Restoring from a backup and losing a few posts would be better than it is now. This was not hard to navigate.


Then close this thread and delete Site Suggestions & Problems it serves no purpose.

 

Is there a way to have a tag on new threads going forward to show what gen they are? The do this on MBWorld...

 

Someone texted me that the ES threads were in the process of being conso

what a mistake


don’t fix what ain’t broken. Traffic and user engagement will decrease.


pl, se,


perhaps members should have been consulted as members are the engine that drives CL. (Pun intended )

 

'far worse' which presumes you didn't agree with the latter merger either, which has otherwise been viewed mostly positively.

no, there are over 80 people in the community team and over 20 'leaders'.

i'm sure if your posts were the ones being lost in such a move, you'd be totally ok with that. lol

this forum provides feedback, it doesn't guarantee outcomes. we ARE reading it, but it doesn't mean everyone gets what they want.

pwi again?

 

Yes, 100%.

 

We are evaluating things obviously and processing the feedback. Thank you for your patience.

 

I know nothing we say here will have any effect on this decision... but what the heck? Definitely threw my brain off for a good 5 seconds trying to figure out what I was looking at and thought the website had a rare glitch.

This seems like the thin of the wedge prying us from order into pure chaos. Up next, consolidating our socks and undies into a heap in one drawer 🧠

 

That is a valid point, but the issue is the implementation of such system. If we are to pursue this path, creating just an additional field to be filled out when creating a new thread means that it will be ignored just as often as people neglect to provide this information in the main body of the thread. The only way I see to make it work would be to Force users to fill out the required information before the thread can be posted, which, as one can imagine, will cause a fair amount of friction.

The "About Me" page for every user had "Lexus Car" field for years now, and yet, just like with the threads, it's extremely rare to see new users feel obligate to fill it in, and it's not because of bad intentions on their part, they still need their problem solved, it's that not everyone even considers this as a necessity, it's a forum dedicated to their cars after all..

Speaking of which, they somehow find space for every individual frame to be in its own dedicated forum despite being hosted on the same platform, save for the A-Class that is, but it was destined as an outcast from the very start..

That would have been fantastic, emphasis on shoulda/woulda/coulda..


I actually meant it as a constructive criticism, mentioning why I consider it to be a bad decision, and ways of mending the situation that is now "irreversible", outlining my reasoning behind it instead of outright saying that I just know better. If you see that as condescending .. well, I apologize profusely..

I was not looking for a point by point response with evidence, I only asked you to answer one single question, hoping that would help connect the missing links, apparently I was mistaken.

I have never tried to hide that I don't like this new arrangement, and yes, if you will keep insisting on allocating only 3 forums for the ES, I would consider the structure I outlined previously to at least be acceptable, if still far from perfect. But then, have you given any consideration as to whether my propositions were anything more than just my own whims?

I have been an active user on this forum since November of 2019, the absolute majority of that time I have spent on a 1st to 4th Gen ES forum. Would it be that big of a stretch to think that my personal use cases align at least to some extent with general, day-to-day activities within that forum section?

It's a place with a wealth of useful information for anyone still looking to keep those cars running, and with users who can still help with sorting more unique issues. Nobody around that forum is there purely to smell the roses, as you have duly noted, those cars are past their prime time, people that stop by, for the most part, have a problem they need help fixing, not another place to engage in some pub banter on distant topics with boundaries being set only to simplify the choice of company.

I counted them as if every model was to have its own forum, which, it appears was the case a while back, even if that was before my time. That said, to be abundantly clear, I am not advocating for the return to each individual forum, the 1st to 4th Gen ES forum was working quite well.

I don't think that it can be done this easily now that we have 6 forums jam-packed into one, there will be too many links to fit into one post, the absolute majority of which will be utterly irrelevant to a given user that only has one of the 6 models that will be listed there.

For example, I find a lot of threads about potential mods to a 3rd-gen ES made by Power6 and LeX2K particularly useful and more than worth pinning somewhere where they are accessible, but that's coming from someone who owns a 2000 ES300, and so if I were an (unlikely) owner of a 6th-gen for example, I will have to scroll through at least a dozen links, sacred to someone else, but utterly redundant for me, to access what I was looking for. If the task was to simplify things, that's not going to be it.

A different strategy would be to create a Sub-Forums, like the ones over on SC forum, as just the folders for each respective generation, but although it would've worked with the previous structure, it will totally defeat the purpose of both the merge and elimination of the sticky threads in this case.

Too much for who? Clearly not for the users, as, again, it takes me as a user the exact same number of steps to reach a given page.

