Site traffic

still a ghosttown though, I have to resort to reading the bullshit sprouted on fb by self-proclaimed experts who know WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY more than anyone else


to be fair, once you get used to the bb that VS have installed it's not that bad and quite easily navigated


although I still prefer the older PHP BB platforms

Rich.

Forums in general are just pretty dead these days.

I’m always open to suggestions for improving this place, but I’m not interested in growing it for the sake of numbers. I set this place up for a fun and chill community which I think we have.

Agreed!

There's not loads of people on here, but the people who are make the place for me....... quality not quantity as they say! 

Defo a chilled place to be....... for me it's the facebook groups who are full of idiots and I try and avoid plus I may be old skool but i much much prefer the forums of old like this, like for example my little build thread in reader's rides, i've spent ages over time doing that and enjoy it, you can't do stuff like that on facebook etc

I was wondering this, as its not like there is loads of activity elsewhere. What happened? Last time I was properly active on forums was around 2011 to 2013, I seldom use facebook myself so maybe its all there, but if not, where is all of the traffic nowadays? Mazda sold quite a number of these cars y'know 

Head gasket changing guides for example…

My problem with Facebook is that so many people don't write in English.
Or just type for the sake of it. Such as if someone is selling a part then there is often a list of random 'opinions' about what is for sale.

Being in the catogory of 'a very old bloke' I have seen many changes to all forums over the years.
Way back we could do almost anything to our cars and get insurance, let's be honest, we never told the insurance companies what we had done.
Or your mum insured it and you where a named driver, etc....
And cars where stupidly cheap. My first E-Type Jaguar 3.8 was £300. And it was a corker not a 'shed' . And £300 was very affordable.

As the years rolled by everything changed.
I got my first 'Race License' by filling in a form and sending off for it. Bingo, I was on the starting grid.

Also now, and I don't blame them, youngsters just go out and finance a new car. No problems, no oil on their hands and girls like new cars.
We are a very small and dying group of people. Go to any motoring event and look at the cars in the car park, all new ones. Even the odd old one is better than it ever was when it was new.
People just don't turn up in 'fixer-up' cars.

People these days can buy a Tailgate McNoIndicate or whatever, go to a track day and blitz anything we put together.
I've just done a MOT event at Blyton. My car and a few others on the "Track day" where in a tiny bunch of cars running legal road tyres.
The other cars there, mostly not Mazda even thought it was a MOT day where shod with slicks and stripped out, arrived on trailers with a selection of tyres where genuine 'Race cars' and treated the day as a balls out shake down event. Nothing like track days once where. So I and others spent the day ... getting out the way.

Speaking to many drivers on the day the huge majority of them didn't even prepare their own cars. No, it was .... write a cheque track day racing.
I'm sure those people just key board warrior even if they bother with forums at all.

Regards.
Rich.

Facebook is good for sharing pictures and selling/buying parts, but that's about it - no sense of community, in fact no sense at all