Inliners International Forums General Discussion Bench racing Inliners Website and Bulletin Board

The Inliners International are having a discussion on the future of the website and forums. All Bulletin Board members please take a moment to participate in this poll....

Inliners International Website and Forums multiple choice
	I find the Inliners International Bulletin Board to be helpful and informative?
	I am a member of the Inliners International...
	I plan to Join the Inliners...
	I do not plan to join the Inliners...
	The BB is the main reason for visiting the website...
Votes accepted starting: 08/13/13 12:23 AM
View Results

Can you post this in each forum? I'm not sure how many people read anything besides the forum they post in or have an interest in. ie. Hi Performance or Drive Train

I somehow feel were going to be graded on the results.

Scott,

You are not going to be graded, but I sure am. This is very important to the future of the BB and the website. There is a committee that is evaluating the effectiveness of the website on bringing in new members. The Inliners are trying to recruit new, and younger, members to ensure our club won't fade away. Big changes may be in the future, good or otherwise. Any suggestions on improving the appeal of the Inliners Website will be greatly appreciated.

HELP,

Tim

Come on everyone, give your thoughts. Please don't pick what you think I want to hear, let's cut to the chase. This is much to important to ignore.

Thanks,

Tim

I checked 3 of the 5 that pertained to me, so if everyone else does the same we/you and the future of the club should be in good shape.

Also Tim, don't know if I have ever mentioned this here or elsewhere before, but you do an excellent job keeping the forum going day in and day out. I know its a challenge and many don't realize exactly all that is involved and what you have on your plate every day. Thanks.

Maybe put an "i voted today" strip in your sig

Abd maybe each of us can remind people to go to bench racing on the bb and enter your vote

I find the bulletin board very helpful. I was a member a few years back and intend to join again. I just suggested someone from the class racer board look at this one. He was asking about 300 Fords.

If you want to bring in future "younger" members, you better keep the web site all together. Just because some older Inliners like myself may not be overly computer or internet smart and tend to shy away from it, they certainly do not.
There is absolutely no better source these days for finding info and club links than the internet. My 2 cents.

Tim is it fine if i put a post up also in the engines forum?

It's really funny, the 'host not recognized' that some of you were seeing is happening to me on my new W7 computer, oh well, we'll figure this out too. lowboygmc, you can post (almost) anything you wish. I will post a little later about what this 'audit' is all about, bear with me please.

Tim

The BB is the only reason I use the web site. Everything else here is available elsewhere. Though I enjoy the 12 Port News it is useless for getting timely information. I doubt that I would remain a member without the board. It would piss me off that much. Also if getting new blood means turning us into another import club I'm gone. I think we need to ask some of the members who left why they did. There are a lot of inlines at Bonneville but few of those guys post here, write for the 12 Port, or are even members. I was told by one that it was because there is not enough Buick 8 stuff here. It just seems that the Hudson, Mopar, Ford, Ford 4s, Stude............guys live in cyber ghettos where their narrow interests and needs can be met. It could be as simple as that for some reason their searches don't bring them here. It could also be that when they get here and do a search they can not access old threads that pertain to them. My vote is to back Tim and give him the resources he needs to make what ever improvements are needed. One improvement would be that all of the old 12 Port Tech Tips should be here, maybe the whole issue. What good is all of that information in some old guy's closet to an enthusiastic high school kid building a Jimmy powered '40 Chevy Coupe. He'll go where he can find what he needs. (the H.A.M.B.) Give it up you old poots! If you want young members you have to answer their questions and make then feel welcome and at ease. The question may have been asked a thousand times. You probably have not been the first to ask most of the questions you wanted answers to but someone said it again. To me the members and future members are the most important part of Inliners, the BB is next.

Tim
I have been running W7 pro for a couple of yrs. and have not have any issues with any part of this BB.

W7 user also and no problems. Also, I agree with Beater, in this day and time a blog or forum is the main media the younger generation and many of us older ones communicate with social networking. Just look at Facebook, Twitter and Myspace as examples of how much those types of media are relied on to network around the world, a BB is just as important and needed.

