Private forum for YT members

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

82cruiser

82cruiser

GOLD Star
Joined
Sep 29, 2005
Threads
243
Messages
1,955
Location
Boston, MA
Hi folks,

Would anyone else be interested in having a private MUD forum for YT members only?

This would potentially be a better place to discuss and debate club matters than what our current open forum provides. We also may get more participation from members which would help in future planning, activities, and events. Just a thought.

Thanks
 
Last edited:
I think it is a good idea.
 
As long as it is a forum like Mud, and not going back to the email forum we used to have.
That would be a step or two backwards.
 
Over the past few years I have always felt that YT needed a private forum area where we could let our guard down a bit.
whether it was specifics about a trail, directions to somewhere or a place where we could talk about some club topics that
don't need to be read by non members.
Maybe a for sale thread just for members.

Also I have to say, with some of the threads in the past few months- it really makes us look like a bunch of asses.
In a private setting it would be different since we all know eachother.
For someone that doesn't know us, there could be a comment or two that may dissuade a potential member from joining up.

I think the YT MUD private section would be advantageous to the club sooner than later with such sure to be hot topics like elections, budgets etc, etc.

Awhile back I had thought about making our own forum.
My reasoning for this was that between our web hits here and our web hits on the home page we have a lot of web traffic.
Web traffic equals sponsors and people wanting to advertise on your page maybe helping the club with the overall budget etc. etc.

I don't think that's the way for us to go now.
It requires more work and there seems to be few people willing to put in any work at all.
 
I am not a fan of our homepage but am doing my best to update it. I don't find it user friendly. Not sure if this is possible but will look into a members only section of our current homepage on Wordpress.
 
Hey Will,

This is not on you bud.
You're right, I struggled with that wordpress set up but I'm sure it was a good choice when it was selected.
 
Can MUD provide a private forum that works sort of like a Facebook group where an Admin ok's individual users? Seems like that would be simplest. Hosting your own separate forum is surprisingly cumbersome.

I agree though, it's a good idea if it can be implemented cleanly.

All this reminds me that I need to re-up my membership.:doh:
 
My thoughts on this for what they are worth.

At the spring meeting it was made clear that not everyone frequents MUD and one individual actually stated that bringing back the Yahoo groups was "key" to keeping everyone up to date on the clubs information.

Because of this it appears that any forum that we use would need an email component so as to automatically alert members to new and on going discussions. Not having that would likely exclude some members who don't frequent the forum on a regular basis and we would likely miss out on valuable input.

Over the years choices were made in the en-devour to make communications easier and more accessible as those tools became available and affordable. This has brought the club to a point of having multiple sites and venues to communicate through and the burden of managing these outlets is rather daunting. This doesn't mean that mistakes were made. Actually it's part of the process of running the club, however the other component is that from time to time some "housekeeping" needs to be performed as well. This helps to manage the work load and focus the clubs communications to be more effective and inclusive.

Adding a MUD private area would add to the already long list of duties in this area. There would have to be some management of who is allowed in. I would think the only fair way would be along membership lines. Especially since we now allow non-members to view these threads and the point is to eliminate that. And it would fall short of being more inclusive to our members.

It seems to me that generally the popular solution is to have a web based site and an associated facebook page. We already have the facebook page.

I did investigate the possibility of having our own web site and found a solution that seemed to offer a long list of options such as email mailing lists, forums both open and private, membership management, file storage for pictures and videos, technical support help and more all maintained and backed up on their server automatically. The cost of this is less than $20.00 a month to the club as a whole. And once linked to our domain it would appear to everyone as a stand alone web site just as the one on wordpress.

Besides the opportunities for maintaining and running the club with a reduced work load it adds those opportunities that Bob mentioned as far taking advantage of our "web traffic". Since most of the sponsors that we approach already advertize here on MUD there is very little added exposure for them if we also post something here. Having our own site would then allow us to offer additional advertizing to potential sponsors.

