My two cents - and by way of full disclosure, I've got a stake in this thing because I launched it. The story, however, is relevant.
This group got started because back in 2000, I got a C70 - actually the same one I owned in 1983, but that's another story. I stuck a picture on my personal site, and started to get e-mail, from people who clearly knew a lot more about the bike than I did. Rather than filtering the thing, and trying to answer questions, I moved the thing to e-groups (which was later bought by Yahoo.) And people began to join.
If you look at those early messages, you'll see a lot of basic, friendly chit-chat. There are people who post all the time, and people who lurk. But the thing has grown steadily, with basically zero promotion.
Sure, there are better tools out there for making posting easier, or for threaded discussion management - but this thing has taken on a life of its own, and moving it to another venue would put it at risk. Here's why it still works:
1 - It's ridiculously easy to find / join - because Yahoo has invested in promoting the Yahoo Groups brand
2 - You don't need to be any good at "that internet stuff" to use it - I've used a lot of forum-type tools for other groups, and always end up here. Why? A material portion of the population doesn't want to mess with anything more complicated than "send an e-mail and you become a member." We would miss a lot of people, all in the name of a slicker site.
3 - We're already here. Any time you move something, you lose a lot of people. Sure, some of them are people who haven't posted in years, and never look at the thing. But others are surely seasonal riders, or folks who only look at it during the riding season, or when they're trying to fix something. Valuable, interesting members, many of whom wouldn't find their way to the new tool if they came back here after a hiatus.
4 - A big stinkin' corporation already handles the infrastructure. It's their job. Sure, moderating this thing is a mountain of work, and I'm amazed at my luck that Mike G decided this was something he wanted to do. But if this were on something less than enterprise-level hosting, and it went down for a week, it would not be the same when it came back.
I say leave it alone - we've got a huge group of people who have figured out how to join, participate, and use this thing, and it seems unlikely that it would survive a transplant.
More briefly - if we're so happy riding around on ancient motorcycle technology, doesn't it make sense to use ancient internet technology to support them?
-Noah Shlaes
--- In Honda-C70@yahoogroups.com, "RGivs" <rgivans@...> wrote:
>
> Would anyone be interested in starting a Super Cub forum? I am a web developer with an itch to build a forum and am wondering if people would be interested in using it.
>
> I find these Yahoo boards to be very unfriendly to new users.
>
> I would need an administrator and 2 moderators. Let me know and I can build something and setup a domain for us all to use and ultimately it will be a lot easier for users to find us and our love for our Honda's.
>
> Something like this (same layout and functionality)
> http://www.hondaspree.net/
>
> P.S. I believe this will be a ton easier for our non-english speaking friends as they could simply change the site language for their view. Who knows maybe we can get a NOS connection over in Bangkok :)
>
> *Just an idea I thought I would throw out there.
>
1970-73 C70 Honda Service Manual: http://tinyurl.com/6ebwtw
1970-73 C70 Troubleshooting Guide:
http://tinyurl.com/6ebwtw (scroll to sec.7.1 page 101.jpg)
1980-83 C70 Honda Service Manual: http://tinyurl.com/hu42c
1980-81 C70 Troubleshooting Guide:
http://tinyurl.com/hu42c (scroll to sec.18-1 page 170.jpg)
1982-83 C70 Troubleshooting Guide:
http://tinyurl.com/hu42c (scroll to sec. 20-28 page 205.jpg)
1980-81 C70 Maintenance Schedule: http://tinyurl.com/z4zn6
1982-83 C70 Maintenance Schedule: http://tinyurl.com/hw35c
More resources for C70 Passports and Cubs:
http://www.shlaes.com/Vehicles/Scooter.htm
http://www.velodrome.com/HondaC70/HondaC70.html
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