with the club due to friendships and our cracking events when organised. It would be great to grab a new generation of Renault turbo's into the club but until members start buying those cars or competing with other cars and developing a repore with them at events we will not increase our numbers. This is what the club should be more concerned about not silly politics amongst people.

Peace out long live RTOC

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Originally Posted by Logg

these

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What he said.....:agree::)

Nice one Logg. These threads are turning into bull****.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Logg

Things are on a downward spiral its inevitable car numbers are going down and no matter how we repackage this club to promote it, we are mostly GT turbo owners.

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Currently, yes, but I (and I hope others too) think that the new breed of FI RenaultSport kit is a plausible and attractive market for expansion. Very, very few clubs like this have the opportunity....for example the R5GTT OC, the R19 club, the 21Toc are all model specific. Unless Renault restart producing them there is no more market opportunity. This club is lucky enough to have new models being made within its current scope (Renault and Turbo'd), which is very well known and embedded. Not only that but these is even more opportunity to pick up the dying model specific clubs to fortify the ranks even more so.

IF you could tempt, attract or bribe some of the new-regime guys in here with some tasty treats then the RTOC could see a second wind, maybe even back toward 4-figure membership. Doesn't that sound plausible?

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Originally Posted by DaveL485

the entire site was lost not long back in a migration

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Wrong.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DaveL485

Obviously no independent backup was taken, which is an amateur mistake.

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Wrong.

The old site was lost together with about 30 of Mark Philips other sites when the hosting company he'd passed us all to deleted them all. Email servers too. Only they know what happened. RTOC may have had limited control or server access at that period. We never the less had two backups, all be it not with up to date forum posts, one Gordon had taken and one Mark Philips had taken which was used to restore the site and data base which still run on another server. During that time when we paid another company to eventually recreate the old site, Scoff, in parallel, created this site and the decision was taken to use it instead.

What was lost were the members files and photos. I expected they had been independently backed up and was very surprised to find they had not, but it was a lot of data at the time and evidently some programmers don't value that stuff.

You evidently have nil knowledge of these events. Many of the members here do have, so what do you expect they are thinking about you after making such statements.

And I am an amateur. It was professionals who fcuked up.

The committee will be deleting these posts from this thread.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DaveL485

He is the one giving me a hard time more like. He's copied my post without credit (in fact, for the second time in this thread he's taken content of mine) and included a snide dig to boot. Considering the entire site was lost not long back in a migration, it's also hypocrisy. Obviously no independent backup was taken, which is an amateur mistake.

Add to that the disappearing threads where I have been quite badly insulted and I think I've been rather calm and pleasant.

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I've actually had enough of reading your pathetic posts now Dave. Move on & shut he **** up.

how about someone willing to take results, pics and small write up of the events that do happen, however big or small? Would be good for those who cant make events to see what goes on, or even entice newer members into going to them. Scoffs rr is a good example. id loved to of gone but had other comitments but im really interested to see who got what and see some pics of the day?

:agree: :agree: Please someone volunteer to do it :)

And feed items to magazines. I have this running https://www.rtoc.org/boards/showthread.php?t=21185 and whilst there were a few people respond and we were often getting a piece into 'readers yard', interest stopped two years ago.

I can't do this any more; write articles for mags in each mags own vernacular. But it might help to keep the RTOC in the press.

I do keep the ads going in PFC. The person who was taking that over from me seems to have had to back off from active roles. So yet another thing that either I do it or it doesn't get done. I want more people involved to share the work load and optimise all aspects of the club.

I'm sorry to say I havn't been keeping track of this discussion much, but I think it's worth me adding that if folk really wanted to keep the add-ons I wrote (live, wizard, contacts, files, banners, and some of the admin) then they might not need much modification to work with later versions of vB.

Those add-ons use the vB database to retieve data on the user accessing the page - to establish who they are, what their privilages are, etc. If those elements of the database havn't changed much then it should not be hard to make them work.

But a lot has happened to the WWW in the last 5 years and this site really should not be using my old code when going forward. Instead it should be re-created in something modern, CMS or whatever. So it should be a last option. I guess it *should* be easier to find an individual or company willing to do that then write or modify my old code ? I wouldn't know. My web developing skills were a couple years out of date in 2008, let alone now !

I'm sat in the same part of the Venn Diagram as Logg, I'm grateful that anyone takes on anything that keeps this show on the road.

Anyway, my sort of related point is, who are these people? There must be a list of them somewhere on the site but I can't find it. Someone help this old duffer out :laugh:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ian S

:agree: :agree: Please someone volunteer to do it :)

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I'd be happy to do it for the events I attend but they are few, if someone would volunteer at each event it would be better, I don't mind doing it if people wanted to just email me the pictures, could upload them to the home page and maybe create a completed/past events thread so pics and rolling road results could be listed for all to see?

how about a how too section?

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Originally Posted by robx1r

how about a how too section?

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https://www.rtoc.org/boards/forumdisplay.php?f=17
:)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Andrew Cooke

I'm sat in the same part of the Venn Diagram as Logg, I'm grateful that anyone takes on anything that keeps this show on the road.

