Forum Upgraded to v1.2

[Bram Hengeveld]

The forums are now updated with the newest version of the software.

Will post a more extensive changelog tomorrow of what has changed but for now a couple of important things.

• As expected the custom theme I made for the forums that matched our frontpage (which is another software) is broken and needs to be fixed or redone completely (i think the latter is best but takes some days to build from scratch)
• Chat, Videos and the old downloads are (temporary) disabled, will see how many people still use the old downloads otherwise ill remove it completely now.
• Nicely styled postbits for our Premium Members are gone, will have to rebuild them from scratch today or tomorrow. At least asap!
• The downloads system we have been using for the last months is intact and will receive a small upgrade later on to iron out some bugs but all files and thingies are there and working.
• Comments system from the frontpage might be bugged and needs a fix tomorrow morning.
• Frontpage theme and layout will be redone from scratch as well and take some time.

For now the biggest visible change you will see are affecting mobile users. No longer do you have to swipe to make stuff visible as our forum is now 100% responsive and will match whatever device you are using.
For all the old tapatalk lovers that were disappointed with our decisions to remove it recently, now you know why and we hope you are happy with this more modern approach of reading forums for mobile users.

I normally don't ask for donations but in this case we have invested quite extensively into new software and your help would be much appreciated. If you can miss a penny please do chip in as every bits and pieces make a difference to pay for our growing bills.

There have been a TON of changes made and ill do my best to highlight them for you at a later time.

Enjoy this awesome new software and if you happen to run into bugs or you need help with functionality that has changed please drop a line below and ill help you out!

 

[Calum McLure]

-

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

love RD.com but having to pay 15 euros to edit my own posts seems a bit unfair...

Nobody asks you to become premium. If you don't want to then please don't.

The fact we host your forum and league for free is fair I hope?

 

[Giancarlo Pigati]

Nobody asks you to become premium. If you don't want to then please don't.

The fact we host your forum and league for free is fair I hope?

Nobody asks you to become premium. If you don't want to then please don't.

The fact we host your forum and league for free is fair I hope?

Eh, I was afraid you'd go with that. Alright... No editing then, I guess

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Wasn't even meant as sarcasm

If people appreciate what we do and wish to support us with the running costs they are more than happy to do so. In fact we need it more than ever now but nobody should feel forced to donate.

Like I said many times the last couple of months its the community itself that eventually decides if RaceDepartment stays online or not.

Our staff works their behinds off on daily basis and they do it with love still but the simple fact is that the moment our staff or me has to chip in again to keep this operation running and fund the server costs its time to cut in the costs. This means less servers to race on, less bandwidth to maintain the downloads section (or change it to links only) etc or completely move to a much smaller (private) community with premium members only.

Small group, small forum, small budget, much much much smaller workload = same fun but without the monthly concerns.

We get hundreds of thousands of visits a month and its insane that still with such numbers the same small group of people has to pay for the fun of others. To not even mention the insane high amount of people using adblockers to show their support.

 

[Hampus Andersson]

You should have done the thing we talked about on Skype.
It´s extremely affordable and will keep things afloat.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Which is a totally different subject but ok. Nobody is stopping you Hampus, go ahead and you have our blessing. Skype is on.

 

[Giancarlo Pigati]

Wasn't even meant as sarcasm

If people appreciate what we do and wish to support us with the running costs they are more than happy to do so. In fact we need it more than ever now but nobody should feel forced to donate.

Like I said many times the last couple of months its the community itself that eventually decides if RaceDepartment stays online or not.

Our staff works their behinds off on daily basis and they do it with love still but the simple fact is that the moment our staff or me has to chip in again to keep this operation running and fund the server costs its time to cut in the costs. This means less servers to race on, less bandwidth to maintain the downloads section (or change it to links only) etc or completely move to a much smaller (private) community with premium members only.

Small group, small forum, small budget = same fun but without the monthly concerns.

