Hey everyone, Mr. K here, your friendly site administrator! Some of you might not know me, that's ok. I tend to lurk in the background popping up only now and then when needed. Myself and Service Department Vic launched OrangeTractorTalks more than 10 years ago, writing articles and creating videos so that Kubota equipment owners would have a place on the internet to call their own.
North Idaho Wolfman reached out to me recently pointing out a few threads on the site with questions, concerns and suggestions for how to make the site better. Thought I would put a new thread together to help answer some questions, get feedback from our community members that can be used to plan site improvements, make updates and overall, make the site better suited for our regular and new visitors alike.
First, I want to thank everyone who takes time out of their day to visit the site, post questions and post answers to questions that are detailed, specific and helpful to others - that's so important. Our mission on OrangeTractorTalks today remains the same as when we started more than 10 years ago. We wanted a site where visitors can get information that will help them better understand how to purchase, operate, maintain or service their Kubota equipment. I am amazed at the number of visitors the site sees everyday and it is all in part to the time and energy our community members put into helping one another. It's great to see and help facilitate.
Second, I want to thank North Idaho Wolfman and coachgeo for tirelessly moderating the site for years. These are unpaid positions that I recognize are thankless at times - having to deal with spammers, account registration issues, thread moderation, and keeping the peace on the site. They have both done a tremendous job of keeping the site healthy, the community engaged and staying on top of the day-to-day. We salute them!
Third, I apologize that I myself have not had a lot of time lately to dedicate to the site, whether that be to update new article content (in the last 8 years!) or to upgrade the forum software as times change and more and more visitors are expecting a native mobile experience. We should be sending out decals to lifetime members but have fallen well behind - we need to do a better job and we need to catch up. Lots of things to improve upon and more on this below.
Wanted to address some specific issues I've seen come up recently.
Q1: If you run out of money or have no advertisers, will you shutdown the site?
No. The plan is to continue to run the site, even at a loss if necessary. There is no scenario where if revenue falls below $X we would turn the site off. If there is someone that can be helped with the content on the site, we'll keep the lights on for them. We're not in it for the money.
Q2: Are you planning on selling the site?
Although we periodically receive offers to sell the site, there is no plans at this time to entertain offers. We have seen what happens when forums are integrated into larger corporate site portfolios and do not believe our community would thrive and be well looked after under corporate management.
Q3: What is the plan to upgrade the site software?
This has been a consideration for some time. When we started the site in 2009, smartphones were starting to take off. Websites were not optimized for mobile experiences or responsive to them yet (eg. one version of the site when viewed on a desktop, another look for mobile devices). Now, of course mobile devices are everywhere and our forum software has not kept up with that trend. The forum design, look, feel, features are now a little dated, and certainly not mobile friendly. The site is overdue for an upgrade, agreed.
There are newer versions of the forum software OrangeTractorTalks uses, that other sites have upgraded to. The reaction from those communities after updating varies from great to very bad. Some communities adjusted to the upgrades well, embracing new features and being okay with loved older features being lost. Other online communities have not reacted well when forum software is updated. Instead, those communities experience sharp declines in visitor traffic which impacts the rate of new content, further snowballing into the decline. Not good.
For OrangeTractorTalks there are a handful of pathways forward that we are considering:
1) Keep the site as-is. This comes with the benefit that you know what to expect, you know how to navigate around, but over time, the experience will get worse for new visitors who are on their mobile devices, not browsing from a desktop at home. We can only do this for so long because eventually the underlying software that supports the site will no longer be supported by hosting providers. This is still some time out though.
2) Upgrade to a newer version of the same site software. New features will become available, better support for mobile, some existing features will be lost, and there will be an adjustment period where some of the kinks will need to be worked out. It will feel similar but not quite the same. The transition will not be 100% smooth.
3) Switch over to entirely different forum software all together. Similar pros and cons to #2, but with different features depending on the forum software. The transition will be a bit more abrupt since it's different forum software, but the content would remain.