Anyway, my sort of related point is, who are these people? There must be a list of them somewhere on the site but I can't find it. Someone help this old duffer out :laugh:

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Good point mate. I only rejoined the club this year; the last time I was a member was back in the early to mid 90's. I have no idea who are behind the club, nor what they do for it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by car.crash

https://www.rtoc.org/boards/forumdisplay.php?f=17
:)

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if only the site had something like that, it would be great so it would

A common theme seems to be members old and new not realising that there are parts other than the forum.

They are linked to from the home page so I guess few people go to that: https://www.rtoc.org/home.php

They are linked to in the blue bar near the page top. Maybe that's not distinctive enough on people view screens?

maybe loose some of the stuff on the blue bar? and rename the articles to guides?

Tapatalk has got to be high on the list majority of other forums use it and its so conveniant

I honestly don't like tapa talk I'd rather use the desktop version

Boobs.

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Originally Posted by Dan y

Boobs.

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:agree: preferably decent female boobs... Don't want man boobs or anything haha

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Originally Posted by Penfold aka The Dealer

:agree: preferably decent female boobs... Don't want man boobs or anything haha

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Errrgh deffo female please...

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Originally Posted by Dan y

Boobs.

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Sounds like a plan to me.

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Originally Posted by Nottswoody

Sounds like a plan to me.

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here you go
https://www.rtoc.org/boards/picture.p...pictureid=2391

Where is the classic one of the bird showing her breasts off in front a T2 in a museum/ car showroom haha...

Edit please don't post due to kids seeing

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Penfold aka The Dealer

:agree: preferably decent female boobs... Don't want man boobs or anything haha

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You see enough man boobs.

On a serious note in referring to the thread topic more boards for newer cars gets my vote.
It will encourage more members.

A button that says hide ****ty threads you no longer want to see. :)

Even better than that ...we do have an option to ignore any post by a certain member ...I'm gonna put Dave on there now ...so I won't see if he's bothered :cooter:
https://www.rtoc.org/boards/profile.php?do=ignorelist

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DaveL485

Already is one. It's on your mouse, left hand side. Simply hover over the thread in question and don't click it :laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::p

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Im on iphone bud so i can see them all on the live screen :sad2:

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Originally Posted by Nottswoody

Im on iphone bud so i can see them all on the live screen :sad2:

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Doh! :laugh::laugh::laugh:

I got one
No more Bitching !!!!

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Originally Posted by Dre5gtt

I got one
No more Bitching !!!!

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Or a private room/screen away from the live walls?

:agree:

Something needs to be done to bring the club forward out of this slump, a revamped forum/& or committee might help, but then some don't like change, you can't win them all :coffee:

You might need to move the next lot as it is, & isn't relevant to the website...

ND is going to be another flop by the looks of it as well, Sangliers was sorted ages before FCS was mentioned :crap: & FCS has a stigma attached to it, I hope it is better than previous years, but I bet it's not, chavvy saxo fest is how I always see it unfortunately :sad2: & most of us are past bodykits & loud stereo's/big wheels. :wasntme:

Understandably we probably do need to tag onto events at the moment, as hire costs are up & membership is down, the years when we could plough cash into Brunters/pod/trackdays etc.. are gone. We just look daft hiring big venues now & have to offload tickets on other sites to break even (or just to re-coup some losses)

I don't know the answer to the ND thing, it's a shame as it was/is a big part of the club. It would be nice to be able to arrange a large gathering somewhere that had hard standing, where you could chat, look over cars, meet new members & have something else to keep you busy if you wanted to, fair, stalls, poss a 0-60 or something, show & shine (yes I did go there :wasntme: ) Trackdays are good, i love them, but I also love pod/drag racing. Thats not what ND is about though, is it ?? It's about a load of Renault turbo enthusiasts meeting up ? Hell I own an Espace now (it's still a turbo :cooter:) & haven't had a Renault turbo (petrol) for years & I still re-join every year, this year is the only time I have started to question the renewal :sad2:

I would like if possible a section in users profile to enter a easy option "click me" link to personal restore/project thread's. :D

I know not everyone has one and I did post about this before, but I do think this is a good idea and possibly help keep that section a little more lively when members are being noses on others profiles. :)

One other thing I do miss off the old site was the ability to have a few pictures display'd in the profile without having to have a separate album. Was a nice feature for me personally. :cool:

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Originally Posted by Nottswoody

Or a private room/screen away from the live walls?

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Done :)

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Originally Posted by 5teve L

membership is down

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We think membership might be up a bit since the £25 joining fee was abolished a year ago. We'll be adding up the numbers later today.

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Originally Posted by andybond

easier use of mobile devices.

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This is now a work in progress.

This site is about to be migrated over to a new host, Nimbus Hosting.

Hopefully, once fully over, that will fix, or reduce, the site down time.

This is also the beginning stage of upgrade work.