Would this be the easiest way to bring about a private area for those posting on MUD? No not really. But I feel we have the members on hand to be able to execute it if there is the will to do so.
 
landtank said:
At the spring meeting it was made clear that not everyone frequents MUD and one individual actually stated that bringing back the Yahoo groups was "key" to keeping everyone up to date on the clubs information.

Because of this it appears that any forum that we use would need an email component so as to automatically alert members to new and on going discussions. Not having that would likely exclude some members who don't frequent the forum on a regular basis and we would likely miss out on valuable input.
Click to expand...

I believe you're referring to my suggestion to communicate with members via email. It may be true that not all members frequent MUD, but in the absence of actually polling or asking them directly, we won't know for sure. Communicating by email seems to be the simplest and most direct way to contact members, Yahoo group or directly from a BOD member. The Yahoo group has been set up for years and used to be very active with members, so it seemed logical to reintroduce it. It's just an option for communication and at the time of the spring meeting, we had important decisions to make and the inclusion of the entire membership seemed appropriate.

At the spring meeting, my main points for suggesting direct email (not Yahoo) as a way to communicate with current members was to address the immediate needs/issues of the club, primarily the voting of increased dues and voting for BOD members. Using the votes of whoever happens to show up at the spring meeting as representation for the club as a whole seems questionable to me. I think the membership should have the opportunity to voice its opinion and cast votes in a simple and private way. While some of this is spelled out in the club bylaws, how that is achieved should be decided by the membership collectively. If members choose not to participate in a vote, then those that do end up deciding the direction the club takes. At least everyone would have the opportunity to weigh in. JMO, take it with a cruiser load of salt.

It makes sense that the club needs to do some house cleaning from time to time as you mention. It seems like now would be a good time to do that to minimize workload and prioritize what's important to the membership. In getting back to the topic at hand, how much work is it to manage a private forum on MUD?
 
I fully concur Rick.

With such limited resources to support the club's infrastructure, simplification and refinement of communication modes to members is key. A private section on 'Mud would be a quick fix, but would not address other communications challenges the club has. While, yes, 'Mud forums are effective and habitual for many, they do not offer enough branding growth opportunity and activity trending; which is something vendors look for. Having a single integrated application which supports 80% of club operations and communication would be a gift from the internet gods.

Rick researched the GroupSpaces application and I cannot find any functional shortcoming with it. It is an application that was designed precisely for social clubs like ours; once set up, in my estimation, it could take 30 to 40 hours of administrative task off the BOD's to-do list each year. Only downsides I see is people having to modify their web-browsing habit a bit. And the initial effort required by a small team to develop, format, beta test, and launch it.

Key application functions:
Central membership database
Annual dues management and collection
Easy to publish pre-formatted newsletters
Event ticket sales
Web forums (public & private based on membership)
New member sign up
Event calendar

While this thread is not the place to fully vet potential new communication tools for the club, I encourage anyone who has interest in it to visit the website and take a look. In the short term it may be awkward, but in the long run I have no doubt GroupSpaces (or some competitive application) would prove very beneficial to the club.

http://groupspaces.com
 
82cruiser said:
I believe you're referring to my suggestion to communicate with members via email.
how much work is it to manage a private forum on MUD?
Click to expand...

Actually Randy it wasn't you that I was thinking of but do remember you mentioning the voting issue and I've already setup an account on SurveyMonkey.

I'm not sure what is entailed in setting up a private forum but I will ask. Right now I have a weeks work in Michigan and then 2 weeks vacation in Florida. Then there is Thanksgiving and there is still quite a bit of work that needs to be completed by year end for the club.

If I over stepped my authority this year it wasn't out of a disregard for the by-laws. I thought we had successfully conveyed our intentions and the resulting effects at the spring meeting and I don't remember hearing anything to the contrary about how to proceed.
 
I think it would be a great idea.
 
I was at the top but now it went poof!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

H
Fall Gathering: Where did we land on showing up for the day on Saturday?
Replies
2
Views
786
hwi1s0n
H
jmylie
Father's Day Weekend - Field & Forest
Replies
5
Views
806
Mike Onesty
M

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 1 (members: 0, guests: 1)

Share this page

Back
Top Bottom