PLEASE READ! Ridersite - the next stage.
Posted: Sun Dec 01, 2019 7:47 pm
As I'm sure everyone reading this will agree, numbers of the Ridersite 'faithful' have been dwindling year after year. What was once a bustling community now has the forum equivalent of tumbleweed blowing through it. There have been days when I've logged on and there have been no new posts whatsoever. Unfortunately those days seem to be happening more frequently as time goes by.
We've all agonised (individually and collectively) over how to turn this around, and I can assure you that behind the scenes the moderators have been having this conversation regularly. The problem is, there is no easy answer. All of us are primarily motorcyclists who are largely IT non-experts but who call this space a form of home where we can talk to like-minded individuals, but don't have the knowledge to fix and update the crumbling building we inhabit.
Andy (D-Rider) has on more than one occasion asked the question 'do we really want the forum to continue', to which the answer is yes. But to the question 'how do we ensure that RS can continue' there is a deafening silence.
So when the site owner (Jake) approached the mods a few weeks back with a proposal, we were interested (and naturally a little worried). Jake had received an enquiry from Ben Cope (who originally set up Visordown), as he wanted to get back into the forum-running business and Ridersite seemed like an excellent fit for his purposes; an established forum, but one that had languished in recent years.
Anyway - that's the scene set. Below is a brief note from Ben about his intentions and assurances he can give. Please read what Ben has to say and fire away with your questions and concerns. We (the mods) have already asked Ben a lot of questions and have been broadly satisfied with the replies we've had, but really it's down to what you as forum members think.
Here's Ben:
Hello! I'm going to try and keep this short and sweet:
I'd like to inject a bit of life back into RiderSite and see if we can rekindle the community. A long time ago now I started Visordown. Very recently the current owners deleted the entire forums, which was pretty shocking and spurred me into action. All that history, gone.
Massive thanks to Jake and the Admins for keeping the site going and putting in the hard yards.
I have discussed my plan at length with Jake and this is it in a nutshell:
- Update the forums to the latest version of phpBB
- Move it onto a faster server if possible
- Clear out the spammy users and posts and any inactive accounts
- Add in a few more forum features that should make it a better user experience
- Use my experience to bring in a few more characters into the forum, to help us grow the community
- I promise (and it's set out in my agreement with Jake) no banner ads, ever
- I'm happy to refund any donations towards server fees from the past 90 days that are sat in the kitty
- All I'm after is your backing and we'll make RiderSite the best it can be
If you have any questions, just shout.
Thank you, Ben
We've all agonised (individually and collectively) over how to turn this around, and I can assure you that behind the scenes the moderators have been having this conversation regularly. The problem is, there is no easy answer. All of us are primarily motorcyclists who are largely IT non-experts but who call this space a form of home where we can talk to like-minded individuals, but don't have the knowledge to fix and update the crumbling building we inhabit.
Andy (D-Rider) has on more than one occasion asked the question 'do we really want the forum to continue', to which the answer is yes. But to the question 'how do we ensure that RS can continue' there is a deafening silence.
So when the site owner (Jake) approached the mods a few weeks back with a proposal, we were interested (and naturally a little worried). Jake had received an enquiry from Ben Cope (who originally set up Visordown), as he wanted to get back into the forum-running business and Ridersite seemed like an excellent fit for his purposes; an established forum, but one that had languished in recent years.
Anyway - that's the scene set. Below is a brief note from Ben about his intentions and assurances he can give. Please read what Ben has to say and fire away with your questions and concerns. We (the mods) have already asked Ben a lot of questions and have been broadly satisfied with the replies we've had, but really it's down to what you as forum members think.
Here's Ben:
Hello! I'm going to try and keep this short and sweet:
I'd like to inject a bit of life back into RiderSite and see if we can rekindle the community. A long time ago now I started Visordown. Very recently the current owners deleted the entire forums, which was pretty shocking and spurred me into action. All that history, gone.
Massive thanks to Jake and the Admins for keeping the site going and putting in the hard yards.
I have discussed my plan at length with Jake and this is it in a nutshell:
- Update the forums to the latest version of phpBB
- Move it onto a faster server if possible
- Clear out the spammy users and posts and any inactive accounts
- Add in a few more forum features that should make it a better user experience
- Use my experience to bring in a few more characters into the forum, to help us grow the community
- I promise (and it's set out in my agreement with Jake) no banner ads, ever
- I'm happy to refund any donations towards server fees from the past 90 days that are sat in the kitty
- All I'm after is your backing and we'll make RiderSite the best it can be
If you have any questions, just shout.
Thank you, Ben