I spoke to a development company yesterday who will be making an assessment in the next week with a view to moving the site from vB to XenForo. The change won't be immediate, if they take the job on, they can't start the work for at least 5 weeks and it may take three weeks to complete.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by andybond

I use wordpress on giraffeit.com , http://www.countryscapeslandscaping.co.uk/ , giraffeit.com/football ..
Awesome tool

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As I don't yet know anything about how it might go with XenForo for members profiles with pictures, albums and info, would it be impossibly difficult to create something suitable using wordpress, perhaps a bit like the RTOC .asp site to which Goobie refers in the above post?

Okay, here are my views on the club. It's not about the website, but more the club in general.

My main view echoes some of the thoughts and points raised by 5teve L. As times change, and the cars most of us own become rarer and collectors items, does the club really need to commit a large amount of money each year to funding a track day? Is the time going to come where most of the members are in their 30's, 40's even 50's and all they want to do is meet up somewhere and discuss the cars and share their memories?

If this does become reality, spending a lot of money on a track day will not attract this kind of member to the club. I know there are many people who love track days, but does it need to be the RTOC that organises these? Could this not just been done on an individual basis and then advertised by the club?

If it were me, I would like to see the money raised from annual membership renewals directed towards other ventures. These would be trying to source and locate rare parts. Or if parts cannot be purchased, then looking at investing into reproduction parts. For example, just image if the club could take the lead in manufacturing fibreglass body panels etc. This could ensure many of the cars remain on the road for years.

In my personal opinion, spending a lot of money on a national day (no matter how much fun that day provides for the type of member who enjoys it) will not preserve and secure the future of the club. However, helping to make sure the cars stay on the road will.

Just my views, this is not an attack on anybody or any aspect of the club.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ian S

the option to "Thank" and "Like" posts
MultiQuote
Share a thread to FaceBook if it's in the non members section?

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Great idea with the likes. This imo is what makes Facebook the world leader in the form of a "socially friendly" site, if someone's post is twaddle/stirring/inflammatory then the majority can favour or dislike.

This is a good two fold indicator; One being a gauge of consensus of opinion and the other to determine if the same members "like" or "dislike" the same members posts etc (to dispel the notions of ganging up/cliques/agendas/general ar$e kissing)

As far as clicking a link or plugin to refer posts to the Facebook area of the club is also a very good way of expanding on the club format as we already know it has a wider audience, but I would say that also brings a couple of issues to light also.

Facebook is free to join as is the RTOC FB group so we can use is as a promotional tool yet would have to control it in a way that befits the RTOC T&Cs. What I mean is swearing and all things that are common place on FB are against the rules here, imo that is useful as sometimes certain jokes/pictures/memes are a good way of socialising and relaxing so to speak. Perhaps RTOC at times is very strict and frosty toward taboo subjects (possibly a necessity) and the social networking side of things would be the best way to bridge the gap so to speak.

If a member of the RTOC FB group asked a tech question for instance I think it would be bad news to post the answers on FB, rather link them to the appropriate thread on RTOC, how we would do this correctly is anyone's idea because imo the fact there are so many people offering their guidance rapidly FOC makes the FB groups the success they are.....(every pay to join website in all of Christendom has this same issue to overcome/find the answer)

Just a few things that I was thinking about......

If the club would like any help in the future id be willing to offer a few of my hours a week, ive already made Blunty aware if I can help I will.

I think the club rules and regulations need looking at, they list a lot of what people want but in my eyes (and i could be wrong) have not being followed. They can be found here

https://www.rtoc.org/club/?show=committee

it covers things like term of service, elections and such that has been something mentioned by a few on here.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ian S

This is now a work in progress.

This site is about to be migrated over to a new host, Nimbus Hosting.

Hopefully, once fully over, that will fix, or reduce, the site down time.

This is also the beginning stage of upgrade work.

I spoke to a development company yesterday who will be making an assessment in the next week with a view to moving the site from vB to XenForo. The change won't be immediate, if they take the job on, they can't start the work for at least 5 weeks and it may take three weeks to complete.

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:agree:

Shout if you need anything.

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Originally Posted by Ian S

As I don't yet know anything about how it might go with XenForo for members profiles with pictures, albums and info, would it be impossibly difficult to create something suitable using wordpress, perhaps a bit like the RTOC .asp site to which Goobie refers in the above post?

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Enough time and planning and I think you could.

Personally I would either :

Vbulletin5 + wordpress or
Xenforo

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 5teve L

I don't know the answer to the ND thing, it's a shame as it was/is a big part of the club. It would be nice to be able to arrange a large gathering somewhere that had hard standing, where you could chat, look over cars, meet new members & have something else to keep you busy if you wanted to, fair, stalls, poss a 0-60 or something, show & shine (yes I did go there :wasntme: ) Trackdays are good, i love them, but I also love pod/drag racing. Thats not what ND is about though, is it ?? It's about a load of Renault turbo enthusiasts meeting up

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I agree with this entirely, and this was the point I was trying to make. Membership money could them be perhaps spent on practical ways of ensuring these classic Renaults stay alive. Far more important than track days if you ask me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hammer

I agree with this entirely, and this was the point I was trying to make. Membership money could them be perhaps spent on practical ways of ensuring these classic Renaults stay alive. Far more important than track days if you ask me.

