992TheMoon

At the risk of sounding like an elitist cyber A-hole, Just an observation... Why does Rennlist.com's platform feel so dated or "beta"? I enjoy visiting this site in my spare time, but I just can't help to feel like I'm stepping back to the early days of the internet when I'm here. It's like walking into a brick & mortar, old Italian restaurant in New Jersey and seeing wood paneling on the walls (Thats not always a bad thing) This is such an informative site and I enjoy its content (specifically 992 while waiting for delivery), but I wish it were more modern and easier to navigate. I assume Rennlist.com generates decent revenues via global memberships and advertising. Im not currently a paying member, but would consider it if it had a more modern platform. Am I alone on this? I don't claim to be IT savvy or know the work that goes into programming etc, but can't the design / platform be improved?

rk-d

If it's not broke don't fix it.

I've seen forums die when the owners get cute with the interface.

Simple, clean and lightweight is best.

PopPorscheCherry

That's a fair point

#1SomeGuy

VBulletin which is what this site runs on is one of the last great forum software platforms out there. Xenforo which is where a lot of message boards have moved is just horrendous and typically kills forum traffic because the UI is too "fluffy" and wastes so much space and just doesn't work as well. Vertical Scope who has bought up a ton of forums has also destroyed most of them, it's a terrible downward spiral of forums in general.

Believe me, moving to a "more modern" platform will kill this place.

dhirm5

... and that's why IB won't change a thing. their set of online forums is a cash machine and they won't risk any potential impact to their number of eyeballs.

personally, i agree vbulletin is extremely outdated and would substantially benefit from a new, fresh look, and incorporating modern tech (single page app / react / angular / something) to update and improve the user experience.

people hate change.

Penn4S

It is what it is. The content is why I come here not the internet experience. If you come and enjoy the content I think it's only fair to be a paying member.
The idea of not paying till the site meets your browsing experience assumes you won't visit till that happens. Right? If the info is valuable pay and support the site. Then bitch like everyone else does.

LexVan

OMG, you really don't want IB's IT Department fiddling with this thing. BTDT.

Keadog

I take it you are not a bowhunter? If you think there’s anything wrong here, don’t bother going to Bowsite. Painful experience there.

NigelPlays

Simple conversations that are easy to read. Don't update.

dhirm5

to be fair, they're easy to read because you're used to knowing where to look. fresh eyeballs that haven't used vbulletin before have a lot of trouble figuring where to look, how to use, etc. it's a ui/ux nightmare. especially if you don't log in / become a member, inundated by horrible ads. it's terrible.

just navigating to the forum you want is nearly impossible with those stupid drop down menus that you have to be laser precise to avoid having them close on you, and then starting over.

detansinn

The Alfa Romeo 4C Forum went through a cute facelift and engagement dropped accordingly. It's not worth it to mess with what works.
Content is more important than layout/colors and HTML5 fanciness.

points

A 5 post newbie complaining? And a "user" to boot. We move on.

worf928

The answer to your question is because Rennlist, more-or-less, predates the World-Wide Web. It started out as a Majordomo mailing list.

At the risk of sounding like an elitist cyber-A-hole, I’m going to assume that you’ll need to google Majordomo and mailing list...

As for the rest: I agree with posts ——^ that the vast majority of other forum interface frameworks suck donkey *****.

worf928

Seriously, why do you think “list” is part of the name and not “forum?”

moomin

I agree it's abit dated.

I cannot stand the alternative: reddit or facebook groups for this sort of topic. On those platforms threads don't bump so it's a non-stop recycling of content. Feels like groundhog day. Much more noise and bs.