This section is only to be used for all motor/naturally aspirated discussion/tech/builds. The amount of posts I have seen lately with no relation to being in this section has been an increased amount causing a bit of clutter. We have lost (not banned) a lot of great members due to some of these reasons and I would like to attempt to fix it maybe even get some of these guys back!

I am adding information to the FAQ, now, routinely as an attempt to slow down the new topics which get discussed over and over. PLEASE, if you find a thread in the FAQ and you have a question after reading it......PLEASE POST IN THAT THREAD. I do not care how old the last post was, how old the original topic created was. If people complain about your bumping threads (for a reasonable question), please report their post and I will take care of it. I will also be cutting down on posts which do nothing to contribute to thread topics. So if your post gets deleted (i will not delete a post that contributes to a thread topic regardless of the content), you should know why.


This is not the place for the following:
*electrical problems
*vacuum leaks
*check engine lights
*anything model specific unrelated to all motor performance
*mechanical problems relating to a stock engine (built motors can be pesky little bitches at times )

We have dedicated sections for the above types of problems so please post in those sections.

SIDE NOTE:
When making a thread here requiring assistance from other users, please be as detailed as possible in your description or question. The more details you can give, the easier it is for people to help!!!! It is also in good practice to research before you post new threads as having some education behind your problem will help you understand the help given back to you.

Thanks,
Blake

 

Man I really hope this helps, it's depressing think about how this place was just a few years back compared to now.

 

Im hoping as well. We've got a discussion in the mod forum right now on how to raise tech development and help the new comers educate themselves without spoon feeding them information. You will NEVER learn anything if you are spoon fed answers the whole time. All you will know is brand name this, brand name that with nothing supporting it!

I'm trying to bring the support back to the fight!

 

im still unclear what is tech misc section include and doesnt include
i think if we put a banner above posting window that tells people what the section they are postingin includes it would help.

because i ve seen posts about coolant leaks in engine management section...from people with less than 10 post count mostly

 

This needs to happen badly. I get steadily depressed every day I log in and have to weed through so much bs. There is rarely a real contributing thread on here anymore. But when I finally do see a question that im interested in other long time members start yelling about search this and google that. Either the search function on here stinks or im just bad at using it because 99% of the times that I search on here I get nothing related to my search. But if I google the same search I get results. So maybe ht needs to work on the search function.

Im am all for more moderation if it'll help streamline the ht experience. Thanks for all the hard work guys.

 

I agree with you on this one. The search function needs to be modified.

 

thats something that we (the mods/admin) have been complaining about ever since the switch to vbulletin.

I dont know how high it is on the priority list for Internet Brands but it is something that is a rather hot topic in the mod forum and we are not happy with it whatsoever.

 

its a section for anything you dont feel belongs in any other section. Like electrical diagnostic. If i was going to post a problem in that aspect that i knew the model specific forums couldnt help with, i would post there.

I hear you Dave. I have a problem with people contributing information which doesnt contribute anything lol. Or passing information along as fact when its just something they read from another guy who read it from another guy. I remember back in the day, the information posted was all from PERSONAL experience. Ever since that day fell, these forums have turned more into facebook or twitter where everyone is out to get everyone and prove they are smarter than the next guy. That day needs to come to an end. Debate will always be there and I welcome that. I love discussions that can get a bit heated at times with passion of the sport but sometimes it does get a little out of hand and when you get new guys posting information which literally makes no sense, we need experienced guys there to help correct the situation.

I cant do all this changing by myself. I am going to need help.

 

If you're using the search on the top right then that's our problem. The Advanced Search is 1000x better. And if that still fails you can search H-T via Google.

Telling someone to search for information when it's related to an old tired beat-to-death topic is bad form? As if people are the first ones to ever ask that question in all the time this has been a forum? To point someone in a direction is not cool? Do you ask the librarian to read you the books when you go into the library? If someone on the street asks for directions do you walk them all the way to their destination? It's unrealistic and it's like this in EVERY forum.