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I liked the trackday. Got everything for everyone then ? ( I must admit no drag but .. )

Do we have a gallery section so we can post pics of our cars and see everybody else cars???
If not can we get one??
Always find it good to look what everybody else has done to there cars
Martyn

Martyn,

You can create folders in and upload images to your profile that people can then browse.

Otherwise you can add images/files in this area.
https://www.rtoc.org/files/

There's a lot to this club/site, have a root around.

Edit - ignore this, I see the discussion on the other thread about this.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ian S

This is now a work in progress.

This site is about to be migrated over to a new host, Nimbus Hosting.

Hopefully, once fully over, that will fix, or reduce, the site down time.

This is also the beginning stage of upgrade work.

I spoke to a development company yesterday who will be making an assessment in the next week with a view to moving the site from vB to XenForo. The change won't be immediate, if they take the job on, they can't start the work for at least 5 weeks and it may take three weeks to complete.

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A copy of this site had been migrated to the new host this week. They attempted to repair the broken profile photo albums but did not succeed.

The development company have been in touch and are intending to have a look next week and make an assessment as were too busy this week.

I doubt they attempt any fixes at this time. Another developer or SQL expert, would have to be contacted in the meantime to try and get that done.

So without sounding rude, how far along are we in some of these, imo, very good suggestions, both here & in Moggy's thread ?

Can we have a list of roles within the club to be filled, be it committee based, or just helper roles please ?

What do the committee think needs to change ? We haven't really heard from you guys at all apart from Ian really.

:popcorn:

:popcorn:

:goodJob::argue::banned::tuttut:

One thing that needed to change was the fact that about 250 members were not paying the membership fee.

After I added up the 2013 numbers from PayPal it became apparent that the website showed about 250 more members than payments.

So we had a close look at things and Scoff wrote some new code to interrogate the database and do some comparisons so we could filter and filter and end up with a list of those people.

Many of them are regular members. Maybe half are logging on perhaps once a month. About 40 each week, or each day!!!

Some have not paid for years.

About half were moved immediately to the registered user group. The rest are somewhat or very regular users and are in the process of being processed by Alex.

The causes of this remain unclear, some will have been set up incorrectly in the first place, others may have been the results of system errors and one or more faults with the vBulletin system.

If half or those people renew that = about £1800 per year income.

The bottom line is that, collectively, regular members have been effectively cheating the club out of probably £2000 a year.

that's shocking....what we need is some transparency....my friends have me on a group on whatsapp, msg straight to your phone whenever anyone posts anything on the page. would help us all keep in contact and be aware of changes/issues and anything else. just a suggestion.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ian S

One thing that needed to change was the fact that about 250 members were not paying the membership fee.

After I added up the 2013 numbers from PayPal it became apparent that the website showed about 250 more members than payments.

So we had a close look at things and Scoff wrote some new code to interrogate the database and do some comparisons so we could filter and filter and end up with a list of those people.

Many of them are regular members. Maybe half are logging on perhaps once a month. About 40 each week, or each day!!!

Some have not paid for years.

About half were moved immediately to the registered user group. The rest are somewhat or very regular users and are in the process of being processed by Alex.

The causes of this remain unclear, some will have been set up incorrectly in the first place, others may have been the results of system errors and one or more faults with the vBulletin system.

If half or those people renew that = about £1800 per year income.

The bottom line is that, collectively, regular members have been effectively cheating the club out of probably £2000 a year.

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WTF, for how long? Why was it not noticed?

Dear me. From a club management point of view, we have a certain number of members each year and therefore an expectation of the subscription income. For it to be so far out of line and not be noticed (for years in some cases), beggars belief when the club has an incumbent treasurer. Isn't ensuring that membership fees (the club's primary income source) are in line, very close to the top of the priority list?

This is club's pigeon and not the member's who have failed to put their hand up when they realised their renewal date has come and gone (on more than one occasion).

Of all the things to choose to disclose, this situation should have been rectified (financially), as much as possible internally before outing it.

im sure there's some sort of explanation for it all, but i do have to agree. How often is there an audit with the clubs finances? surely something like that would of picked up on the fact that for years we haven't had everything we should in the bank?

Surely appointing an accountant to do the books etc would be money well spent in this situation!! It would only be £200 - £600 per year I should imagine, maybe whoever does the accounts and books for the club shop could do it?? Of course I could be way off track as I am not an accountant so i have no idea how things should be done in this situation, the wife is! And no I am not touting for business!

someone must of been doing the books already for the tax man every year?

Isn't that the job of the Treasurer.... :coffee:

I can only conclude that no one has been otherwise this would have been picked up sooner surely? Still it's done now, all we can do is find a good way to move forward...:agree:

The blasé way of mentioning that the club has been missing out on an extra ~£1800 each year, for christ knows how many years, is fascinating.

And to think I've been put on restricted access for less...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mart

The blasé way of mentioning that the club has been missing out on an extra ~£1800 each year, for christ knows how many years, is fascinating.

And to think I've been put on restricted access for less...

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:agree::goodJob:

And no-one says anything about 250 less than honest members!

