The perfect motorhome community, a question for you.

[Pudsey Bear]

I'm up for the charity thing, no prizes for guessing which one I'd put forward.

 

[Carrerasax]

Sounds good to me.

 

[MOJO]

I have added to my earlier post
One thing that I would like to see and it would be very useful.
A dedicated Motorhome Technical Information Forum, with a sub forum for each of Motorhome brand.
eg and there are many more, I am sure I have missed quite a few

MOTORHOME TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE

Adria
Autosleeper
Autotrail
Avondale
Bailey
Benimar
Bessacarr
Burstner
Carado
Carthago
CI
Defthless
Damon
Devon
Elddis
Euromobile
Frankia
Giest
Globecar
Hymer / Eriba
Knaus
Laksa
McLouis
Mobilvetta
Niesmann & Bishoff
Pilot
Rapido
Rollerteam
Sunlight
Swift

If this is too much then

UK Built
French Built
German Built
Italian Built
Spanish Built
Slovenia Built

and so on, but then the pedantic among us could say for instance that Hymer are USA built as owned by Thor or Elddis are German built as owned by Hymer or similar things!

And -
Well built
Rubbish built ?

 

[Antje]

This is a great suggestion and good list, but may I make a plea for VAN CONVERSIONS.. I have a converted Ford Transit , and any tips relating to 'non-professionally' converted vans could be of real use to owners like me. Many thanksMM

 

[marymary]

yes please Jeff to stickers at Hollinsworth....looks like you’ll need a few

 

[debs]

I like the Forum as is, and as it develops I tend to embrace whatever changes come along. So a huge thanks to Phil for all his hard work.

 

[RoaminRog]

A good forum is simply a group of people, helping each other in whatever way they can. Simples.

 

[nimmo777]

This is a great suggestion and good list, but may I make a plea for VAN CONVERSIONS.. I have a converted Ford Transit , and any tips relating to 'non-professionally' converted vans could be of real use to owners like me. Many thanksMM

Thanks Antje, We have converted an ex ambulance & are always on the lookout for ideas etc. Hope we meet up somewhere, sometime Hazel & Derek

 

[nimmo777]

Maybe we could do a charity thing and do the odd fund raising maybe a kids hospice or kids charity I’d realy like it if we could do something or anything along these lines. We have quite a few members and a little Bit here and there would make a big difference

Good idea Wooly. I've got some of the ladies knitting squares for me to make into blankets for emergency relief overseas.

 

[yorkslass]

This is a great suggestion and good list, but may I make a plea for VAN CONVERSIONS.. I have a converted Ford Transit , and any tips relating to 'non-professionally' converted vans could be of real use to owners like me. Many thanksMM

Have you had a look at Motorhome builder, part of the Motorhomer family but specially for self builds,

 

[Jeanette]

If you pm me your address , I will send you some

Can I have some please jeff

 

[wildebus]

One thing that I would like to see and it would be very useful.
A dedicated Motorhome Technical Information Forum, with a sub forum for each of Motorhome brand.
eg and there are many more
MOTORHOME TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE

Autotrail
Bailey
Burstner
Defthless
Devon
Eriba
Euromobile
Frankia
Giest
Hymer
McLouis
Rollerteam
Swift

Doing this can really dilute and marginalise a forum. The differences between different brands of Motorhomes are way less than the similarities between them.
Loads of people will post every single question they have about anything whatsoever in say the Hymer section, as that is what they own, and people with say a Frankia will never visit a Hymer section - as they don't have a Hymer.

You see this kind of separation on Car Forums where each model has its own section - and you end up with niche groups of members who will chat about loads of stuff - but always, but always, posted within the Brand/Model section they own.

 

[wildebus]

So why does it work very well in Fun and it did in Facts before the site went belly up

It's called having an opinion. I think it is a bad idea for the reasons I gave.

 

[wildebus]

What I think WOULD be very useful, but I don't recall ever seeing it on any forums, is the ability to use tags in a post. This can help identify specific products or brands where it could be of use or relevant.

#Selfbuild

 

[Minisorella]

Good idea Wooly. I've got some of the ladies knitting squares for me to make into blankets for emergency relief overseas.

