Advanced Driving Hub

That's always possible but I have serious doubts about how much traffic ADUK will get now anyway. Whatever happens, ADUK will not be the same place that it was.

Yes, very much a danger. However the first goal has to be to see if we can generate enough traffic here to be sustainable.

Strangely Brown wrote:That's always possible but I have serious doubts about how much traffic ADUK will get now anyway. Whatever happens, ADUK will not be the same place that it was.

It certainly won't if lots of the regulars leave

I don't get the sudden desire to abandon ADUK when we're yet to see anything actually change.

One of the things that I have learned over the years with forums is that it is not about numbers, but about quality and enjoyment - a forum has to offer the online equivalent of getting together in a pub - enjoyable discussions, common appeal, folks you get to know over the years - some you build a personal relationship, with others you lift your glass in acknowledgement when you meet, but personal lives are separate, and there is always the bore in the corner you try to avoid if that same feel is present on a forum then generally it works, the critical mass to get that working is not huge, you need a dozen or so regular posters, and a wider community of about 100 who post at times...

where forums often fail is in the disconnect between running costs and numbers - it costs xxx to run annually, therefore we need xxx in advertising revenue which means we need xxx in members / posts / etc. the difference here is that I own hosting servers so there is no additional cost at this point for me to run this forum, other than a few pounds registering / renewing the domain name each year which is insignificant against the 100s I own... so for now, it is viable from that perspective, it is simply about getting content going, and perhaps we need to consciously make an effort initially to make that happen... I have a mad couple of weeks ahead with work, so will do what I can, but will be able to put in more time after that...

the ideal for me would have been to be able to move ADUK as it was which I think was a good model and move on - sadly we can't, but lets see what we can do...

Alasdair

jont- wrote:

Strangely Brown wrote:That's always possible but I have serious doubts about how much traffic ADUK will get now anyway. Whatever happens, ADUK will not be the same place that it was.

It certainly won't if lots of the regulars leave

I don't get the sudden desire to abandon ADUK when we're yet to see anything actually change.

for me it is a concern over the commercial tie in - I know the forum / website industry pretty well, and while Rob sounds very pleasant, there is enough in what he posts to worry me - I don't see how ADUK can be independent any longer. It isn't just that he supports Brake, if the IAM had bought ADUK I wouldn't have been happy, the great thing about the ADUK community is that there can be robust discussions about the IAM / RoSPA / Brake / etc. - can that really happen in the future? Will there not always be a conscious awareness of the link in what people post?

I also don't really want to put my time into building his commercial interest...

Alasdair

akirk wrote:Will there not always be a conscious awareness of the link in what people post?

Depends entirely on Rob. But given most of the value of ADUK is it's independence, it would seem strange to throw that away.

/devils advocate - how do we know you'll never sell this forum in the future if we spend lots of time building this up?

jont- wrote:

Strangely Brown wrote:That's always possible but I have serious doubts about how much traffic ADUK will get now anyway. Whatever happens, ADUK will not be the same place that it was.

It certainly won't if lots of the regulars leave

I don't get the sudden desire to abandon ADUK when we're yet to see anything actually change.

But it has changed. It's not a visible change, yet, but like it or not, ADUK is now part of a formal sponsor of BRAKE. I choose not to be part of that.

jont- wrote:/devils advocate - how do we know you'll never sell this forum in the future if we spend lots of time building this up?

Ever direct, Jon!

Re desire to abandon AD-UK, no I don't have one either, unless another place replaces it with the same good humoured discussion and above all, driving days. Perhaps we need to organise one toute suite!

Mr Cholmondeley-Warner wrote:

jont- wrote:/devils advocate - how do we know you'll never sell this forum in the future if we spend lots of time building this up?

Ever direct, Jon!

I don't believe Darren ever intended ADUK to be a commercial venture. I've been on there over 9 years ( ) - I don't think it's similarly unreasonable to ask about this forum. I know what the intent is now, but if it becomes as successful as ADUK, with a similar amount of "ip", then it's likely to have similar value in the future.

Strangely Brown wrote:But it has changed. It's not a visible change, yet, but like it or not, ADUK is now part of a formal sponsor of BRAKE. I choose not to be part of that.

Have you gone through the list posted on ADUK of all of BRAKEs sponsors - and decided similarly to have no further interaction with them either?