This is a good topic of discussion that we would like more feedback from the community on (post below what your thoughts are).
Q4: I signed up for a Lifetime Membership, why haven't I received my decals yet?
This one is on us, me specifically. Just not enough time in the day to catch up with the incoming volume of new memberships. The good news is that NIW has offered to help with getting some of them sent out so I think what we'll do in the near future is get addresses pulled together and then double-team catching up on the backlog. Look for a thread on this topic soon where you'll be asked to send in a mailing address so that we can finally get these sent out to you.
Q5: There is spam/spammers on the site, are you doing anything to stop it?
Actually, yes. The bulk of efforts in the last year have been to curtail spam and spammers and for the most part those measures have been effective. There is no one solution that is water tight however and eventually spammers figure out ways past the automated checks, into the site. The site pays an annual subscription to a service that helps identify spam registrations, thread and post submissions.
Q6: Sometimes the site is slow, are you doing anything to fix that?
Long-time OTT members will know this has been a constant battle. As the site has grown we have upgraded server hardware configurations a few times. The last was about two years ago and it's looking like another upgrade might not be far off since we are beginning to exceed what we can do with software configuration changes alone. At some point, the server just needs more memory or a faster CPU/more threads to process incoming requests. If you do see slowness or odd behavior, PM me some details including time of day, the browser you were using, any error messages, and relevant details. That can help us identify what might have been going on when inspecting the logs.
Q7: I have some suggestions, how do I get those to you?
Great! Let's make the site better. You can either PM them to me and we can take a look or post them in a public thread and ask the community for feedback too. Posting publicly has the benefit that we can understand how your suggested changes might impact the wider community as a whole which is always a consideration when we make site updates.
Q8: How can I help?
Just coming online and visiting OrangeTractorTalks is a great start! Posting questions or helping others with answers to theirs is a bonus. You are of course never obligated to subscribe to memberships, but if you do, know that the money is put toward server hosting fees, bandwidth, backups, license fees and subscriptions that we pay annually in service to the community members.
Those are some of the big topics I think came up recently. I'll open the thread up to comments and general Q&A from this point. Happy to get feedback and answer any questions you might have. As always, thank you for taking time out of your day to visit OrangeTractorTalks!
North Idaho Wolfman reached out to me recently pointing out a few threads on the site with questions, concerns and suggestions for how to make the site better. Thought I would put a new thread together to help answer some questions, get feedback from our community members that can be used to plan site improvements, make updates and overall, make the site better suited for our regular and new visitors alike.
First, I want to thank everyone who takes time out of their day to visit the site, post questions and post answers to questions that are detailed, specific and helpful to others - that's so important. Our mission on OrangeTractorTalks today remains the same as when we started more than 10 years ago. We wanted a site where visitors can get information that will help them better understand how to purchase, operate, maintain or service their Kubota equipment. I am amazed at the number of visitors the site sees everyday and it is all in part to the time and energy our community members put into helping one another. It's great to see and help facilitate.
Second, I want to thank North Idaho Wolfman and coachgeo for tirelessly moderating the site for years. These are unpaid positions that I recognize are thankless at times - having to deal with spammers, account registration issues, thread moderation, and keeping the peace on the site. They have both done a tremendous job of keeping the site healthy, the community engaged and staying on top of the day-to-day. We salute them!
Third, I apologize that I myself have not had a lot of time lately to dedicate to the site, whether that be to update new article content (in the last 8 years!) or to upgrade the forum software as times change and more and more visitors are expecting a native mobile experience. We should be sending out decals to lifetime members but have fallen well behind - we need to do a better job and we need to catch up. Lots of things to improve upon and more on this below.
Wanted to address some specific issues I've seen come up recently.
Q1: If you run out of money or have no advertisers, will you shutdown the site?
No. The plan is to continue to run the site, even at a loss if necessary. There is no scenario where if revenue falls below $X we would turn the site off. If there is someone that can be helped with the content on the site, we'll keep the lights on for them. We're not in it for the money.