I've got a few squares for you too. I keep them in the van for the next time I bump into you

 

[Minisorella]

Doing this can really dilute and marginalise a forum. The differences between different brands of Motorhomes are way less than the similarities between them.
Loads of people will post every single question they have about anything whatsoever in say the Hymer section, as that is what they own, and people with say a Frankia will never visit a Hymer section - as they don't have a Hymer.

You see this kind of separation on Car Forums where each model has its own section - and you end up with niche groups of members who will chat about loads of stuff - but always, but always, posted within the Brand/Model section they own.

I agree with you David and said something along the same lines in an earlier post... you were more eloquent though
A huge part of getting a successful response to a query/problem is to cast it to the widest possible audience. I would likely never even look in a Dethleffs or Hymer thread for instance and would probably be talking to myself in a Compass forum

I agree about the tags too but it would be difficult to get posters to attach them. A really good search facility could do the same thing. I haven't tested the efficiency of the one on here yet.

 

[wildebus]

I will give an example on the niche and dilution thing .... I was a member of the Toyota Owners Club, and really only visited the RAV4 section (as that is what I had). Just about every RAV4 owner who was a member only ever visited that section. The same was true of the Corolla section, the Yaris section and the Avenesis section. The general chat section was really only ever used by people with unpopular models as they would have no one to talk to otherwise
(and the Forum owners really p****d off most of the RAV4 members by moving every topic not specifically about RAV4s to general - where they never went! And in the end we just started a brand new forum for RAV4s (which was the busiest part of the old Toyota Forum)
Same is true of the VW forum with T4 section, T5 one, T6 one, LT & Crafter one .... There has been a breakaway T4 Forum recently...
Creating a seperation of topics is one thing; Separating members (because people identify with their brands - just look at many user names to see that), however unintentionally, is another thing entirely and is not - IMO - a way to build a Community.

 

[Minisorella]

From my perspective, no matter hat brand of motorhome i owned, the first place I would look for help would be the dedicated brand forum. Anything else, although, it could be equally as good or even better, would be secondary!
So why not both, it is not a one or the other, is it?

I would worry that people's focus and knowledge could be lost in an over-specific structure and it could get too complicated. For instance, I could easily miss a clue to a fridge relay issue because I just wouldn't look in a Hymer thread. At the moment, I look at all the questions and queries, just in case they're relevant to me or on the offchance it's the one occasion when I can actually help! It's losing the wider audience knowledge that would worry me most if threads were too specific to brands. It would be a very boring read to have to trawl through all the brand threads in case someone's posted a relevant bit of info... and you know how threads go off at tangents to touch on other things. As David said, people could be lost to the wider community because they're tied up chatting about their specific brand. Plus some people have owned several brands of motorhomes, so might have just the answer you need but they likely wouldn't see your question if they now mostly posted in Autosleepers for instance. Sorry ***** - I do see where you're coming from but I just don't feel comfortable with anything that separates people into hives.

 

[Minisorella]

So what about the examples I posted before, there would be no where for them in Generic threads.
I can completely understand having threads on Generic items, but can't understand why you are so against Brand specific threads. Both would work!. As I said earlier, it does not have to be one or the other. Look at the other main M/H forums, it works for them!
Myself, a Hymer owner, would only look into the Hymer specific forum if I had a problem or was looking to help!. MY everyday forum use would be elsewhere!

At the moment, people post brand-specific queries, along with more generic queries, under the Motorhome forum sections, so there's always a place for everything. It's Phil's decision though... the rest of us are just stating our honest opinions and feelings about things

 

[wildebus]

Check out the below link

done so.
chose British Motorhomes, then chose Swift.
lots of questions about Swifts - that's good (except plenty of non-Swift owners may well be able to help even with those but will never see them), plus questions on "Seat Belt laws", "Which Sikaflex", "MOTs", etc. why are they in a Swift section?
And then the replies to the Swift-directed questions ... 3rd most recently replied to topic back in September, 4th most recent topic replied to was in August.
And I think the Swift brand is one of the most common ones?
I bet if you ask the person who set up all those seperate groups if he would do so again, I bet it would be 'probably not' (loads of them have just 1 or 2 posts in them). Sorry, but I do not call this "working very well".