i was in the middle of browsing, loaded the next page and bam! the new design was up. nice.
i have read through all these posts and i not sure what to think. i have noticed that some older core members have been disappearing. not sure what to do.
in anycase, i was thinking about this thread today and perhaps new users can view a sticky with information about the forum. like what makes us different, why they shouldnt be afraid to post, and what different things the forum offers. perhaps this thread can be made to be viewed somewhere along the signup process, or maybe its just a page that they view, instead of an actual sticky. along with that, perhaps they should also be brought to the Introductions forum and maybe someones name can be given to them to act as a liaison for them so that they can PM them questions or something.
i guess what im suggesting is some kind of weird battle buddy program. i dunno. its an idea tho.
to be fair, i have had my fair share of "join a forum and never come back" experiences. i often do this to find an answer to a problem, and i think that is all part of the Internet culture as a whole.
i was a member of UB for nearly a year before i started posting regularly. i joined this forum because my uncle recommended it, and i stayed when i realized that i liked the people here. i dont like other forums like bimmerforums because when i tried to integrate there, it was a lot tougher than it was here. where bimmerforums and the like feel like new york, ub feels like a down home town in the south (where i believe this all started anyway). so i feel that is a substantial part, at least IMHO, of the ub experience.
i worked at an internet development company in the past, and i understand the expenses of maintaining a website, especially one with a lot of traffic and bandwidth requirements, so i do understand where you are coming from. as i do not know what exactly the bills are, i can only wonder if they can be scaled back at all to a more small town feel (if they are not there already, just a thought).