We get hundreds of thousands of visits a month and its insane that still with such numbers the same small group of people has to pay for the fun of others. To not even mention the insane high amount of people using adblockers to show their support.

I agree with everything you say, and the matter of the fact is this is your business, you're proud of what you've accomplished and ultimately you're the guys who decide what members can or cannot do. I can relate to what you're saying because I have been in the same position you've been in.

However, I think the way you're going about getting people to become premium members may not be the best one. Everything that is in the Premium Member Package should be about benefits. Taking away very basic features / actions of a forum (like editing posts) means that you're asking people to pay in order to have the basic service "fixed". Consequently, those people who have not paid yet, or who are new to the forum, will be put off by the fact that they can't even do something they've grown accustomed to do in just about every forum they've been in. That means they're going to be less likely to become Premium Members.

So, what sort of benefits are out there? Well, to be quite honest, I mostly hang out in my league's forum and very seldom do I browse anything else, so I my suggestions would be focused on that. With that in mind, what would be a benefit to a user like me? Well, maybe there can be an easier way to handle the league? Ready-Made Championship Tables, Driver Profiles, something like that? If it was a good feature, I'd pay for something like that.

Part of your audience only uses your forum to read / reply in threads, and that service is usually free everywhere. Therefore, instead of shunning those of us who only use it for that... You could entice us with other shiny things that would make us pay up.

Obviously my suggestion is very limited to my experience in RD.com, you'd be looking for something which would be more appealing to the larger community. However, my main point is that you start with a good basic service and then you entice people with more stuff (which cost money).

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Actually we haven't taken away any basic features of the site as far as i know or must have happened with the upgrade in the last days? You could edit messages before for an unlimited amount of time? If so that should not have been possible in the first place. Post should be editable 1 to 5 minutes after a post has been made by default. At least thats how our former software handled it and most forums.

Also as a forum part owner you should have the tools to edit post or threads. If not let me know and we'll set that up.

Driver tables, data, ranking and such we are doing now for PC sims http://www.racedepartment.com/forum/forums/racelog.35/ but unfortunately will never happen for the F1 Game series as long as Codemasters stubborn keeps insisting in ignoring the community's request for dedicated servers. Thats unfortunately out of our control.

 

[mystaaRS]

But now you can't edit messages at all, even straight after you post a reply.

EDIT: You can, but @Bram Hengeveld I run a Forum Racing Season and I need to constantly update the standings in the first couple of posts, now I unfortunately can't do that.

 

[Hampus Andersson]

Which is a totally different subject but ok. Nobody is stopping you Hampus, go ahead and you have our blessing. Skype is on.

It´s on the subject on the fact that you need money to make the forum survive, correct?
This very thing as you know is used on other forums as well so you know it can work.

Well it´s not my forum, i can come with advice on how to make the forum make money but if you hand the forum over to me, that would be the first thing i would get done asap.

-
Editing was possible for unlimited time before the build, then it disappeared but now it seems it´s back again. The only thing i remember is that you could not edit after X minutes was personal messages.

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Everything that is in the Premium Member Package should be about benefits.
So, what sort of benefits are out there? Well, to be quite honest, I mostly hang out in my league's forum and very seldom do I browse anything else, so I my suggestions would be focused on that. With that in mind, what would be a benefit to a user like me?

It all depends,

• Access to the popular private Paddock Club forums for premium members only with tutorials, competitions, game giveaways and other content only available to premium members.

This is a pretty huge thing for me. For the small donation I have made, I could've, if I had been fast enough/wanted gotten games for many times that price.

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

So, what sort of benefits are out there? Well, to be quite honest, I mostly hang out in my league's forum and very seldom do I browse anything else, so I my suggestions would be focused on that. With that in mind, what would be a benefit to a user like me?