How many "What is best..?" posts do you need to see? How many "How to do this swap?" questions need to clutter up the forum? How many times do you need to answer them with the same info over and over?

Once the FAQs are beefed up then you can refer people to them. It will be the same thing.

 

what are you recommending?

the search in both areas is pretty awful for the "class" of forum HT is under. There should be no problem with the search being able to narrow down what you are actually searching for.

I typically dont have a problem with the search because i remember the people who posted the information i look for. I search for posts by that user or threads started by that user.

 

Probably out of your hands. There are far better search plug-ins/add-ons for the platform than what comes stock out of the box. Also Internet brands seems to be lagging behind big time on the available tech that is out there like forum specific tag clouds, a prompt that shows kids related threads PRIOR to posting based off of keywords in their content. But we get Picture Battles though!!! I frequent a computer forum running VB and it's heads and shoulders above this.

How about get rid of that ridiculous 5 post minimum thing altogether. How many USELESS posts pop up because kids are only trying to get into the Marketplace? If not get rid of it how about up it to 50? Relegate them to the kids table until they EARN the right to post in the marketplace. How many scammers do we let get in there because it's just too damn easy to start posting? Automatically lock ANY "What is the BEST...?" posts as soon as they crop up? Or atthe very least strongly PROMPT for a more technical question-unless it's in an Appearance forum. How about closing posts that go off topic? Those ALONE make it hard to do any relevant searches.

And my biggest pet peeves about H-T is that rules in forums are NOT UNIFORM!!! What is allowed in one is absolutely forbidden in another.

Right now all you can do is beef up the FAQs and start pointing repetitive/redundant questions there and moving unrelated posts to different forums.

 

Well, I wish you good luck with this, but I seriously doubt it will do anything long term. This "cycle" seems to happen every so often. Forum gets super cluttered with just absolutely stupid **** that doesn't belong then an OG makes a thread complaining about it which subsequently rally's support for reform from everyone that tries to post useful information and help others. Things are cool for a while, but then it goes right back to the way it was. Last I remember Clean Rice was in your position 98vtec(making a thread trying to address clutter).

My opinion is that even if the HT search function was worth a damn, the type of people that post these "clutter" threads would still post them. For some reason with that peticular group of people their thought process is not "google because there is a 95% chance that over the course of history someone has had the same question" but rather "oh lemme post up a thread cuz im spechul and this haz clearly nevauh happened b4." Your head hurt after reading that? Mine to. I am really sick and tired of reading ghetto text message language from people that don't even attempt to spell **** correctly.

On top of that you get the people that don't have a damn clue what they are talking about, but are asking if something is good. Like "are bwr coilovers any good?" No, and if your head wasn't actually shoved up your ***, you'd know that. They just show up looking for confirmation so they feel better about buying something knowing damn well regardless of what anyone tells them, they are going to get it anyway.

Then, when the individual that posted up something extremely stupid gets flamed, there is always that group of jackasses that are like "why can't you just spoon feed him or her and be nice?" Why? Because the same **** gets posted day in and day out. I'm thankful I got flamed when I first joined the forums because I then realized that the answer to just about any car related question I could think of was out there already, it just needed to be found. It seems like when a new member gets flamed for posting something stupid they either get all butt hurt and run away(which I have no problem with) or they realize what google is for, they read, they learn, and then they end up helping other forum members that were too damn simple to apply the same process.

 

These statements are what I find to be doing the direct opposite. If you take the time to read the post and post a generic and judgmental post such as " Use the search feature !! noob this has been covered a million times" , your not helping a single person. then 10+ more people troll the same thread. REAL helpful guy. Ive searched and searched for a lot of my questions only to come up with hundreds of threads with the same answers as above, to threads that never find an answer. SO, inreality, if you A) know the answer, answer it. B) if you know of the thread WITH THE ANSWER, Post it and C) DO BOTH.. D) dont post AT ALL

I dont get what is such a freaking problem with this. Clearly, if a thread does not belong, thats an entirely different issue and I cant see that stopping, ever.

