Updates to the forum

[sp3ctre]

Hi folks, I just wanted to give you all an update on a few changes we have made.

First of all PVR and AW8 have decided to move on after a fair few years of good service, and leave the moderation duties in the good hands of X5Sport.

You will also have noticed we have had a bit of a facelift. There are several reasons for this. Firstly the theme we were using stopped being supported a while ago and there are sucurity risks from using an unsupported theme. With that in mind I have aligned the theme with the one we use on Z4-forum. It is fairly basic but is a great building block for ebabling new functionality.

I have been working behind the scenes and have enabled a few small things already:

- You can now see on someones profile (and next to their avatar) if they are online
- The Buy/Sell section now has tags available when posting, to make things more apparent what is for sale and what is wanted
- Advanced Poll have been enabled (quite a few features... give them a try)

We have also moved to a new domain. This is simply because the new one works better with search engines. The old links all redirect to the same page on the new domain so it won't affect anything (other than you having to login again for the first time.

I have been busy working on the back end too... some of the unreliability issues we had before have been addressed and there are more improvements to come over the next few weeks.

Please let us know if there is anything amiss or you are struggling with anything, X5Sport and myself are here to help.

With the help of X5Sport and you guys I am hopeful that we can return the forum to the lively place it was a while ago.

Jim (Sp3ctre)

[Wayfarer]

Looks like a great upgrade, probably get lots of comments for this, but suggest the quiet nature of this forum is partly down to the inherent reliability of the BMW X series vehicles, compared to other marques such as Land Rover and sadly most people only post with issues, compared with those praising the vehicle etc. I am still delighted with my f15 X5 40d hopefully that will continue

[sp3ctre]

Looks like a great upgrade, probably get lots of comments for this, but suggest the quiet nature of this forum is partly down to the inherent reliability of the BMW X series vehicles, compared to other marques such as Land Rover and sadly most people only post with issues, compared with those praising the vehicle etc. I am still delighted with my f15 X5 40d hopefully that will continue

Thanks for the feedback. You may be right about that to a certain degree, although I have identified a few improvements that will hopefully bring some of the organic traffic back. I will keep posting as we make improvements, hopefully the transparency will help with community engagement

[sapphireblack]

I'm no expert on forum management, and it was a surprise to find the changed display. It looks good though, crisp is the word that came to mind

It would be good to have the input and visits the original forum enjoyed, let's hope the word spreads.

[sp3ctre]

I'm no expert on forum management, and it was a surprise to find the changed display. It looks good though, crisp is the word that came to mind

It would be good to have the input and visits the original forum enjoyed, let's hope the word spreads.

Thanks for the feedback.... A successful forum needs a good amount or organic traffic and quite a few regular members. The first I can fix with the changes I am making. The second is more challenging. For whatever reason the last design didn't resonate with people, the user interface was a bit "off". We know this design works in that it has been used at the Z4-forum for a long time now so hopefully this site will now be more usable and user friendly... It also means that any improvements to the functionality over there I can bring here.

I will be spending a bit of time on here over coming weeks/months, so hopefully together we can get the community thriving again.

[pvr]

Looking good, works a lot better I feel.

[graemeX5]

Thank you to you all Sp3ctre X5 Sport PVR and AW8 for all your efforts in making it a great site

Graeme

[X5Sport]

It’s you folks that make it great….

[StuBeeDoo]

Thanks to everyone, past and present, working behind the scenes. I have to say, though, that I never had much of a problem with the old forum.

It's ironic that both the forums I frequent have changed format in the last week.