Autopia New Homepage Threads TINY Section - Page 2

a.k.a. Patrick · 05-11-08, 08:13

Quote:

but the personal touch seems to be gone. Now it feels very impersonal and mechanical. My number of posts have increased dramatically on other forums.

EXACTLY................There are some heavy sponsors now, that was sort of the appeal with Autopia before, not a whole lot of commercialism.......

BigAl3 · 05-11-08, 08:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by detaildoc

How do others feel?

i miss the old classifieds (buy/sell/trade), where you can just post and it will show up with the new/today's post so everyone can see it...

detaildoc · 05-11-08, 09:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by a.k.a. Patrick

EXACTLY................There are some heavy sponsors now, that was sort of the appeal with Autopia before, not a whole lot of commercialism.......

Yeap, unfortunately it is becoming very commercialized. Now we even have AG as a sponsor, a huge conglomerate. Autopia used to be the place for the little guys with the personal, friendly customer service.

Eliot Ness · 05-12-08, 06:42

I dunno, but either my browser is blocking these ads (Firefox) or I'm just not seeing them. I always just log-on to the forums:

Autopia.org Car Detailing Forum :: #1 in Auto Detailing Discussion!

I see Palm Beach (AG, etc.) now has a forum in the sponsor section, but besides that I don't notice any ads. I don't really see where the "little guys" are being pushed out. The only recent sponsor that left was Bob (Danase) because the rates went up. It seems that over the years sponsors have come and gone. And wasn't Autogeek a sponsor a few years ago? I remember their forum was giving away free stuff at Christmas (the 12 days of Christmas?).

Until we are limited to what products we can discuss I don't really notice that much of a change..... the same guys can post in the forums, and that is basically all I pay much attention to.

2KLS1 · 05-12-08, 07:22

I'm with Eliot, I don't really notice that much difference other than looks obviously. I always go the the forum homepage, bookmarked, and just hit new posts anyway, maybe thats why I dunno

.

detaildoc · 05-12-08, 08:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eliot Ness

I dunno, but either my browser is blocking these ads (Firefox) or I'm just not seeing them. I always just log-on to the forums:

Autopia.org Car Detailing Forum :: #1 in Auto Detailing Discussion!

I see Palm Beach (AG, etc.) now has a forum in the sponsor section, but besides that I don't notice any ads. I don't really see where the "little guys" are being pushed out. The only recent sponsor that left was Bob (Danase) because the rates went up. It seems that over the years sponsors have come and gone. And wasn't Autogeek a sponsor a few years ago? I remember their forum was giving away free stuff at Christmas (the 12 days of Christmas?).

Until we are limited to what products we can discuss I don't really notice that much of a change..... the same guys can post in the forums, and that is basically all I pay much attention to.

You don't see the adds because you are not at the homepage which is: Autopia - Autopia Home. May be I just have to get use to this change, though a bigger space for the new posts would still be nice instead of all the adds.

todd@bsaw · 05-12-08, 09:22

My first click is the "Forum" link at the top of the home page. I don't even see the sponsors or ads.

JonP · 05-12-08, 09:52

Well it's still in beta, hopefully a few more complaints will change it some more to our liking.

BlackElantraGT · 05-13-08, 12:02

i miss the old layout and i definitely don't care for all the ads, especially the ones where a window pops up for certain keywords linking to an Ultima product. This is probably just the beginning of the decline of this site. With the direction they seem to be heading in, I have a feeling this won't be the Autopia many of us have come to know and love.

But at the same time, this is still a free site and we're still able to discuss about any products (at least for now) so I guess I have no right to complain. Someone or something has to pay for the bandwidth. I feel though that members of this board would have been more than happy to contribute enough funds to cover for that part. I guess making money off of autopia-carcare.com wasn't enough, so now we have 2 seperate businesses.

Besides the heavier commercialism we're seeing on this board, just the overall look of the forum has gotten worse. I've somewhat acclimated to it, but I still believe the fonts are way too small. I wear glasses, but I still have decent eyes considering I'm only 28. Since the upgrade I've noticed myself posting less and less.

My $.02