How bout the benefit of knowing that you help contribute to the cost of running said club and league? There are people putting down insane amount of hours, of their spare time, for free, to make it possible for you to go race without having to bother with it. Then there's server costs, and bandwidth costs, not only for the server running the game but the one running the website and forums you use to sign up for this. All this you get for free, and you take if for granted, you can't justify paying for premium unless you get more?
Imo, that is the problem RD has, they give away too much for free in the hopes that people will actually pay because they find it useful. Start limiting non premium members even more maybe? Prob not the best for the community size, but at least they wouldn't have to put up with working for free for people who don't appretiate it.

Sorry for the rant.

 

[Giancarlo Pigati]

How bout the benefit of knowing that you help contribute to the cost of running said club and league? There are people putting down insane amount of hours, of their spare time, for free, to make it possible for you to go race without having to bother with it. Then there's server costs, and bandwidth costs, not only for the server running the game but the one running the website and forums you use to sign up for this. All this you get for free, and you take if for granted, you can't justify paying for premium unless you get more?
Imo, that is the problem RD has, they give away too much for free in the hopes that people will actually pay because they find it useful. Start limiting non premium members even more maybe? Prob not the best for the community size, but at least they wouldn't have to put up with working for free for people who don't appretiate it.

Sorry for the rant.

Well, you managed to completely miss my point.

I was writing a reply to you but I don't want it taken the wrong way so perhaps I'll just leave this matter at rest. RD.com Admins know what's best and they'll do what they see fit to do.

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

Feel free to speak your mind, I don't take things on the internet personally
But I don't think I missed your point, you thought it's the wrong way to go for RD to start limiting basic functionality to try entice people to become Premium, instead of offering great benefits for premium members. While I don't disagree with that what gets me ticked off is when people take the free stuff for granted and want more for going premium.
When I decided to go premium I didn't read a single word about what "benefits" that would buy me, I chose to go premium to give something back to this fantastic community that gives me so much entertainment on a regular basis for free.
If I had the time I'd apply for a staff position and help out, but I can't fit that in my schedule, so I open my wallet instead.

 

[Peter]

Is this still the support & feedback thread? Yes it is.

After several problems with my android tablet I switched to a windows 8 pro tablet.
Finally every thing works now as it should using the metro browser.

@Bram Hengeveld
One thing is strange.
When I write a comment and don't hit the post reply button but leave the page, the comment stays there from one computer to another.
I made a comment on my windows tablet this morning but I didn't post it and the post doesn't disappear. I start my dektop pc now and the message is still there.

 

[Justin Swan]

@Bram Hengeveld Am I being picky in suggesting that our user names under our avatars should be centralised to look in tone with the Premium member/Staff member/Licenced member banners?

 

[mystaaRS]

@Bram Hengeveld Am I being picky in suggesting that our user names under our avatars should be centralised to look in tone with the Premium member/Staff member/Licenced member banners?

I also think that we should have a 'Licensed Member' Banner, maybe in Bronze

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

Is this still the support & feedback thread? Yes it is.

After several problems with my android tablet I switched to a windows 8 pro tablet.
Finally every thing works now as it should using the metro browser.

@Bram Hengeveld
One thing is strange.
When I write a comment and don't hit the post reply button but leave the page, the comment stays there from one computer to another.
I made a comment on my windows tablet this morning but I didn't post it and the post doesn't disappear. I start my dektop pc now and the message is still there.

That's a feature, not a bug. It saves your posts as drafts using your account.

 

[Peter]

That's a feature, not a bug. It saves your posts as drafts using your account.

I don't like it, can it be disabled in my account?

 

[Senad Subasic]

I don't like it, can it be disabled in my account?

I don't know about disabling, but fail to see it being a major issue, just the opposite. According to the quote below, it only shows up in the thread you typed it in, and it goes away on its own.

While you are typing a message, every X seconds (currently 60), a draft of your message will be saved. If you reload the page later, your message will be automatically re-shown. Drafts will be automatically pruned over time.
Each draft is associated with a particular piece of content, such as a thread, forum, or conversations. A draft reply that you start working on in thread 1 will not be shown to thread 2 and so forth.