The board does not give us much insight into what is going on as far as statistics on the forum.
I’ve tried to look at the Top25 posters again like I did last year. Here’s the results.
Some observations :
I don’t have a way of easily including contributions from those not in the all time Top25.
Where’s stevegreen? His posts still exist but he seems to not exist as a user anymore
Six out of the Top25 have been totally dormant this year.
I think its pretty quiet on here at the moment.
We had a flurry of activity to try and get the board a bit more active a while ago but it seems to have dissipated again. The forum is nothing unless people are contributing…
Yeah I am Number1 I know I’ve posted a lot last year so I’m not surprised I took pole…
I started off trying to compare traffic on the board over the years to see if it was actually getting quieter. It was not possible so I ended up with this.
Some interesting stats there Benja, particularly Uldis and Rox still up there after all this time being AWOL It’s a shame some of the newbies that joined after the introductions section was added have not contributed so much since. Maybe they are too busy enjoying their cars
Also I used to be a middle-ranked poster with some far more prolific than me. The fact that I’m now in P1 with twice as many posts as anyone else is not good news. I think the forum needs a bit of a shot in the arm again…
Outsider here, what are your core thread that get most interest?
I myself like to see Build threads from the Start and evolve with loads of details on pictures. Best if you keep this to your forum as exclusive as otherwise people wont come back. Your a nice bunch when I met you at Hethal in 2013 so I wish the community some success. Its nice and intimate around here but you do need some more must see posts / debates…
I would also consider if you can cut down the sub forums a bit if not used, on page1 of some I can see post from 2006.
Projects & Owners Cars to one
Introductions dont need a sub forum people can post in General chat.
Other Stuff get rid and have in general Chat
Please dont take offence trying to assist from what I see.
I think we could invest time/energy in getting David to change the forums categories but whilst it may not be the ideal layout I don’t think its the fundamental issue.
What we need is for more people to post motoring and Exige related tosh. Build threads, trackday reports, race reports, test drives, mods being considered, seen something cool, burnt someone off at the lights, you know the kind of thing.
There’s lots going on we don’t hear about…I guess we all need to invest the time as we all enjoy reading the contributions.
I thought we might have enticed more S3 owners to join as this section on the forum is really quiet. Lotus seem to be selling quite a few of the coupe and roadster now, but most are posting on The Lotus Forum. We need some ideas on how to get the message over to these peeps.
I was looking at the BAT Anglesey driver list and not many S3’s are booked on yet.
Exiges.com does has a reputation of being a bit clicky, if you’re not in the main circle, it’s not very hard to give up.
Plus,prior to the change of moderators (which is a massive positive), registering for a few years was almost impossible, I lost count of the amount of Lotus owners who asked me for help to activate their accounts to no avail and this ended up with me getting banned, so basically Exiges.com lost a continuation of new members and many of them aren’t interested anymore.
At least things are now going in the right direction and will improve.
So, what suggestions does anyone have to end the ‘clicky’ reputation?
There seems to be a core of regulars on any car forum I visit, including TLF, Pistonheads, and (gulp) SELOC, so exiges is little or no different in that respect? If fact, it is not essential to have an Exige to participate here
I suppose the only way is to advertise the site more, but how would we do that without expense. One option might be to have some cards printed that we could hand out at trackdays or meetings etc.
“In total there are 11 users online :: 5 registered, 0 hidden and 6 guests (based on users active over the past 5 minutes)”
Need to lure the lurkers into registering and posting.
I still stand by the forum needs a reorg, and it could be done without loosing any content:
General
Intro
General Chat
S1 Exige Chat
S2 Exige Chat
S3 Exige Chat
Others
The Real World
Projects
Owners Cars
Track Days & Meets
Oily bits
Suspension & Steering
Rover Based
Toyota 4 Pot Based
Toyota V6 Based
Engine Swaps
Classifieds:
Cars for sale / wanted
Parts for sale / wanted
Commercial partner offers (somewhere for the Dave’s and Geary’s to post projects & offers)
Muppet zone is useful thread death row. Lotus talk, known problems, elise talk, articles, would all have their threads migrated to a suitable home one by one (boring, but I’m happy to do it) and then killed off.
Now I’m sure I’ll get the whole “what’s wrong with the way it is now” and “rearranging things subtly isn’t going to change anything” (a cookie for anyone who has a new nay say!) but the site needs to look more relevant to people with loti made post 2001.
I know I’ve posted a lot last year so I’m not surprised I took pole…
It’s a shame some of the newbies that joined after the introductions section was added have not contributed so much since. Maybe they are too busy enjoying their cars 
