SonexBuilders.net

All,

As I briefly announced here I bought the domain vwaircraftengines.com with the intention to unify the many Aero-VW related yahoo groups out there on a more modern forum platform, much like sonexbuilders.net (in fact, it’s based on the same forum software, phpBB).

As members of sonexbuilders.net I don’t have to explain you the huge advantages of such a modern forum platform over the yahoo groups, the difficulty will be to convince the people who are so accustomed to the use of the yahoo groups.

Before I spread the word any further I thought I’d give you guys here a preview so you can let me know what you think.
I’ve tried to limit the number of categories and sub-forums as much as possible as I believe that too many could deter people coming from the yahoo world where you have basically no categories or sub-forums.
That said, if you think there are any that I have missed that really should be on there, let me know.

Here's the link:
http://www.vwaircraftengines.com

Cheers,

Michael,
The site looks fine.
One thing I noticed in another instance when users resisted moving from Yahoo: The wanted to receive their info via email. I'd bet most participants on the Yahoo Groups seldom even go to the site, they do all their receiving and replying via email. They want to continue to do this (I know, I know . . .)
Does phpBB allow you to set up this functionality? I think (again, based on what I've seen elsewhere), that it will be important in winning over folks who like Yahoo Groups. As a user (and not someone who has to pay for the software!), I'm partial to vBulletin over phpBB, and I know vBulletin has some email functionality. I don't know if vBulletin allows two-way participation via email, but I know the outgoing emails can be set up with a link to the particular thread in the bulletin board so that the user can make his reply there. That's a good way of gradually bringing the users to the board. Once they start using this they will certainly not have any love for Yahoo.

Good luck

Looks great Michael. Best of luck moving forward.

Mike53 wrote:Looks great Michael. Best of luck moving forward.

Thanks Mike.
It will be revealed to the broader public soon.

vigilant104 wrote:Michael,
The site looks fine.
One thing I noticed in another instance when users resisted moving from Yahoo: The wanted to receive their info via email. I'd bet most participants on the Yahoo Groups seldom even go to the site, they do all their receiving and replying via email. They want to continue to do this (I know, I know . . .)
Does phpBB allow you to set up this functionality? I think (again, based on what I've seen elsewhere), that it will be important in winning over folks who like Yahoo Groups. As a user (and not someone who has to pay for the software!), I'm partial to vBulletin over phpBB, and I know vBulletin has some email functionality. I don't know if vBulletin allows two-way participation via email, but I know the outgoing emails can be set up with a link to the particular thread in the bulletin board so that the user can make his reply there. That's a good way of gradually bringing the users to the board. Once they start using this they will certainly not have any love for Yahoo.

Good luck

Yes, email feeding is something that the yahoo groups have going for them,
On a forum platform like this one it's a bit more complex as things are categorized in sub-forums and so on, if you send an email how would you control which sub-forum it goes to.

vBulletin is maybe an even better platform but a bit expensive, given I don't know how much interest I will be getting I'm sticking with phpBB for now.
There is a MOD for phpBB to send out daily/weekly email digests, I could have a look at that, still you'd have to log in to the forum to reply.

I'm hoping this is not the show stopper though, I know the RV builders eventually all moved over from the yahoo groups to the vansairforce forum so we know it can be done.

Well, I registered for the VW list yesterday and still haven't received the conformation email that is needed to activate my membership. How long does it take?