No, it's not the treasurers fault! Why should it be!

I don't count up the number of members and make sure they all paid, that's not my remit. Paying bills the, publishing the bank accounts.

Steve you were on the committee for years, so you should know full well. Mart you were on the committee too.

This has been put right Trev! That's what I just posted!

The point made here is that so many of the regular members have not mentioned that fact there was problem with their account.

This is a club where some people voluntarily contribute a lot of time and effort for free, yet the culture of a large part of the membership would appear to be to take all they can get and give nothing.

And the few posters here don't think that's wrong! But want to blame someone!

FFS. Why do I bother!

ive asked questions to try and ascertain, how this is happened and why hasn't it been noticed until now? That can then lead to stopping it from happening again. No digs, dont get your knickers in a twist over it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ian S

Steve you were on the committee for years, so you should know full well.

---

Yes I was on the Committee Ian, but I was only looking after events, not the club finances.

Any club money I had was Immediately paid into the club accounts ASAP...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hoolio

WTF, for how long? Why was it not noticed?

---

Partly because it's not particularly obvious; the way the vBulletin presents the numbers is not clear. it took a few people working together and some new code written to make it make sense.

vB shows members in various ways, eg, active members are not the total number of members, they are the number who have logged on over a time period, eg 3 months.

Total members include the ex-memers in the registered users usergroup who don't pay a fee.

There was probably an expectation of mostly honesty and people to just pay their fee.

I expect there was an assumption by all that the vB payments and memberships system was getting it right.

No-one on the committee had ever looked this closely at the way vB does what it does in this regard. It's only just become apparent.

It was discovered due to a discussion between different people with different interests. One had counted the PayPal receipts, another had looked at the vBulletin member list and I was curious to look into it further and this time people were on hand to facilitate that.

Finding this out was very labour intensive and, frankly, we're volunteers with little time for this.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Adey aka Ewok

how this is happened and why hasn't it been noticed until now? That can then lead to stopping it from happening again.

---

I've tried to explain :) And hopefully the measures created now will lessen the problem. But a lot of it is due to the way vB works, or doesn't quite.

I was on the Committee (had access to CM boards), what, 10 years ago (?) so forgive me if I've long since forgotten about membership levels & income.

If that's been the case since then though, that's ~£18k gone astray. And that amount has only just been picked up on now?

Didn't you leave in about Jan 2008?

It can't have been £2000 per year since Sep 2008 when this vBulletin site came to be. I don't know, or know if it's even possible to ascertain, what the accrued loss has been. Not all of those people would have continued to pay but would have moved on and their account drop into the registered users group.

Some, presented with a renewal fee, would have stopped being members.

I didn't say anything negative, I was being constructive and looking for a solution going forward.

So not only did I agree that there was a problem, I also offered a possible solution. Everyone has their own opinions so please feel free to see my suggestion as non viable...

Ok thanks for the reply and it's clearly not just a case of, we have such and such members so should have this income. But surely it should be, especially now there is only one tier of payment. I guess all those who have been given free access have been given a period of grace to pay up or have they had access restricted (for want of a better phrase)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rob1980

Surely appointing an accountant to do the books etc would be money well spent in this situation!!

---

Thanks Rob, only if they knew how to disassemble the way vBulletin tallies up it's numbers and make it make sense. :) Even if an auditor demanded it, we did not know how to get that information.

The only 'real' info I could get was the PayPal receipts, which is why I started there.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ian S

Only if they knew how to disassemble the way vBulletin tallies up it's numbers and make it make sense.

The only 'real' info I could get was the PayPal receipts, which is why I started there.

---

Agreed.

I know that I do not understand them. Is there no way, like PayPal, of seeing who has paid by bank transfer etc? Even if it is by manually looking through bank records? Long winded and a pain in the bum I know...

That's what I did! :)

But before trying to crate a list from that, we needed a list to compare it with.

We looked at the members database in various ways and then some code was written to allow a new way to filter it and simply view who was still listed as a current member but had not logged on for more than 12 months. That identified a lot of accounts that should have expired but hadn't.

Then a way to identify a list of current users who were not paying but should be was devised.

Going forward maybe it would be a good idea to log any monies received. Again I know that this may be time consuming but a simple excel spreadsheet is a start...

Of course though I do realise that this may need a bit more of someone's time but it could be worthwhile..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ian S

That's what I did! :)

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:agree:
Credit where it is due, that's not a nice job!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rob1980

log any monies received.

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vB is supposed to do this, and does, but the problem has come, mainly, from the expiry dates and the system not working correctly to actually expire some accounts.

There probably isn't a easy manual method to check at the end date of each 12 months for each account to see if a new payment has arrived. Anyway, that is what computers are for :) The Human users can only hope and presume the programmers got it right.

Also, this is a problem that would take a few years to become apparent as when the errors are small in quantity, they would have been be ignored as a weirdness of vB a no-one knew how to give them meaning.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ian S

vB is supposed to do this, and does, but the problem has come, mainly, from the expiry dates and the system not working correctly to actually expire some accounts.

