From Eric to Everyone

[Eric]

Hi all,

I've got a question for everyone who posts here regularly: How come you prefer to post here rather than post over at the EPautos.com main page?

It would REALLY help make the site more viable if more of you posted as regularly over there as you do here. We've put a lot of work into the EPautos main page, yet there are a bunch of you who remain over here. I'd really appreciate your letting me know why that is.

Do you not like the main page? Is it missing something? What might we do to get you to become a regular poster over there rather than here?

Thanks in advance for your feedback!

-Eric

[Ken]

Hi, Eric.

FWIW;

The Forum is more like a gathering of friends where conversations are easy. Viewpopints can be discussed and agreed/challenged. Help can be requested and is readily given. Forum navigation is simple, the Forum Main Page is uncluttered, threads are obvious and all related posts are contained within the relevant thread. If no current thread is applicable to one's subject it is simple to open a new one. To me, at least, the Forum is all I need, the Front Page has had no attraction to me from day one - some time ago now.

Ken.

[MikeHalloran]

I got used to text based forums a long time ago, before Compuserve was disemboweled.

My computer are all seriously traiiing edge, technology-wise. I often interact through connections that are slow or uncertain for one excuse or another, so I _really_ dislike pages that are constantly dynamically changing the content displayed at any given position, or where nearly every link leads to a damn video. ... like AOL.

On my 1024x768 laptop, the computer I use most because it's next to my easychair, the epautos.com homepage is roughly 18 screens tall. Not even my CAD computer in the next room has enough size and resolution to make that page appear uncrowded. On balance, at least it's not also 18 screens wide. What a mess _that_ would be.

I conjecture that every damn webpage designer buys a huge monitor and a $5000 video card with their first real paycheck, and immediately starts designing pages that appear wonderful, to webpage designers on huge monitors.
Most webpages would improve if those toys were taken away.

[Horse Badorties]

Eric -
I don't post all that much here in the forum, though I do follow what's going on here. I come to sites like this for the tech info and personal stories. A traditional forum like this is much more friendly for users like me. OT digressions can branch off into a new thread, and there's no stupid nesting comment limit when things get interesting. The main site has what seems to me a lot of sock puppets or bots just to stir shit up - Tor Libertarian, Clover, David... all seem like sock puppets to me. Some asshole with painted socks on his hand staging an argument between left hand and right hand. Feh. I don't need the drama, the pissing into the wind, that I see on the main site. That's it, really. There's some really good people, some very sharp minds, that hang out at EPA; your reviews and views on auto tech and policy are always good reads and generate great comments from user's personal experience. The arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a Libertarian pin bullshit is much less useful, noxious, and avoided here. My character fault is brutal honesty when asked for it. Peace, and good luck.

Next Day Edit: Can anyone point me to a post where Tor, Clover, David, etc., share with us what car they drive? What their favorite car was,or a useful fix? I don't even get the impression that they've ever driven from their posts. wtf.

[tcolby]

I agree with Horse Badorties about the articles that are not connected with autos.
It seems they are rants that would receive more attention on web sites that are more appropriate for their content.
I do think the auto articles and the forum are good and worth reading.