Discussion
A few thoughts for the bods that run PH.
PH has always had a great sense of community on the forums. It is one of the things that has built the site up to the size that it is. It is the reason that people turn up to a windy ex-airfield on a Sunday morning to go and wander around a glorified car park.
Recent moves by PH seem to have had a detrimental effect on the community feeling on the site; separating the Porsche forum in to the minutiae of models, separating the supercar forum into the minutiae of Ferrari models and leaving the rest, separating general motorsport from F1.
The reason for this is obviously targeted advertising on the forums. Whilst this has to have it's place in the PH business model, one could argue that PH have gone to extremes.
There is a reasonable length thread about the splitting of the supercar forum in website feedback, the feedback in the "welcome" threads in other new sections are not welcomed by the users. The overall feeling is that the sense of community has been lost within these areas. The General Motorsport forum could quite easily die on it's arse over the winter.
There's naff all I (or any other member) can do about these changes. But I suppose my point is, when PH split the old P&P it took a while for the community feel to come back and with the ease that Facebook seems to manage specialised groups (open or invite only) PH needs to be aware that if the community spirit is lost on this site, there are other places that people will go to find it.
I would have mentioned this at the first PH board meeting, but I wasn't selected (sniff, it's ok. I'm fine about it. sniff.)
tl;dr
if you keep separating the forums out, you'll end up with a sub section per member and no-one to talk to in that area. This place is all about the community, don't lose it.
Anyway, ramble over.
PH has always had a great sense of community on the forums. It is one of the things that has built the site up to the size that it is. It is the reason that people turn up to a windy ex-airfield on a Sunday morning to go and wander around a glorified car park.
Recent moves by PH seem to have had a detrimental effect on the community feeling on the site; separating the Porsche forum in to the minutiae of models, separating the supercar forum into the minutiae of Ferrari models and leaving the rest, separating general motorsport from F1.
The reason for this is obviously targeted advertising on the forums. Whilst this has to have it's place in the PH business model, one could argue that PH have gone to extremes.
There is a reasonable length thread about the splitting of the supercar forum in website feedback, the feedback in the "welcome" threads in other new sections are not welcomed by the users. The overall feeling is that the sense of community has been lost within these areas. The General Motorsport forum could quite easily die on it's arse over the winter.
There's naff all I (or any other member) can do about these changes. But I suppose my point is, when PH split the old P&P it took a while for the community feel to come back and with the ease that Facebook seems to manage specialised groups (open or invite only) PH needs to be aware that if the community spirit is lost on this site, there are other places that people will go to find it.
I would have mentioned this at the first PH board meeting, but I wasn't selected (sniff, it's ok. I'm fine about it. sniff.)
tl;dr
if you keep separating the forums out, you'll end up with a sub section per member and no-one to talk to in that area. This place is all about the community, don't lose it.
Anyway, ramble over.
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