There probably isn't a easy manual method to check at the end date of each 12 months for each account to see if a new payment has arrived. Anyway, that is what computers are for :) The Human users can only hope and presume the programmers got it right.

---

That's why I'm old school, I know nothing about programming!!

Re members not paying, Ian is right. It's not anyones fault and it's not something that's obvious. To be honest it's only by pure luck we actually found the issue :scared: It's all sorted now.

You'd think at least a few members might have mentioned the fact they haven't paid, some hadn't paid since 2008. We should charge back rent! :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alex

A fair point re FB Hoolio, I'll see if Romil can sort something :agree:. To be honest though if potential candidates don't visit the website on a regular basis I'd have to assume the role wouldn't be for them as it will require regular access. :)

---

There a lot of people on facebook group who are not members on this club ,facebook Renault 5 gt is getting more bigger by the day ,the parts and advice I've had on there is massive ,it's a good idea to push this social media more for rtoc people use facebook more than rtoc

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hoolio

Of course, I was thinking maybe those who were regular who may have drifted away just recently for one reason of another. Is that diplomatic enough?

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I see where you're coming from now ;) I've posted up and asked if Romil can sort it out on FB.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ian S

Some have not paid for years.

About half were moved immediately to the registered user group. The rest are somewhat or very regular users and are in the process of being processed by Alex.

---

Just to be clear then. Does this mean in other words, that those who have not paid for their current years' membership are going to have the renewal page in front of them the next time they log on? (or at some point in the very near future). That's what I meant by sorted out financially in my post above.

There are indeed lots of people that have given up hours and hours of their spare time. And very, very near the top of the priority list (at the expense of things less important as necessary), should have been for one or other of those people to reconcile membership payments with the number of registered members.

In an ideal world....

When the website went vB, you'd have thought understanding the member numbers would have been an important and specified requirement. As would being able to interrogate membership payments.

Regarding the expiry system. You can't presume programmers get anything right since they are only human too and bugs always find their way in. This kind of thing should be tested by users before going live and monitored thereafter.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gtmatt

There a lot of people on facebook group who are not members on this club ,facebook Renault 5 gt is getting more bigger by the day ,the parts and advice I've had on there is massive ,it's a good idea to push this social media more for rtoc people use facebook more than rtoc

---

Matt.

How much of what the RTOC site does is catered for on FB? If you could list the similarities and differences, that would be useful. I can't go on and check for myself as I'm not on FB.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alex

You'd think at least a few members might have mentioned the fact they haven't paid,

---

Behave. If sky gave you service for free would you feel morally obliged to mention it? I dont think I would

:D

Just so I understand this correctly...

At the top of my screen when I log on to the forums, I currently see the following message.......

'Your membership expires on Sun, Feb 09 2014. Click Here to renew it for £15'


So with the previous problem that has now been resolved, if I didn't bother to renew my membership, would I not be automatically kicked off the forums on Feb 10th? If I wasn't automatically kicked off, would I have still seen the message at the top of my screen telling me I needed to renew, even though the date had passed, yet still had been able to access the forums?

I think the reality Hammer is that eventually, especially regular members, will have realised their expiry date will have passed. If not within 3 months, certainly within a year.

Whether folk realised and didn't put their hand up however is irrelevant. If the club never bothered to administrate the process properly in the first instance, why should members be on the hook for it?

It looks like it's being attended to now so I guess we just get on with it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by andybond

Behave. If sky gave you service for free would you feel morally obliged to mention it? I dont think I would

:D

---

Not quite the same thing though is it Andy. We're not a multi million pound organisation led by a billionaire bandit, we're a small car club for the like-minded Renault Turbo nut. We survive on memberships to keep us going.

Perhaps I'm just naive :D :scared:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hammer

Just so I understand this correctly...

At the top of my screen when I log on to the forums, I currently see the following message.......

'Your membership expires on Sun, Feb 09 2014. Click Here to renew it for £15'


So with the previous problem that has now been resolved, if I didn't bother to renew my membership, would I not be automatically kicked off the forums on Feb 10th? If I wasn't automatically kicked off, would I have still seen the message at the top of my screen telling me I needed to renew, even though the date had passed, yet still had been able to access the forums?

---

You'd then drop into the 'registered user' banner. You'd have limited access to the site (no sarky comments please! :D)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Trevhib

I think the reality Hammer is that eventually, especially regular members, will have realised their expiry date will have passed. If not within 3 months, certainly within a year.

Whether folk realised and didn't put their hand up however is irrelevant. If the club never bothered to administrate the process properly in the first instance, why should members be on the hook for it?

It looks like it's being attended to now so I guess we just get on with it.

---

Trev, Just so you're clear. It's not a case of the club not bothering, it's a bug/error within the data base. It's normally an automatic process that when the user does not renew they fall into 'registered user'. There is no administrative process for this - it's a system issue, which, should be fixed now :agree:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alex

Not quite the same thing though is it Andy. We're not a multi million pound organisation led by a billionaire bandit, we're a small car club for the like-minded Renault Turbo nut. We survive on memberships to keep us going.

