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

I got mixed results using both qoutes and not. One search got 16 pages all the way back to 2002. I left all the fields blank except the one for All Forums and got the best results with that method.

Picture posting seems to be an issue for nee members of the site and an inconvienence for older members

Pics aren't so bad, you just need to get a photobucket or imageshack account and its fine. Also, the Edit button for posts needs to have more hang time, I went to update a thread that I posted on just an hour earlier and it was gone already. Hate to have to start another posted just to add more info to the same thread. It needs to last for a couple of days before it goes away, thats just an Administrator control panel fix.

If it isn't easy and straight forward it's a problem. No quotes, no dates, just easy info. Like I have said many times I learned to post pictures and links from the Stovebolt sight. They have a forum called the short bus that instructs people like me to do the things you guys do.
LINK

Okay, my two cents. I'm not in the demographic they are hoping to appeal to, but the website has nonetheless been very helpful to me, and I'm glad I found it. Mostly I lurk and read, but when I have needed information, it has always been forthcoming. I will echo the concerns regarding the search feature, however the the board as a whole has been very helpful to me.

How old is this Board? The oldest post I have found is 2000.

It was formed late April or early May of 2000.

Tim

Thanks, I'm working on searching some old topics and kid f getting a fell of what it was like before I got here. Maybe looking at some things that could be turned into tech tips and be more easily accessible. Mostly just things I need to know.

I have seen a lot more on google in the last weeks wgen i search inline topics on tge first page

Josh, I don't get what you are saying. Do you get more posts from this site or more from the whole internet?

When I Google 250 inline engine I get Crank Shaft Coalition, Smokstak, Hamb and a bunch of vendors but no Inliners on the first page. I believe that Google lists posts by the number of daily requests on a company or organization, so does every inliner with a computer request the Inliners once or twice a day to make a first page entry? Or make it more appealing so more people search for it?

I just wish I could post easier on the site. sometimes it goes, sometimes it doesnt....

Beater more from this site idk if it all of us trying which it giving the dite hits or what

bump

Part of what makes Google the preeminent search site that it is, it has a relevance feature.

It's supposed to (usually) find you the closest to what you asked.

Of course as with all things, there's ways to get your site further up the list.

It shouldn't mean we're not on the list though.


Ewwww.

I just searched "250 chevy" (without the quotes) and we don't show up till halfway down the second page.

with this thread.

https://www.inliners.org/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=69658


If it's not the first page, it may as well not be there.

I'll ask around and see what my more search engine savvy friends suggest (I quit building web sites before Google took off, yeah, it's been a while ).

Oh yeah, what's the status of the site remaining open?

Seems a shame to throw all this away.

Yeah, do we make the grade! Oh yeah, bump for post count!

Information is only valuable and reliable when it is printed on paper and at the very least a month old. It becomes better information if it takes three or four months to challenge it or correct it. It can become "Gospel" if the original spewer ignores the input of others.

BUMP for October.

We need a useable search feature, access all 12 Port News tech articles, and a user friendly Fab Forum. This will never happen because too many of the decision makers of Inliners International are more interested in selling information than sharing it.
The attitude of," I learned it the hard way and so should you" will kill this group. There is far more easily accessible inline information on other sites. Much of it is more relevant than what is not shared here.
I find myself coming here less for information and more just to socialize with guys I consider to be friends. I feel that I have much the same attitude toward Inliners International in general. My local chapter is the greatest bunch that has ever allowed me to hang out near them, but I have to be a member of the big outfit to be in the local. I enjoy the folks I met here and especially the ones I see a Bonneville, but they are ALL on other web sites.
Are you ready for November?

You've got me confused Beater The only information I can think of for sale is Leo's book"The Power Manual", can you clarify this? Any time I've been stuck with a problem and I can't find the answer here a phone call to one of the members will usually solve the problem, and most calls are to vendors.

It was a rant. There are some in the club who feel the Board gives too much to nonmembers for free. The wall between the 12 Port News, which is information for sale, and the bulletin board frustrates me. Having better access to the wealth of information buried in piles of old magazines and the information on hard to retrieve posts here could make this board an important source of inline information. A few years ago we were getting posts from folks with engines from several different makers. We lost those guys I think because when they come here they can not find threads that help them.
I guess it's just two separate clubs and I should get over it.

I agree with Beater. If someone comes here to look up info and cannot find it because of a cheap search function. We will lose out on potential members.

There are tons of other sites that have a nice feature to allow direct downloading of images also. No more photobucket junk.