My thoughts if anyone cares. If this club is to survive it has to have new members comming on board. The bulletin board used to have a friendly form where guys discussed ideas, problems,dreams, and where they went last week or were going next week. For the most part that seems to be gone. I am as much to fault as anyone because I have somewhat stopped posting like I used to. I think I drifted away because things just weren't there to hold my interest. I still own two inliners that I drive on a regular basis. I have not attended a National gathering since 2008. We had a fantastic time and still list it as a high point of attending gatherings that include several clubs over the last 40 or so years but schedule, time, money, and health have prevented us from attending since. I do think we tend to be a little GM specific, I have one inline GM and one inline Ford, and I find very little discussion except GM. If you look at the dates when some sections were last posted to there has to be a message there to all of us. I think that Titen has worked very hard to try to keep this board afloat but he isn't superman unless we each do our share the future is uncertain. The club seems to be very weak in activities east of the Mississippi. Part of the problem might be the current economy who knows. If I have hurt anyones feelings I am sorry as I didn't mean to and I blame myself as much as anyone.

If the headcount for the Inliners club applications that we handed out in Reno at the Hot August Nights swap meet are any indicator, it was about 75% under 25 years old and quite a few of them knew of the BB. Also most of the under 25s' were building 216s' and 235s'. I think we gave out around 30 or so apps. .and old issues of the 12 Port.

Man i hope this all doesn't go away i just got in

Love the engine and love the people

watchin engine come to life for the first time for us younger guys who haven't built 200 motors

Tim, what would they replace the BB with?

Unless they have someone ready to ride herd on Facebook, Twitter and the like, this is their best bet so far.

It is how I found, and joined Inliners (ok, I figured out my dues are late, I'm fixing that Monday), if they want new, younger members they have to maintain an interactive presence on the web (without being interactive, we would just be preaching at them, show of hands, who likes that?).

The biggest problem with young people joining the group is how long it was since the US built an inline 6 (what, the 300 Ford was the last, before the 4200 showed up?).

I know lots of people that run import inlines, Nissan, Toyota and Mitsubishi.

They are more than tired of the "gotta have a V8" mentality that they constantly encounter, but their "iron" is not welcome here.

I'm not suggesting that we welcome imports to the forum or the club, but that is where we are as a group.

Being a supporter of the 4200, I have run into similar, if admittedly less vehement issues when I mention the 4200 that those of the import crowd I know are fed up with.

Realistically, Bonneville is the only place I could see anyone putting a vintage 6 or 8 into a modern import (like the Salt Cat crew and their Buick straight 8 powered Jag, anyone want to build a Jimmy powered 240SX Nissan?)

Anywhere else and the firewall setback, extra weight over the front axle, and cost to get "acceptable" performance are all deal breakers (each one).

I wish one of the big three would pick some inline 6 that was worth a damn and stick with it for a few decades, but hell, they don't even do that with their bent 8 engines any more.

The only thing I could see, possibly helping, is a section where folks that are working on a 4200 (or other domestic inline) swap into an import chassis (like the Supra that had the turboed 4200, or the Opel that had one until they converted to an inline 5 halfway through the first pass at speedweek this year ).

I don't know how much it will help though as it is such a small portion of what is going on out there, and there are several forums, and a yahoo group or two dedicated to the 4200 already.

This may not be helpful, but it's what I have, let me know if there is something I can do, other than putting the word out about the club (I already do that ).

ONE thing this club used (key word used to) is we had a chat room where we met every Tuesday night. and shot the BS for hrs.

So, I need to rejoin, and it's my fault for not doing so earlier, I was 728. I will take care of that this week. For a short time in the 90's i was the east coast chapter president. Had a little get together that year at englishtown that was a real hoot for those of us who showed up. But keep in mind that was a nostalgia race. As for new and/or young members, I have a son who runs a 90 or 91 Toyota supra, straight six with a turbo. It's pretty cool and runs really really well. They have there own forums and to be truthful, we don't have, and may never be able, to offer much in that reguard. the fact is that my son and his friends play with what they can afford and what is available, and that means imports, 4 and 6 cylinders. They get a kick out of my old school 6 motors and ask tons of questions but in the end they are into what they are playing with. I would love to see that group amongst our ranks, frankly they know a lot more than most of us with respect to turbos and just as eager to talk tech about their projects. Is it a different mindset, yes, but that is just the way it is. I for one love all inline motors and would welcome a broader member base.