If the issue lies with the fact that it's hard to manage all 200 forums and there isn't enough people to do so effectively, there is no harm in saying it directly, then at least we would have a far more constructive dialogue instead of you defending the decision opposed by everyone who chimed in so far. This is what I was referring to earlier.

It's also the fact that you have a number of genuinely dormant forums that should be addressed before starting to bulldoze what's still working. I will mention it again, the 1st Gen GS forum sits vacant for months at a time, it won't be an issue if it is combined with the 2nd Gen GS forum. Then there are UX, TX, RZ and LBX forums, as well as Lexus Prototypes, which combined together have less threads than one of the forums that just got merged. Same goes for the Special Interest Groups section that sat dormant for a month shy of a year at this point.

While at it, it may be that I am particularly bad at counting, but try as I might I couldn't come up with anything beyond 150, at least from the ones visible on the Forums page. What am I missing?

Well, you see, this is not as easy to swallow following this statement.
You say that you value it, and yet, despite every contributor who took their time to chime in saying that this is a bad idea, all you do is say that the decision is final and not everyone "could have what they want". What is it that you actually value in both our feedback and contributions?

Coming back to my point about contributions, what points would you consider reasonable then?

We are yet to hear an explanation of how it makes sense to you. Not the fact that you have too many forums to keep track of, I am asking why start with a forum that had plenty of traffic and none of the issues you are describing when you already have plenty of of forums to deal with before that?

If the website is structured such that every change implies an inevitable loss of some kind then you ought to be doing something wrong.

Even then, although I would like to believe that the time I spend typing up the detailed responses has some value to it, if there is no avoiding it (for whatever strange reason), I won't mind having some posts lost, so long as it is done for a good cause, which is not the case currently.

So what would it take for you to see that this decision was a mistake? So far it seems to be 7 for 1 if my math is right (not counting SW17LS as he hasn't taken a stance, only provided a suggestion).. I am confused about the goals of this website as a platform, are you looking to make things genuinely better for the users, or just change stuff around as you see fit? If it is the former, it would at least be nice to get a heads-up before the "irreversible" changes are completed, and viewed as a detriment by everyone buy you.

Saying "no, it's the children who are wrong" is not a valid way of deferring any criticism for a rushed decision that wasn't thought through. Everyone who left their feedback here so far has mentioned specific reasons for it, you, on the other hand, have only mentioned that it's "better for the users", even though a number of active users came out to say that you are wrong to think so.

The issue is that I am yet to see anyone praise this decision, even if just for the sake of it.


As a summary, trust me, I have better things to do that argue with you about why this is a bad decision. I enjoy being on this forum and have a chance to learn about stuff that I wouldn't even consider looking into if not for some of the threads, but when you make an active effort to make my life more difficult and not accept any responsibility for it, I do feel compelled to dish it right back.

The issue is not even the fact that you need to merge forums to conserve space, it's the fact that you couldn't even be arsed to ask before making an IRREVERSIBLE decision, and now all you do is claim that everything is going according to plan.

 

If a person doesn't post in the various forums/sections of this site in question then I submit it doesn't affect them, so making a drastic change is easy. And if you don't post in said forums how can you say you're making the site better? If the goal is to drive away members that offer value to people looking for help then mission successful. The entire point of CL is for owners to come here and learn and more importantly save money. People with expertise post parts diagrams, torque specs, discount parts sources, discount codes, repair procedures and many other useful things.

 

Oh, ok.


Then what's the reason for all the consolidation? By 20 leaders, I assume that means "mods"? I have no idea what the other 60 are for. Do they have a purpose?

 

i'll pm to explain.

 

arsenii - again i cannot respond to all your points, but more importantly how do we move forward?

about thread prefixes, we can enable people to add prefixes to threads after they're made. we would welcome your help to do this if we enable it.

about es forum structure...

currently:

ES - 1st to 6th Gen (1990-2018)
ES - 7th Gen (2019-2025)
ES - 8th Gen (2026-present)

you propose:

1st to 4th Gen ES
5th to 6th Gen ES
7th to 8th Gen ES

this doesn't seem like a big swing to do (merge 7 and 8, add 5-6) but moving the 5th/6th threads from 1st to 6th (current) to new 5th to 6th will be challenging. given your passion, dedication (thank you!) and obvious discipline, would you be willing to join the community team to help do this?

some good points here.

about forum structure overall... part of the 'clutter' is the 'sub-sub' or 'sub-sub-sub' etc 'forums' for 'build threads', 'suspension', 'performance' etc. rolling those up a level will help lessen the forum count quite a bit. we also have some obviously obsolete forums that can go.

there are forums you can't see (some internal).