Its sort of like so many other technologies. When the forum started, i'm sure the internet was also a new novelty. But as the forum grew, it outgrew the initial expectation they thought it would, and now its antiquated in a lot of ways, and as the technology of the internet has grown, the forums technology stayed where it began.
And what exactly does your membership buy you? You get a magazine every couple of months that has most of the same stuff the Home Page already has on it, and you get to put a member# beside your username on the forum. Is that really worth $28 bucks a year?

I agree with you, on that one. As an overseas (now past) member, that was what prompted my decision to not renew my membership.
We really all are motivated by "whats in it for me", and if the value is not there ... well, move on.
I still browse here almost daily though.

regards,Rod

Website and BB Thread

The reason I posted this thread is to get input from the members on how to make the BB better, and how we can improve our presence on the internet. You all have provided some very good suggestions and input. The next step is to ensure that memberships and renewals can be processed easily and securely online. I will get the latest version of UBB, hopefully that will streamline the search and posting issues. Also I will look into a chat solution. We do need to get the TPN and the website more synchronized, and that is being looked into too. Because of the main reason for the Inliners International (inline engines) I don't forsee us ever being as big as the H.A.M.B. but I must disagree that about the value of being a member. The BB or the Website will not survive without an increase of paid memberships. Also, while I am happy to say there are younger members interested in the technology, I still haven't found the way to draw them to the website. The ongoing Website Committee has planned to get input from the younger members in their chapters to see what they would be looking for. That being said, this thread has been going for almost 2 months now and I don't want the input to lose it's freshness, so I am going to take it down and archive it in the next few days.

Thanks for your help guys,

Tim

I think to get younger people interested in the forum, you need to first target them publically, so they can see in person what Inliners is all about. And to do this, you might need to let it be up to the Inliner Chapters to host events to draw them in. The internet is so huge, that the younger crowd already searches for what they have an interest for. So to educate them, they need to see first hand the vintage stuff, and talk to the owners and chapter members at events or special functions.
So when these Chapters plan a function or event, they need to figure a strategy to bring in the younger crowds to appeal and market the benefits of Inliners to them.
One way to do this, is for the Chapter heads of each region to seek out several local high schools and ask the principal if they would be willing to host an Inliner car show at their school on a weekend once a month or every other month, and rotate to different schools also. That way you get free publicity to the youth you are trying to target, and hopefully it will stimulate them to go search the junkyards and barns for projects to become involved in. Then, this might interest them to further become involved with the chapters in other activities and functions and lead them to the forum. Its a stepping stone process, but its pretty effective to go where they are kind of mentality.

I do not want to be as big as the HAMB. I mostly go there to do searches. They are having growing pains so Ryan is making several changes. That said there are lots of inliners there and many threads that deal only with inline engines. One is just 1928 Chevy four cylinders, Ford Bangers, Sixes in drag cars, Sixes in hot rods and more. My idea is build it and they will come, don't chase them off and they will stay. I do not want to become an import board just to attract young people who will have no interest in what we are.

What has made the HAMB grow so much is their interaction with the public at public events and shows. Just sitting back on the internet isn't going to do it. They have all the HAMB Drags, the Hunnert Car Pileup, Billetroof car shows. Bottom Line is they get out and do stuff the represent the HAMB. Inliners doesn't. Sure I get the email every 2-3 months from the Georgia Chapter head saying they are meeting on a Tuesday night(really....a Tuesday night)at a some coffee shop or restaurant. How is that going to attract potential new people. You have to first make yourself visible for people to know your there, and for the most part, Inliners is invisible, compared to what others are doing.

An online mentor program may attract a lot of people to the site. The hours I spent talking to "Sarge" about the 4 cylinder engines were invaluable and I doubt we even scratched the knowledge he had stored in his head. If we can match that type of knowledge and experience with someone who is computer savy for chat rooms or even one on one emails it should attract new members. Just looked at my card and my membership has lapsed so when you get that renewal section up and running I'll use it.

