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Automotive News & Views Forums Software! Your Questions Answered...
4193 messages, Last post on Jun 22, 2009 at 5:35 PM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
I was just on the "Mystery Car" forum, and the entire forum has text disappearing on the right margin. Previous to this, the right margin stopped when the various pictures and text ended, but now it appears that the entire right side is blocked with white space.
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Replying to: mac24 (Mar 16, 2009 6:46 am) With everything so massively subdivided, the chances of someone searching Google and getting a link to Edmunds are much greater than with the earlier format. It's all about generating fresh page hits, and more hits equals more advertising dollars. " I'm not sure I concur with you about Google; they follow all links on the pages, so they would have indexed all the pages in either the new or old format. Your post makes me sad, because I too used to REALLY enjoy the site, learned a lot, and (hopefully) shared my knowledge. I wonder how long it takes for a site to coast to a dead end, where everyone asks questions and no one answers, except maybe the hosts? Two things: 1. I find it interesting that no Hosts responded to either of our posts. 2. So far as hits go, anyone using Firefox can disable that stuff by using NoScript. It kind of makes me wonder how many people upset by the changes are not allowing the advertising on their browser.
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Replying to: stevedebi (Jun 09, 2009 12:25 pm) That's in the FAQ too, if anyone wants to read the directions. (Yeah, I know, dream on). |
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Replying to: stevedebi (Jun 09, 2009 12:32 pm) |
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I saw someone comment on the lack of participation in a forum, and I posted there, which was (appropriately) removed as off topic. So I thought I'd post it here, on topic. "To bad this message area seems to be dying out as it would be great to here more from the Hybrid Escape owners." It started about three years ago when they decided to split out the forums into sub-topics, which resulted in members not being able to follow the various forums - too much trouble. Previous to this, the members decided how many sub-forums to create; generally there were only a few forums, with most of the posts on a single forum. This made it easier to keep up with a certain subject, provided more sense of community, and enhanced sharing knowledge among everyone. That is all gone now, and I have seen a declining interest in the forums. Only a few of the long time members now regularly check the forums. I don't. That is a lot of collective knowledge lost. At the time I seem to recall that Edmunds said that new users were complaining that they could not find answers, but in fact it was easy to find answers by using the search function. Some new people didn't want to use the search (or they didn't want to take the time to find out how to use it). So Edmunds managers made what they considered an easier forum system for new people to use. I suppose they may have accomplished that, but in the process they apparently drove many of the dedicated and knowledgeable people away. I seldom learn anything new when I view the current forums - and I used to learn something just about every time I read them. Then after that decision, they redesigned the site without asking for any inputs. They put the advertisements and etc on the right side of the screen. Ordinarily that might be OK, but on many, many forums, my text slides under the right side and I can't see the ends of the lines. Sure, I could decrease the font size so as to read them, but I have a large font because it is easier to read - so I just don't read those forums. When people complained about the problems with the new format, the response was "live with it, this is the new design". So I myself feel that Edmunds abandoned its community, not the other way around, although it has the same effect. I was once an avid fan of the Edmunds forums, but now I just check a few items every now and then.
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Replying to: stevedebi (Jun 19, 2009 3:15 pm) I see nothing in your post to disagree with in any way. Comparing then to now, I think the same can be said about most of the vehicle specific forums. I mainly see a repetition of the same old questions and little active discussion. The only thing that would make any difference is a reduction in income to the site, but obviously the changes made were financially successful so I see little chance of changes that would be regarded as positive by any of the remaining 'community'.
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Replying to: mac24 (Jun 20, 2009 4:59 am) I'm not so sure. Obviously I have no access to viewership figures but it would not surprise me if numbers are down, and worse, heading down. Lower viewership means lower advertising income. As it is most of the adverts on any given page are for Edmunds itself.
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Replying to: grandtotal (Jun 20, 2009 11:49 am) Thanks to you and the others for bringing this up. Ever since the really popular model-specific forums were split up to achieve, what was it. . .oh yeah, "better granularity," things have been sliding down the chute. The "problem" (from Edmunds POV), as I understand it, was that there used to be too many regulars posting many times each day (clogging up the bandwidth) & not enough newbies coming in from the greater web. Well, they've certainly solved that "regulars posting too much" problem, & on the few topics I monitor, I'm not seeing very many newbies either. The only value Edmunds forums used to have, for new people signing on, was the cadre of experienced folks who could (& would) help them out. No regulars = no answers. I'm sure someone at Edmunds got a quarterly bonus (or three) for the idea & the initial results, but I'd be interested in hearing how that hope and change thing is working out for them these days. The two boards that I can depend on for hearing from a solid group of regulars aren't at all model-specific, and there are very few posts on the model-specific boards I still follow. Somebody somewhere probably thinks all of this is a good thing, but I certainly don't.
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Replying to: cdnpinhead (Jun 20, 2009 3:54 pm) -Brian
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Replying to: subearu (Jun 21, 2009 10:05 am) We see a number of members who were active in Forums spending a large amount of time in the blogs commenting. It used to be Forums was the only place to have social interaction Edmunds. We've added more tools/places so you will see some people gravitate to tools they enjoy more than others. It doesn't make any one of them better or worse. |
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