Perhaps I'm just naive :D :scared:

---

Agree

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alex

Perhaps I'm just naive :D :scared:

---

Just a touch ! If you get owt for nowt, you are doing well.

( I have paid my yearly BTW )

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by andybond

Just a touch ! If you get owt for nowt, you are doing well.

( I have paid my yearly BTW )

---

I'll be watching you Bond! :D:agree:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alex

Trev, Just so you're clear. It's not a case of the club not bothering, it's a bug/error within the data base. It's normally an automatic process that when the user does not renew they fall into 'registered user'. There is no administrative process for this - it's a system issue, which, should be fixed now :agree:

---

Sorry Alex. When I said administrate it properly, I was referring to putting in place a facility within the system at the outset that allowed the monitoring of the process (transactions, expiries, membership numbers) etc.

You're right, effectively the club was virtually blind to the bugs in the system and made the assumption both that the system was working ok and that payments reflected the number of members we have. The club should have always been in a position to confirm those things for itself (and thus administrate the process).

:agree:

I'm like you Trev not on FB and never will be, stayed away this long so no going join up now.
I have a few mates that are not members here but are on FB do they get to see everything we do ? As he speaks about a few things on there that I have reading about or following on this site ?
Everything seems to be FB now :sad2:

To be fair im on fb and here and if people post up questions then they get answered like on here but there is no search function so hard to find out what has already been asked. Most of the events are put up on there too so you can see whats going on and where. I prefer the rtoc to facebook and wouldnt want to just be on the fb page. As mentioned some people on there are not on here as its free to all.

RTOC has two separate Facebook platforms doesn't it, the Facebook page and the Facebook group?

A Facebook page is very simply an advertising platform for a company/club whereby statements etc are made. Then, the general public can interact with that company by commenting on the statement.

However, the Facebook group is more social whereby those in the group can interact with each other. I feel that Facebook groups rather than pages are in direct competition with forums as they serve a very similar purpose; that of interaction between members.

Does the FB group have a shop, articles, member profile galleries, moderated classifieds, an events calendar, deals with companies for discounts, polls, area reps, or a search function on old threads, etc etc?

I understand FB is good for keeping in touch with people, well those who're actually on FB, but is it any more than chat boards?

I moved the facebook discussion here as I thought it was move relevant.

Steve

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Trevhib

Does the FB group have a shop, articles, member profile galleries, moderated classifieds, an events calendar, deals with companies for discounts, polls, area reps, or a search function on old threads, etc etc?

I understand FB is good for keeping in touch with people, well those who're actually on FB, but is it any more than chat boards?

---

A Facebook group is basically just a chat board. But a Facebook page can have many of the features you mentioned, such as shop, discounts, polls etc. However, there are no search functions which is the major downside of Facebook.

Thanks Hammer.

So at the moment there is just non-searchable chat boards because it's only a group.

I'm struggling to see what argument there is for moving that way.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Trevhib

Thanks Hammer.

So at the moment there is just non-searchable chat boards because it's only a group.

I'm struggling to see what argument there is for moving that way.

---

That is correct.

I have alluded to this before.

Facebook is great for instant gratification.

RTOC is great for archive-able information that is searchable.

There are bridges between both , and there are plugins ( at least for Vbulletin ) that will sync a board to facebook and vice versa. IE post on facebook it appears on a board ( it can be configured which one ) and then if someone replies on the board it syncs to facebook. That kind of idea.

I think the main strengths of FB are its easy UI on a mobile platform.

If it were possible for an RTOC member to post on an RTOC thread, or start a new RTOC thread and it appear on the FB group without that member having a FB login, then that might work.

What about FB group members who don't have an RTOC membership?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Trevhib

If it were possible for an RTOC member to post on an RTOC thread, or start a new RTOC thread and it appear on the FB group without that member having a FB login, then that might work.

---

I had to read that sentance 3 times out loud. It was like one of those riddles ! :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Trevhib

What about FB group members who don't have an RTOC membership?

---

Honest answer. I dont know. Let me research it.

research done : it looks like if you have a FB account , post on FB but dont have a RTOC paid membership it will sync.

The benefit is though you can limit it to one forum category and forum. In effect just syncing with one segment of the board.

This might drive traffic back into the RTOC as people may visit the URL , see locked areas and work from there ?

I can't see how this would work since one site is free and the other is a pay-for membership site. There are all sorts of permutations here.

Maybe the free to the public general RTOC chat boards could be opened up to this bridge. But then the point of those is to entice folk into the club. In some ways that purpose would be diluted, then again, in other ways it might be beneficial.

Edit - wrote the above before you added the research bit of your post.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Trevhib

I can't see how this would work since one site is free and the other is a pay-for membership site. There are all sorts of permutations here.

Maybe the free to the public general RTOC chat boards could be opened up to this bridge. But then the point of those is to entice folk into the club. In some ways that purpose would be diluted, then again, in other ways it might be beneficial.

---

I have literally just edited my post and alluded to exactly the same.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by andybond

research done : it looks like if you have a FB account , post on FB but dont have a RTOC paid membership it will sync.

