Suggestions Wanted! Your Input Is Welcome!

[steelsoldiers]

Hello Members,

I would like to personally invite all of you to be a part of this website's growth and development. Your opinions matters to us. If you have PM'ed us in the past and we didn't respond or implement your suggestion, please don't take it personally. Your PM may have been lost in the shuffle or we may have been distracted by some other issue. Please don't feel like you are being snubbed. If you know that certain members may have left this site for "_________" reasons, then let us know what upset them to the point that they left.

I feel that I must apologize for my persistent absence from the site in the first half of this year. Family and professional obligations took precedence over my SS family and I neglected many of my duties here. Thankfully Mike, Eric, and the other mods were able to keep things going.

This place is growing like crazy. It seems like only yesterday we broke 10,000 members. Now, we are almost to 13,000. A site like this requires constant tending and nurturing to remain viable. I am committed to its success and long-term survival.

To all of you that have donated money to the site and haven't received any thanks or recognition on the site, I apologize for that as well. I am way behind!

All of the admin and mods of SS are making a concerted effort to implement new policies, procedures, and features in the coming months. We would like SS to continue to be the premier online community for military vehicle enthusiasts and welcome your input.

Thanks,
Chris

 

[drgreg]

Thanks Chris,
I would like to see a short cut to the wiki section included on the main tool bar or under the resources tab. I feel the wiki is a good source of basic information, sans opinion, that could be used to answer many questions asked over and again. Currently the wiki is located in the farthest corner of this site.

 

[timntrucks]

i know how life is.. short.. not enought time to do what we need to do and not much time left to do what we want... it is a give an take.. and i know that my job and family comes first.. so i squeze in some od time on occasion. so dont feel like you let us or at least me down.. thanks to those mods that are here day in and day out taking up od time to help us keep this site the best... you came to the mess hall and those guys talked about that for a week... thanks for this site .. it has helped me more than i can say

 

[bustin]

I have been lurking here for a while, While I dont own a MV alot of my friends do and i do enjoy the vehicles and toys the military uses as a whole. my only thoughts and comments though should you wish them to be displayed for comment or pm'ed? I am sure your a busy man as we all can be from time to time.

 

[dc3coyote]

Heres one that would make things much easier...Spell check, and grammer check. I know you can write it up in Word and then cut and paste to the link, but thats a little more time consuming.
My two cents
Branan

 

[DAS]

My friend,you have done a wonderful job of everything on here. I came from the Mil-Veh list some years back and have not been back...yes I love it here. you have done what no one else has,keep up the gooood work...THANKS FROM ALL OF US....DAS

 

[skidder]

Thanks Chris, Mike an Eric for all you have done for this site . Skidder NW ct.

 

[joeypushjr1]

well chris first i know ive said this before the site is awsome and thankx to you and you guys you have keeping it up but i do have a suggestion. say i need to get ahold of you and i know your steelsoldiers i have to go threw how many S'es till i find you .. unless i know the last thread you posted something on i can grab your name there and then Pm you. i think in the members section there should be a bar to type in a screen name to pull them up right now.. just my suggestion.....joe

 

[steelandcanvas]

Well Chris, Thank you for your concern, I truly appreciate it. This is a great site with exceptional people, some of the best in the hobby, David Doyle comes to mind first, and I have made numerous long distance friends. However recently there has been alot of "bad blood" drawn here, and I don't care for it. As far as comments and opinions go, I can PM you or let 'er rip right here. I'd like to stay but if things continue as they are, I'll also have to bid farewell also.

 

[omega231]

I would like to suggest a section for the user CP that links the user to their classifieds posting, rather than having to look through the list for you own. if this already exists somebody please point me in the right direction

 

[steelsoldiers]

Please feel free to post your thoughts and ideas here for all to see so long as it is constructive criticism.

I know we as the site managers can never please everyone all the time, but we can do our best to make sure that most of the members are satisfied. It is a two-way street though and we are not mind readers. If you go away mad and feeling undervalued without telling anyone why you are mad, then it is your fault.

There has been a trend lately to go to other forums, mailing lists, etc... and vent about SS. There really is no reason for that. If you need to vent, then contact me. I want to hear it. This is after all a family and there is no reason to fall out with each other no matter how different our opinions may be.

We also need to respect each other through think and thin. R-E-S-P-E-C-T!! We are all imperfect people and should not be expected to perform 100% all the time. We all let our emotions get the best of us, myself included, and really should step away from the keyboard to cool off before responding to some posts. I have written my feelings out in a post before, not posted it, come back later, and changed most of the post when I had calmed down.

