Morris Minor Owners Club

I've looked a few times over the last couple of weeks and either a) there are no cars currently for sale or b) something isn't working properly for me. There's a message at the bottom that says I can't reply to topics on there as well? Can anyone shed some light please?

The message saying you can’t reply is apparently to stop replies that upset the seller. It’s a case of keeping the whole class in after school, because someone has said something that might be thought of as wrong. People with genuine questions that might be of interest to others, pay the price.

Ref the OP's other question, does anyone know why all entries back to Nov 2016 have disappeared?

I thought it was just me when I kept on seeing the "cars for sale " section with entries from 2016 so thank goodness some one else is experiencing the same although I see from the op nothing has been said or done about it. I'm loosing the will to live when it comes to this forum as I have only just managed to be able to message other folks on here after quite a few years ! And yes a few years as I had a rather unpleasant exchange on here with a moderator when I was only after some help in not being able to message other users and haven't bothered to log on and interact since as I had lost faith etc. I ponder each time my subscription comes around on whether or not to continue which is a shame as this was a problem free forum some year's ago when I first joined . Lets hope things can only improve and get better.

This forum is open to all, member or not.

Yes, I couldn’t access forum this morning, seems quite temperamental at times.

Obviously female

I see someone has posted in there 'Cars for Sale' bit - asking where the cars for sale has disappeared to! I did rather expect a proper answer but so far nothing from the powers that be....

Maybe there are no cars for sale? Perhaps we just love our cars too much and don't want to part with them

I imagine that the ads are removed after a certain period of time anyway?

Plenty on Fleabay and other car for sale sites...

John ;-)

I imagine that the ads are removed after a certain period of time anyway?

At least as far back as 2016, at which point they must assume that we've lost interest........

I've been debating how best to answer this for a few days and still not come up with something I'm satisfied with, so I'm just going to go with the following. I, and to a greater extent Simon, have been banging the drum for the forum for an incredibly long time, against not inconsiderable opposition from some elements of the club that think it's not really a biggie, and I've scoured online for vehicles that could be posted here, approached the owners and suggested it, and even actually created and posted the ads for them a number of times, in an effort to boost the cars for sale section. You'll have seen the 'competition' to randomly award a book a month, again to try to boost use of the forum. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's all fallen on deaf ears, but the forum does still just trickle along at 803 pace rather than supercharged 1275.
Conversely, I started a Facebook conversation group for the club, a month ago yesterday. In that time, we have over 600 members, 250 posts containing 2,500 comments, and 8,000 reactions. Yes, I know Facebook is a different type of tool and has its own problems (much harder to search, just for one example), and some people shy away from social media in and of itself, but it does show a farily marked difference to the inactivity on the forum. The forum is self-fulfilling - if more posts come, more people come, which brings more posts, which brings more people.
I'm not criticising, I'm simply pointing out that - as the old expression goes - it's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease. All the best, guys

Playing with Facebook is one of the reasons why the LCV forum is rarely used now. Doing the same with the MMOC is likely to diminish the use of this forum as well. It certainly will not help it.

I started a Facebook conversation group for the club, a month ago yesterday. In that time, we have over 600 members, 250 posts containing 2,500 comments, and 8,000 reactions

A good tool, maybe, for promoting the club but are those posting on your Facebook group page existing members who are fed up with this forum or just general members of the public, or a mix of both?
Have there been comments on there about this forum?
Could it be used to promote this forum to owners who are not members of the MMOC and could it be used to encourage more people in general to join / contribute?
All stuff you've probably already thought of, if so this can just be taken as me thinking out loud.....

As an aside and I'm sure others have mentioned this before, I'm sure there was more activity on this forum when I first joined in 2008, I also get the feeling that it started to drift off sometime after Roy (bmcecosse) died, though that might just be me......
I do wonder if those once prolific posters are still members of the club?
Best wishes,
Mike.

les wrote: ↑Wed Jun 09, 2021 1:13 pm Playing with Facebook is one of the reasons why the LCV forum is rarely used now. Doing the same with the MMOC is likely to diminish the use of this forum as well. It certainly will not help it.

To a certain extent I'll agree, but it's not that simple. To a certain extent, the fb use will be the more frivolous or more casual user.
The more serious and in depth discussion would be here as fb is not that versatile a platform, the ability to load multiple images for example.
Of course if this ever gets moved to a better service, perhaps the reliability and features will improve.

jagnut66 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 09, 2021 2:12 pm I do wonder if those once prolific posters are still members of the club?

I used to be a paid up member - but decided it wasn't worthwhile a long time ago. I was putting in a lot of effort as a moderator on the forum and getting nothing out of the club (except the forum - which was more of a chore than a pleasure!).

Its the same with all the "traditional" forums I am on, such as this, Facebook has taken the market share and its gone much quieter. I'm on FB and forums for most things - but im not in any Morris Minor groups at the moment so this is the sole source of my minor fix

I can't argue with the popularity of the Facebook groups. My issue with them, though, is the absolutely VAST amount of absolute misinformation that is routinely posted by people who are either completely ignorant, or have attitude issues. Some of the 'facts' posted in answers to queries about quite serious mechanical issues on Minors is quite often not only misleading but dangerous. And the trouble is that, on the internet, anyone can be an 'expert'... I'm not saying this forum is perfect, but folk do try to answer queries with facts in most cases, and there is a far greater degree of 'peer review'. It's a shame to see its use dwindling, but I wonder whether this might be rectified by the club in some way (possibly a useful and topical discussion for the next AGM ) rather than just 'accepting' that people are moving to FB in droves rather than using a somewhat clunky forum.

Just playing devil's advocate, Mike, as you like to . Nice article about your trip to Scotland in Minor Matters, by the way!

It appears that Matt has thrown the towel in but favours facebook, and I daresay others have and more to follow. Personally I didn’t think this forum was suffering too much at the moment, may it continue to survive but as I’ve mentioned the LCV forum has taken a big hit.

I used to take it very personally when people criticised the way we did things but I'm a bit more sanguine now. We simply can't be all things to all men (that's man as in species rather than gender, before anyone bridles).

I'm not advocating targeting the 'low hanging fruit' so to speak, because then we'd just whack a Facebook group up and leave it at that, but I am recognising that Facebook, for all its manifold faults, is always going to hoover up the greatest numbers. In not previously having such a group, the club lost people to other groups that did exist, and worse in some cases people thought they were using an MMOC group (one of the Facebook groups does have a very similar name to the club). Yes, I understand that there is a slim possibility that some members of this board will 'leak' over to Facebook and no longer use this, but I honestly feel that they will be the exception. People who like message boards will stick to message boards, where those boards exist. It's vastly easier to find previous content, both of your own and of topics that interest you, using a forum than via Facebook, and it's much easier to see who's information can be better relied on.

On the other hand, Facebook is pretty much instant gratification - once you have an account, posting in any of the groups you might belong to is very quick and straightforward, adding images is relatively easy too especially from a mobile device, you can be instantly notified (reliably!) of replies etc. Personally, I use both, as I think each have their uses. Back to what started this conversation, Cars For Sale is best served on a forum I think - the post gets lost in traffic too easily and quickly on Facebook, but as I said we don't seem to be able to persuade our members to list their cars here.