---

But what about an RTOC member who doesn't have a FB account. When they post on RTOC, does it sync on FB?

Which site is the master and which the slave?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Trevhib

But what about an RTOC member who doesn't have a FB account. When they post on RTOC, does it sync on FB?

Which site is the master and which the slave?

---

Ah yes, with you.

I believe it acts in conjunction with the facebook bridge. There are options to allow the non facebook users info to be uploaded ( I believe it comes in as anonymous )

From what I understand of it , there isnt a master / slave. It more of a replica. If a comment is made on forum it syncs up , if FB it then syncs down.

Sounds ok but doesn't appear to cater fully for the permutations that will exist then. Not great RTOC members posts appearing on FB as anonymous.

I guess it depends on what you want it to do Trev.

For me

Forum
--> General Talk
--> Website
--> FACEBOOK

etc etc

Then the facebookers can , er facebook and sync , and the RTOCers can RTOC. A bridge is acheived. It will draw people both ways I feel ?

I certainly would use that kind of feature when at work

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Red October

Great idea with the likes. This imo is what makes Facebook the world leader in the form of a "socially friendly" site, if someone's post is twaddle/stirring/inflammatory then the majority can favour or dislike.

This is a good two fold indicator; One being a gauge of consensus of opinion and the other to determine if the same members "like" or "dislike" the same members posts etc (to dispel the notions of ganging up/cliques/agendas/general ar$e kissing)

As far as clicking a link or plugin to refer posts to the Facebook area of the club is also a very good way of expanding on the club format as we already know it has a wider audience, but I would say that also brings a couple of issues to light also.

Facebook is free to join as is the RTOC FB group so we can use is as a promotional tool yet would have to control it in a way that befits the RTOC T&Cs. What I mean is swearing and all things that are common place on FB are against the rules here, imo that is useful as sometimes certain jokes/pictures/memes are a good way of socialising and relaxing so to speak. Perhaps RTOC at times is very strict and frosty toward taboo subjects (possibly a necessity) and the social networking side of things would be the best way to bridge the gap so to speak.

If a member of the RTOC FB group asked a tech question for instance I think it would be bad news to post the answers on FB, rather link them to the appropriate thread on RTOC, how we would do this correctly is anyone's idea because imo the fact there are so many people offering their guidance rapidly FOC makes the FB groups the success they are.....(every pay to join website in all of Christendom has this same issue to overcome/find the answer)

Just a few things that I was thinking about......

If the club would like any help in the future id be willing to offer a few of my hours a week, ive already made Blunty aware if I can help I will.

---

RTOC is the meat and FB is the taters, you cant have one without the other in this day and age as the formula is clearly working.:brickwall:

I see the point and the potential Andy. :agree:

In that scenario though it feels like RTOC is accommodating FB. I'd suggest that for various reasons it should be approached from the perspective of FB accommodating RTOC.

This then should mean prioritising RTOC member functionality on any bridge, like posting on sync'd threads being fully supported for example.

This bridge idea could be a goer though, at least as a plug-in on the free RTOC general chat boards.


Red - I agree, it is working for some/many. Does that mean we must or need to have it here in order to succeed?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Trevhib

I see the point and the potential Andy. :agree:

In that scenario though it feels like RTOC is accommodating FB. I'd suggest that for various reasons it should be approached from the perspective of FB accommodating RTOC.

This then should mean prioritising RTOC member functionality on any bridge, like posting on sync'd threads being fully supported for example.

This bridge idea could be a goer though, at least as a plug-in on the free RTOC general chat boards.


Red - I agree, it is working for some/many. Does that mean we must or need to have it here in order to succeed?

---

Not at all trev the RTOC website is the mecca, FB is simply the compass to find it imo :agree:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Red October

Not at all trev the RTOC website is the mecca, FB is simply the compass to find it imo :agree:

---

:agree::agree::agree:

I mainly use Facebook for picking up cheap bargains if I'm honest. Anything I want from banter to serious technical info I use Rtoc.

One thing that always pees me off with Facebook is this, if you want an answer to a question, many people will jump in with possible solutions etc. but if I want to look the answer up a year down the line... No chance!
You struggle to find posts from a couple of weeks ago on there.

Would it be possible to have a 120px by 80px size limit for custom avatars, with
the same file size limit? Most pictures follow the 6 by 4 ratio, and this would make
choosing pictures much easier. Thanks.

Regards,
Steve

I've been trying to search back through the forum and comes across a few issues.

The search results seem to find the topics created on the new site but then as I search back through the results I'm only pulling up results from 2009.

Is there a reason for this?

Good spot. I've had difficulty with the search funcs too and not sure what the cause is. Initially I was able to get results from recent times but then in recent searches there seems to have been a problem and I'm not getting anything contemporary. :agree:

Me too. The search isn't returning much in the way of useful info

Plus not returning back dialogy results which may be related.

Boss man, we seem to have lost our little turbo icon in the header of the browser tab. It's gone back to a Vb logo.

I saw that recently. It's name is a fav.ico.

I can only make guesses as to why it's not being found by the live site.

Mick is the man for this one and the search issues.