Another thing I miss is we used to talk about manifolds and different things that we designed and made in our own shop which except for turbo stuff most of that has gone away. This type of thing might be of greater interest to the young guys who have more time than money, that is how a lot of us started out years ago, we couldn't go out and buy it (no money to spare or nobody sold it) so we had to build it. I wonder if the young guys had just a few ideas to get them started what they could come up with that we never thought of or considered.
Did you ever wonder what a good 261 with fuel injection and a turbo adapted to a new six speed auto out of a late model silverado would perform in a small import body that had a tube chassis and weighed in under 2000 lb. Just food for thought. I know how a big block ford six runs in a 1700 pound roadster with no blower, some guys would say awesome.

This is not a shot at Tim. He is doing a great job and he has my total support.


Our search engine sucks. I can go to the HAMB and type in "chevy 153" and get 16 pages of related posts. Here I get 24 pages that are mostly what I get when I click on "Active Topics" If I go to the advanced search it just gets more confusing with mostly the same results. If someone come here looking for information it had better be something that was posted in the past week. I don't want to be told how to use our search feature I want a search feature that I can use.
Several years ago there was a problem because searches crashed the board or something and we had to use the "newer than -older than" boxes. I haven't been able to find old posts sense. Having been here a while I can find some old posts by thinking of who would have posted on a subject or would have responded to it and doing a search of their posts. If you don't know us that doesn't work well.
To me this is an obvious reason new people don't hang out here. There are LOTS of younger than us folks out there with old inlines. If one goes to the HAMB and searches "chevy 216" he gets 16 pages that start out with posts about 216 issues. The same search here gets 24 pages that I quit looking at on page 5 because there was nothing about a 216 yet. Why come back here? It has to be easy. With the same search on Google the 4th hit is the HAMB. Stovebolt shows up twice before our first hit on page 2, the only one in the first ten pages. It is a question about what a 216 is worth.
I'm only saying that we need to make the wealth of information here easily accessible. I know there is a contingent in our club that are against "giving away" information to anyone, especially nonmembers. Some of them see it as lost book sales and some are just pompous old farts who want their knowledge scattered with their ashes. No one is going to join a club before they see a benefit for themselves. These guys will drag the club into their graves with them. The information if in print or steel will out last them. It will only be acquired from another source. Anyone who dies with information others need will not be missed for long. When we drink a toast to your memory we will not be crying.

This is true beater i'm only 22 and i find it extremely difficult to find thing in older posts ususl end up beating a dead horse starting a new post instead of reviving and old one

One thing you can do Beater is when you do have time to sit down and delve into the archives and find something that is noteworthy, you should copy it to a Word Document and save it to your computer as a backup, then if someone asks about the topic, you can just copy and paste it back in the thread.

I agree, the search engine here is the worst one out of all the BB's I go on.

Needs a revamp for sure.

MBHD

If you find a topic/thread of interest you can go to "topic options" and add it to your watch list. But that doesn't help find it to start with. Hank I use your posts when looking for turbo and supercharger info. I don't look for our old fusses much.
Thanks guys I think this is a key issue. Add all of the 12 Port info + all the old posts from the BB and we have a wealth of inline tech. The Tech Tips alone could attract many new members. If it can be easily accessed I think we will see a great increase in activity and interest. Maybe we can get some of the old crowd back.

These UBBThreads forums have settings that you can change to make to threads stay active longer before they are sent to the archives, maybe the different forums here can have the settings changed to extend the length they stay active.

A classic example is the inliners rides section of this web site my car was added in either 2007 or 2008 don't remember which and there has only been 8 or 9 cars added since. Where else can you show your car to the world for free, but no one is taking the time to send Titen your pictures and information. I agree that we could use a more modern BBS software BUT if we aren't going to support it why bother. Most clubs officers and chapter heads send in information to post on the website on a regular basis but we don't even seem to have that here. A club that wishes to grow needs to have a very interesting and informative web site, which we lack, ours is stagnant and somewhat boring but if we as members won't send in things to be posted then all the new softare in the world won't help. I don't think this is the case but if we are sending this in and it isn't being used then we need to change that. Most web sites have a section that shows the scheduled events of the different chapters, so that an interested visitor might be able to stop in for a visit an meet other inline nuts in their area which might encourage them ro become members. A good question would be how many of you even visit the rest of the web site, and if not why not. Maybe we need a better connection between our web site and our newsletter, maybe we need to think about makeing the news letter electronic and save the printing cost of a hard copy, several of the clubs I belong to have done that and found they had an increase in membership because the outsiders could find out what they were missing. then the extra dues money could be spent putting on more club events all over the country instead of just west of the Mississippi. A lot of us can't travel 2 or 3 thousand miles to an event.