IB didn't write the forum software i don't believe, but did customize it. it has limitations, like all software.

you may "not mind" but i'm certain others will, and as days pass, more would be lost and a tremendous amount of effort involved to restore one set of forums and not mess with anything else.

so again, rather than keep going over how we got here, how about collaborating on where we're going.

 

Massive difference. 1st generation ES barely existed there have probably been less than 15 threads ever on this generation. Gen2-4 are a very similar platform after that it became a substantially different car that's why things used to be grouped as they were.

 

I agree that setup makes more sense. The spread between the Gen 1 ES and the 6th is MASSIVE. The 1-4 gens are so old now lumping them together makes sense. As a 4ES owner I would never post in a forum alongside people talking about their 6th gen cars.

But that is a MASSIVE job. I did it at the LOC when we split the forums apart and even with the dramatically smaller number of threads it was a huge job.

 

Yes, I would be down to help where I can, but it is important to understand that I won't be doing to it full-time, only when I have a chance.

Yes, that is how I see it for the reasons outlined earlier. However, it is also worth remembering that it was very rare for me to venture over to forums for the 5th-gen and beyond, so I would like to hear from people that frequent those to see if that structure will make sense to them as well.

If possible, make a new Pinned Thread on all 3 forums asking for the feedback, that way it won't just be a different side of the same stick.

Seeing how hard it would be to split all the threads apart now, here is my suggestion:

1. Check if everyone is on board with the structure I outlined earlier, or have any other suggestions.
2. If all is good, in addition to the Forums that exist already, create a Forum for 1st to 4th Gen, and 5th to 6th Gen.
3. Merge the 7th and 8th Gen Forums into one.
4. Rename the 1st to 6th Gen Forum into something else, like the "archive", and Block anyone from Posting there. This will be a "bucket" to sort through.
5. Direct all new users to each respective New Forum, and keep what is currently a 1st to 6th Gen ES forum as just the Container for us to move stuff from into each new Forum.

As a result, we should be left with 4 Separate Forums, 3 for the outlined structure, and 1 that is currently a 1st to 6th Gen as an "Archive".

This approach has following benefits:

1. We can get Forums separated within days, which will help existing users who are not happy about the current structure, and also limit the number of threads we will have to sort through eventually, the longer we wait, the more New Threads will be created.
2. This will keep all Existing Threads without the risk of them getting Erased by accident. Even if we don't sort through all of them immediately, we can use Search to find older threads as we keep sorting through them for the time being.
3. As SW17LS mentioned, it will be quite a lot of work to get everything sorted, and not end up making things worse. That way we will at least not be under any time constraints to get the threads sorted, we can be doing it at our leisure for the most part.
4. The fact that the "archive" forum will be Blocked eliminates the need for it to be Moderated, so even if it stays up, it won't be a drag for neither the New Users, nor for the Moderators.

As for how to sort through them, I know for a fact that even if I posted anything on Forums for the 5th Gen and beyond before the Merge, I can count on fingers the number of posts I made there, none of which bear any real significance as far as I recall.

The absolute majority of my posts currently in 1st to 6th Gen ES Forum relate only to the 1st to 4th Gen, so every thread that is currently there where I participated in any way can be moved over without prior checks. A number of other threads also had the Year and Model listed somewhere, which should help a lot as well.

As an option, we can also use a WayBack Machine to see which threads were present in which forum. Maybe, with some trickery, it would be possible to export a list as a guide as well, but that would depend on how this forum functions from behind the curtain..

I am still concerned about Losing some of the threads, I am a little confused as to what that means. If the Forum works mostly like the file manager in any PC, moving threads around shouldn't really remove anything, no matter the limitations of the Software. I would like to know a bit more if you have any more specifics on what you were referring to in this regard, if you know of any potential pitfalls that may be in the way.

Depending on how it is executed, that can actually help a lot in the future, especially if someone other than the OP would be able to change it. Right now though, there is an issue that even if you change the Title of the First Post, it will not affect the Main Title, I wonder if this fact will play any role in the implementation of something like that.

There was also a time a good while back when the Make and Model listed in the Profile was also shown in the space to the left of the thread, I am still confused as for why it for removed, but it can serve as a reminder of sorts for New Users to add it.

Then it's probably a great place to start. Like with the Performance and Maintenance Sub-Forum over in SC forum, there very likely was a good cause for it in the past, but now it's just creating a lot of confusion for new users that are looking for help in troubleshooting, as part of the threads remain in the main forum, and part keep being moved over to the Sub-Forum, with no clear logic that I can see.


I would like to hear what you think about it, and what other suggestions are out there. The way I see it at the moment, even with a set of its own issues, this would be the approach that is the simplest to implement with very little that will have to be sacrificed in the process.