XJRiders,
I need your help with the forum. This past year, we've had a lot of people visit the site and lots of new members join, but the participation has been down and the forum is feeling stale to me. To be fair, though, we've had a record year for site visits, peaking at just under 19k visits each month in April, May and June.
Over the past year, we've lost our global moderator, 1Oldman, and our user admin, Drapheus. These two gentlemen were a big-part of the site's soul and I think that losing them has contributed to this feeling. I will be working to replace them with current active members. My apologies for not getting it addressed sooner.
In the near future, I'll be moving from my home in Denver to a new home in Northern Colorado. When this happens, my plan is to move to a dedicated IP address and use the XJRider server to run the site. This brings many benefits with it including the ability to install modern software and current versions of SQL, PHP and other languages. That will help keep the software side of XJRider moving forward.
But what about the user side and participation? What do you all think is needed to keep the site moving forward and to improve user participation? Is there a need to open it up to the latest XJ (the XJ6 and FZ6R)? Is there a need to open it up to additional Yamaha bikes or even change its direction to more of a user-driven community?
At the moment, it feels much like a mechanical help-desk and I'd like to move away from that some, without losing the user-base which makes that work. But I don't quite know what direction we need to move in. I suspect you all might have some suggestions. So let's talk about it. Approach your thought process by assuming nothing is sacred. The software can change. The layout can change. Hell, even the focus can change.
I would like to conclude by saying that I have had considerable time constraints over the past 9 months and my energy levels are lower then usual. With my repeated travel for work, along with many new life-changes on the horizon (marriage, baby and new house in the next 6-months, coupled with a likely job change), I haven't had the energy needed to keep up with the forum. So I hope that, over the next several months, we can change the feel of the site a bit and get new-user participation up.
That's it. Please think about it and give me some feedback as to what you think the site needs to continue moving forward.
Thank you.
Robert