One of the things that has caused the HAMB to grow so much is the confusion among posters about what Ryan's original intent was. The HAMB is not about "rat" rods or "street" rods. It is about "Traditional" rods and customs. Figuring out what "Traditional" means is not clear to me. The new thing there is "period correct" but in '29 Chevy sixes were not a tradition and neither were Flathead V8s in '32. The tradition was owner built performance enhanced vehicles. Doing the best you could with what you could find or build. Junk yard and limited after market equipment. Much of what has been going on there will no longer be welcome as 1965 is their cutoff year with other time slots carved out for different eras. So turbos,TBI &TPI, Saginaw 4 speeds, T5s, 700R4s, Megasquirt, HEI, coil packs, radial tires, fiberglass repo bodies and fenders, post '65 speed equipment and technology, disc brakes, pastel painted,billet clad, named after a fifties tune trailer queens,95% of Hot August .......... are out.
So here we are steeped in "Tradition" but without our heads stuck in the sand and staked out to a date. I love the old stuff as well as anyone but our Inlines are not just curios from the past. Most of the Inlines at Bonneville and drags across the country are not HAMB friendly. I respect Ryan's call on the HAMB it is his board and it rightfully reflects his interests and thoughts. My purpose in posting this is to note that we could welcome the displaced inliners here. If our board is user friendly they will come. We could win back the Studebaker, Hudson, Packard, Mopar, Ford, Buick, Kaiser, AMC, Jeep, you name it guys.

When the National Street Rod Association came on the "street scene" years ago, they focused on "pre-'48"; everything else was a "street machine." "Pre-'48" turned out to be fibreglass replicas with crate engines, automatic transmissions, air conditioning, and not a part on the car made before 1980, while my '52 Chevrolet powered by a GMC was dumped in with "pro street" Camaros and the like.

i have found among the Inliners an appreciation of older machinery that i had not seen anywhere else. Working with an older chassis and drivetrain involves some compromises with the modern world, but one can still maintain the "look and feel" of the time when that vehicle was commonplace. i am a historian and archivist who was alive and sentient "in the day," and so i seek to revive and relive the experience of driving a "hot rod" -- not a "street rod" and surely not a "rat rod" -- that one might have had in another time and place.

When i take my parts to the Indianapolis Swa(m)p Meet in my 1949 Studebaker pickup, people look at my truck instead of the parts. Many of them want to buy it, but they don't really want what it is. They would yank out the "big six" and install a 350/350 and an air conditioner -- and then they would have something that looks like an old Studebaker truck, but it really isn't. Then there are those who would mount the cab, bed, and fenders on a late-model, salvage-yard chassis and sell the rest for scrap, so they can drive a Frankenstein of their own peculiar "creation."

i am an archivist who preserves printed materials, and so i value The Twelve-Port News, knowing that electronic files are extraordinarily fragile. A few feet away, in the room where i am writing this message, six volumes published in 1522 sit on a shelf. i know where they will be tomorrrow, the next day, and for many years to come. i do not know where any "digital" electronic file will be tomorrow, much less in 2050. HAMB's website will be, before long, a "404 error." This forum and all the knowledge contained in it will vanish, but issues of The Twelve-Port News will survive. Yet this forum will reach many people now who may never see an issue of our printed publication. We need both forms of communication! We need to maintain and enhance them both, as best we can, just as we maintain and "improve" all kinds of Inline machinery.

God's Peace to you.

d
Inliner #1450

Don, well said.

2Xs that Well Said & Put.

I agree. Both have value, advantages, and disadvantages. Both could be better but both are better than nothing.

Those are my thoughts too!!

Tim

Another possible attraction to get visitors and add members to the site is to redesign "Tech Tips", we have 17 total on file which is pitiful if you take into account the available knowledge that could be shared. How do you adjust valves for the Chevy's, Dodge or Ford engines? Adjust multi carb linkage? Rebuild carbs , distributors, water pumps? They come to this forum because it says Inliners but but can't easily find the answers here, but they can find the answers on other sites.

Exactly! To start with add every Tech and How TO article that already exists in old TPN issues. Put it out there for use.

Lee Lites photos of crank shafts side by side and casting numbers were the best..

One issue here, for those who are trying to pay the bills -- mostly with membership dues -- is providing services to persons who have not become members of Inliners International.

The Twelve-Port News functions as a perodical in service to members of Inliners International. To place the technical articles written by members online with unrestricted access allows those who never intend to become members to feed on the knowledge of members at their expense. Such a free service, without requiring any recompense, is perhaps admirable; surely it is altruistic and generous; but it does not pay the bills either for the website or the periodical. They both cost time and money.

We should surely encourage every visitor seeking assistance for an Inline project to become a member of Inliners International. Obviously we cannot -- and should not -- compel anyone to become a member or renew membership. Yet we can -- and perhaps we should -- restrict access to technical articles from The Twelve-Port News to those who are helping to pay the freight. We should encourage "freeloaders" to get in on the conversation here -- which should help them to see the value of of our work -- and at the same time communicate to them the value of membership.

One value of membership can and should be access to articles online, "reprinted" from The Twelve-Port News. The effort to provide that will take time and cost money.

God's Peace to you.

d
Inliner #1450