Tsikot Post Stats for February 2008

Last February 26, 2008, Tsikot.com Online Forums (TForums) reached another milestone: the community's 1,000,000th post making it officially a Big Board.

With more than 42,000 members (and growing by 50 to 100 members a day) starting a multitude of threads and posting thousands of messages a day, the following problems inevitably crop up in a big board:

1. Threads in one big general forum (example: Car Talk) are created and move so fast that they get buried in the inner pages before members can browse, read through and reply to them. 

2. As such, members can not see that similar topics have been created before (and most of the time they have been), they continuously create new threads on the same topics, further burying some topics away from the public's view.

3. Forums with too general topics that worked before when tsikot.com was smaller and less active, were not working now. A dramatic rise in membership and traffic resulted in a myriad array of topics bunched together in one general forum, making it hard, even impossible to look for them without using the search function.

On the background of the abovementioned problems concommitant with a big board, we are implementing a forum-wide reorganization of Categories, Forums and Subforums Structure:

1. The very active Car Talk has been segregated into different and Specific Car Brand SubForums (example: Audi Cars Talk). All discussions pertaining to that particular car brand will be transferred to this subforum eventually. New threads pertaining to that particular Car Brand should be created in that particular subforum.

2. The very popular Diesels, SUVs, Mini-SUVs, AUVs and Trucks Forum will soon be dissolved and threads pertaining to a particular car brand will be transferred to its specific Car Brand Subforum. With this move, all discussions (SUVs, AUVs, Pick-Up trucks, sedans, sub-compacts and mini's) of a particular brand will now be housed together in one subforum. This way, redundancy and confusion on where a thread should be will be minimized.

With car brand-specific subforums, we can incorporate information and databases specific to particular car makes and models like price lists, technical data and other information.

3. Discussions on other car-related matters that are general and not brand-specific like car insurance, LTO / MMDA matters, financing, car buying, etc, will now be under a new forum, Drive Talk and its subforums (Car Insurance, Financing and Auto Loans Talk, Traffic, Laws and Infrastructure, Car Safety, Comfort and Economy, Maps and Directions, Car Buying Talk, Concept and Classic Cars Talk, etc.). New subforums will be created as the need arises. For the meantime, threads and discussions not yet transferred or cannot be classified will be under a temporary repository (The Garage) until they are transferred. Likewise, new threads that are not classifiable under this time (no specific topic) should be created in The Garage forum.

4. Another popular forum, The Workshop has also been categorized into different subforums: Engine and Fuel System Troubles, Transmission Troubles, Electrical, Lights and Wiring Troubles, Aircon and Cooling Troubles, Suspension, Steering, Brakes and Wheels Problems and Other Troubles. Threads are in the process of being transferred to their specific subforums and are temporarily housed under Other Troubles pending their transfer to new and soon-to-be-created subforums.

5. Car Club Forums will soon be under specific Car Brand Forums as subforums but will be linked from the home page. Clubs (existing, new and soon-to-be-created) can request Tsikot.com to host their forums and we will be very glad to do so. You can use your particular club forums to announce events, activities, discuss club matters and even invite Tsikot members to join your club. But we do require that only club-specific matters like those mentioned should be discussed in the particular club forums. All general and specific discussions on particular car make or model (problems, troubleshooting, mods, etc) should still be under the sepcific car brand subforum (Car Talk Subforum).

This forum reorganization process is dynamic and still ongoing. We are still mulling several changes to make browsing tsikot easier and more enjoyable by making the forum structure more orderly, organized and functional.

We appreciate your inputs and feedbacks.

Thank you very much.

Tsikot.com Administrators

Offer your inputs, feedbacks or discuss these changes at the Tsikot Forums .