So, let's keep this thread as constructive and objective as possible. Keep those ideas coming. I know there will be a lot and it will take a while to research the feasibility of all of them, but we will do our best. Thanks.

 

[Speddmon]

Chris,

I'm pretty new to the hobby, but I think this is by far the best website I've found yet, MV or not. This site is at the top of the heap!!!

I'm not even going to mention any of the thoughts or suggestions I have for the site, because they are only minor aesthetic improvements I would like to see, some minor functionality improvements and the such. I'll save them and instead let you guys work on your primary goal (at least the way I see it). To finish incorporating all of the wonderful information and features left on the old site that have not been imported as of yet. I'm sure you guys are working on it and you don't need bothered with my trivial little suggestions.

I too have made some new friends on this site, people whom I never would have even had the opportunity to get to know if it weren't for SS. I think overall, the people on here have one goal in mind, that is the hobby of MV collecting and restoration. If there has been some words said (posted) that have offended some people in recent posts, I say "man up". With 13000 members and growing, you cannot please everybody. I hope that none of the negative things that have been said are aimed at anybody in particular. I wish everybody could just understand that each of us has our own unique personality, and learn to let go of things that are mentioned in passing. It's just my opinion, but I feel that's the main reason that you guys want to keep it MV only. Any other talk and chatter especially about politics is just going to pi$$ people off, because, like religion, political views are very personal to people and they take offence when someone tells them that they think their opinion is not the proper one.

Keep up the great work guys, I'm not goin anywhere until I know everything there is to possibly know about the OD iron I own...so, it looks like I'm here to stay because there is always something to learn!!!!!

 

[gunboy1656]

Well how about moving the classifieds to the user bar instead of hiding in the resources, seems alot of people cant find them.

2nd idea, clean out some of the member name that have not logged in for a couple years.

Make the word search in bigger bold letters so everyone can see it better as well.

 

[Numbers]

How about some machine gun smiley face emoticons ?

or on a serious note, how about an update or revamp of the members map ?

or maybe a Weasel sub forum...

Thanks for a great place to go and get answers.

 

[bustin]

if my moderated usage gets lifted i'll explain

 

[m16ty]

I would also like to see the member map updated.
The TMs need to be orgainized.
I also think it would help if the mods were just over a certain forum and not the whole site. Most websites are like this. That way when a problem arises you know who to go to in a given forum.

I'm also willing to help out any way I can to improve the site. Just let me know.

I also wish the mods and FT would make up .

 

[frodobaggins]

My suggestion is to have a General Chat Forum, for MV or non MV topics, and I have a plan to implement it so it does not cause any problems on the forum.

1. Make specific rules for what is and isn't allowed in there, and make it a sticky.

2. Find a good moderator who is willing to monitor it and enforce the rules.
---I do not particularly want to volunteer, but if it depends on getting the section, I will.

3. Most people I believe read the front page posts. Vbulletin has the option to not display posts from particular forums on the front page, I believe the off topic forum should never be seen on the front page. Keep the main focus MV related posts. You would only see off topic posts if you went looking for them.

4. As moderators in other forums find innappropriate posts, but not against the site rules, these posts could be dumped in off-topic. Keep the forum clean, but the users happy. Users should be notified that their posts are innappropriate for the particular forum they posted.

5. Anything out of line should be dealt with promptly.


I believe if we had this, a lot of the aggravation on both sides of this issue could be solved.
The main site would stay MV focused and clean, and it would also offer the users to be able to discuss other life issues with their friends and peers without having to go off elsewhere.


Just my 2 cents, but I really believe it could work, 99% of the users here could handle appropriate posting duties in that section.

This is the most mature and wonderful forum I have ever been a part of, and thank you and everyone for providing me with the experience.

Kevin

 

[54reo]

Frodo,

Can't we already do that in the chat room and/or PMs?

 

[FMJ]

How about some machine gun smiley face emoticons ?

or on a serious note, how about an update or revamp of the members map ?

or maybe a Weasel sub forum...

Thanks for a great place to go and get answers.

Ditto on the member map, and maybe a little more patience from the "old timers" when answering a Newb's question about whatever . . .

I've seen far to many: "This has been covered many times before" posts. . .

If you feel this way about a Newb question, move on to the next post, or thread, and let someone who feels like helping out post a reply to the question.

And, as always, please feel free to flame away. . .

Ed

p.s.

Chris, why was the popcorn smiley deleted?, did someone complain, or was it removed for some other reason?

 

[peecook]

1. i'd like to see the members map.
2. sticky some of the better "how to" threads, esp if they have pics
3. when looking at the classifieds, ability to see more than 10 at a time