You might want to get in touch with Otis at the trifive.com website. I am a member there and it's a very good and active site with members who are more than willing to assist other members with tech and how too's. I have absolutely no doubt that he would be willing to give his advice and opinion as to how we might improve the usability and functionality of our website.

I think Bill made some good points. I hardly ever have looked at the rest of the site because the forum is the reason most come here and it is always changing as far as new posts and new people coming on board discussing their projects. The other pages on the site have the same content on them that were there 6 or 7 years ago when I first came here, so there really isn't any point to look at them if they don't change the info on them. You really could delete the first 10 sections of the website, because all that info is in each issue of the 12 Port News anyway, so its kind of redundant to have it both places, especially if your a member and get the 12 Port News that is.

I come here for the BB but I think those other areas are good for new users to check us out and they don't know what hasn't changed. The Club info is current and a help to prospects. We need more Tech Tips but that's our fault. The Megasquirt article I was working on has become obsolete while I have been bumbling along. One BB I used to visit became almost unusable when they attempted to make it more fun to use.

I'll take my wack at the forum, the younger guys we ran into at the Hot August Nights swap meet did say they use the Inliners forum for a reference tool and also look to other forums like the HAMB and The Stovebolt Page for info on how to build these engines and the cars and trucks that use them. Forum tech threads are fine if they stay focused, but just about everyone I've followed turns into a bench racing discussion, there are a bunch of new products on the market and on the horizon to be released soon and these should be featured and follow up tech articles on their use. I believe the club and the forum have a future, but we need to entice new members in a way the can relate to through the use of media, conventions or regional conventions/shows/drags. The young guns are needed. nuff said

Google or other external search engines work better.

type in what you are looking for, plus one space then "site:inliners.org" without the quotes.

It should restrict the search to this site.

I hope that helps.

Good point Erik, if anything has ever been posted on any forum, a Google search records it and can be found with little effort. Another thing i've seen mentioned on other forums with having difficulty finding topics with their search functions, and that is if the original topic heading is misspelled, and you try to search for it using the correct spelling.

Would someone post a topic so I can test the search on this end?

Tim

Titen,
Try searching 194 head or leelites

I just tried the "194 head " in our search. It brought nothing up of value on the first page.

Tried searching "194 head inliners" on yahoo and got 5 pertinent hits back to our site.

Another thing I see useful on other sites , for example "Speedtalk" board allows direct downloading of images. No more photobucket or imageshack. That would be a boon for the not so tech savy people (like Beater).

Here's some of my thoughts, I think having the Chat room back would be great for us all and even help getting some new folks in and involved.I know we have the calendar and Chapter Chatter but maybe something like upcoming events or posting the chapter meetings in a section from the newsletter so folks can see where we are meeting up at.Also what about posting the racing schedule thats in the newsletter in the racing section. As far as imports I have had a few people with them contact me about joing the club as they were looking for a car club to join.I have seen import motors especially the Supra motors put into everything from MG's to late model Mustangs in the circles that I run in and other motors put in racecars do we not try to recruit thses folks??Not trying to chase off Beater but we have several options from the youth who are into the old iron and even the older generations that still dont know about us.And doesn't it say up above "Devoted To All Inline Engines"?

Since there isn't any import engine enthusiasts here yet, i'd say to not encourage them to come. There a several dozen Sport Compact Import inline forums for them to choose from, but there is really only 3 American Inline forums that cater to all US brand inline guys, and from the sounds of it, it maybe less one if they don't deem this one necessary. So yeah, while growth is good and new recruits are needed, I don't think that the intention of the founders of Inliners back in the 80's was the non-US based groups to be included in it.

Tom, I did a search for "194 head" (with quotes), checked 'in subject', and with a 'Date Range' of newer than 8 years and it came up with 2 pages and about 5 unique threads. Checking 'in subject and body' it came up with 13 pages, but I didn't count the unique threads. All of leelites original posts were pretty much purged, there are references to him going back several years, my best search results were without quotes.

Tim