 

the tag cloud has been brought up by other mods. I have also brought up potentially being able to tag certain members in threads which could lead to notifications of being tagged. Just an idea but we are trying to be forward thinkers.

I dont think the trial user period will ever be dropped. I can see both sides of its use. The pros and cons.

Posts going off-topic is part of being a mod. Regulation is our job but sometimes it is a bit hard to catch everything. Locking threads that go off topic in a thread with good discussion isnt going to happen. I cant justify closing a hot topic just because a few members went off topic.

You brought up some good points though and I relayed them to the mod forum.

In order for it to work, the whole forum has to be regulated the same way with the whole staff on the same page. Ultimately that sounds great on paper but this place is huge and there is so many mods that have such varying ideas on how a forum should be run. Which can be good and bad. We have great moderators that think differently and it really depends on what works in particular sections. Some just dont operate the same. IE, the TypeR section is its own kind of group from say the Hybrid group. Sure some general guidelines need to be there but you cant mod all sections the same.

I am working on trying to get a prompt added for when you make a new topic asking if you have searched or checked the section faqs. It likely wont do anything but I am game for trying just about anything. If it doesnt work, so what. HT has been ran the same since I can remember and times/people have changed since then. We've got to adapt, yet educate the new guys how things are done properly.

I agree. Coming into a thread topic and simply posting "search" does nothing to contribute and will be grounds to be deleted. I DO NOT want people spoon feeding information although sometimes it may be deemed necessary in the guidance process. Helping people find information is what this place is all about.

If information is going to be spoon fed, my ultimate goal is to see the answer and then SUPPORT information backing up the answer. This leads to discussion which is VERY healthy to creating activity.

 

the new wave.

what worked really good on one of the forums is a bright lime green banner listing all that you can and cant post in each forum section.

and it was only for people with 20 posts or less

 

I like that idea. But I like 50 as a nice round number.

And as for simply saying "search" and not at the very least providing a link to the FAQs or a specific thread is not helpful. I learned that lesson long ago. But when the question posed is something like "Will a Prelude engine fit in my Civic?" then that's just ridiculous.

 

I agree on that one. And usually post a link if i know how it.

 

For cleaning purposes, is there a way to merge threads? It would help alleviate the thread count, re-posting, bashing, etc.

If you could simply merge old threads with new ones that get started, the new one would be locked and the old one would be bumped with the posts that are in the newly locked thread...there is an easier way to explain that, however I do not possess the skills to do it.

 

Yes. It's a moderator/admn feature but it doesn't work like you''re describing. Thread merging literally combines two threads into one, preserving all posts and time/date stamps-like shuflling two decks of cards together. Posts within threads can even be broken out and turned into a separate thread all their own.

 

You old timers remember this (one of my favorites):




It should also be noted within the search page on how to use Google/Bing/Yahoo/Whatever search engines to acquire possible results. I am sure there is more to wanting members using the search here, but it just won't ever been as powerful.

 

^^^Now that I like.

 

Most VB plugins wont work here because the size of our database gives them fits. They had to custom build the search on this site when they switched over to VB because nothing else could handle the database.

 

why not save the usefull threads with pictures on HT server so when noobs search they actually find threads with pictures in them
because "thread is useless without pictres"
and most of those were written in 2001-2005 have no images anymore.

i came across alot of those"dyno/exhaust/intake etc comparison" threads and without dynos they are as good as any other useless thread.


have a voting system for threads if it gets voted as very/extremely useful save the pictures on the server(at least the original post pictures)

 

That's unfortunate. H-T will lag behind a lot of other forums because of this and in fact it's showing it's age. Has been for some time now. Especially if plugins have to be custom written to accommodate the database then I don't see that changing any time soon. Even the skin is rather on the outdated side.

 

a wiki would be awesome.