Q2: Are you planning on selling the site?
Although we periodically receive offers to sell the site, there is no plans at this time to entertain offers. We have seen what happens when forums are integrated into larger corporate site portfolios and do not believe our community would thrive and be well looked after under corporate management.
Q3: What is the plan to upgrade the site software?
This has been a consideration for some time. When we started the site in 2009, smartphones were starting to take off. Websites were not optimized for mobile experiences or responsive to them yet (eg. one version of the site when viewed on a desktop, another look for mobile devices). Now, of course mobile devices are everywhere and our forum software has not kept up with that trend. The forum design, look, feel, features are now a little dated, and certainly not mobile friendly. The site is overdue for an upgrade, agreed.
There are newer versions of the forum software OrangeTractorTalks uses, that other sites have upgraded to. The reaction from those communities after updating varies from great to very bad. Some communities adjusted to the upgrades well, embracing new features and being okay with loved older features being lost. Other online communities have not reacted well when forum software is updated. Instead, those communities experience sharp declines in visitor traffic which impacts the rate of new content, further snowballing into the decline. Not good.
For OrangeTractorTalks there are a handful of pathways forward that we are considering:
1) Keep the site as-is. This comes with the benefit that you know what to expect, you know how to navigate around, but over time, the experience will get worse for new visitors who are on their mobile devices, not browsing from a desktop at home. We can only do this for so long because eventually the underlying software that supports the site will no longer be supported by hosting providers. This is still some time out though.
2) Upgrade to a newer version of the same site software. New features will become available, better support for mobile, some existing features will be lost, and there will be an adjustment period where some of the kinks will need to be worked out. It will feel similar but not quite the same. The transition will not be 100% smooth.
3) Switch over to entirely different forum software all together. Similar pros and cons to #2, but with different features depending on the forum software. The transition will be a bit more abrupt since it's different forum software, but the content would remain.
This is a good topic of discussion that we would like more feedback from the community on (post below what your thoughts are).
Q4: I signed up for a Lifetime Membership, why haven't I received my decals yet?
This one is on us, me specifically. Just not enough time in the day to catch up with the incoming volume of new memberships. The good news is that NIW has offered to help with getting some of them sent out so I think what we'll do in the near future is get addresses pulled together and then double-team catching up on the backlog. Look for a thread on this topic soon where you'll be asked to send in a mailing address so that we can finally get these sent out to you.
Q5: There is spam/spammers on the site, are you doing anything to stop it?
Actually, yes. The bulk of efforts in the last year have been to curtail spam and spammers and for the most part those measures have been effective. There is no one solution that is water tight however and eventually spammers figure out ways past the automated checks, into the site. The site pays an annual subscription to a service that helps identify spam registrations, thread and post submissions.
Q6: Sometimes the site is slow, are you doing anything to fix that?
Long-time OTT members will know this has been a constant battle. As the site has grown we have upgraded server hardware configurations a few times. The last was about two years ago and it's looking like another upgrade might not be far off since we are beginning to exceed what we can do with software configuration changes alone. At some point, the server just needs more memory or a faster CPU/more threads to process incoming requests. If you do see slowness or odd behavior, PM me some details including time of day, the browser you were using, any error messages, and relevant details. That can help us identify what might have been going on when inspecting the logs.
Q7: I have some suggestions, how do I get those to you?
Great! Let's make the site better. You can either PM them to me and we can take a look or post them in a public thread and ask the community for feedback too. Posting publicly has the benefit that we can understand how your suggested changes might impact the wider community as a whole which is always a consideration when we make site updates.
Q8: How can I help?
Just coming online and visiting OrangeTractorTalks is a great start! Posting questions or helping others with answers to theirs is a bonus. You are of course never obligated to subscribe to memberships, but if you do, know that the money is put toward server hosting fees, bandwidth, backups, license fees and subscriptions that we pay annually in service to the community members.
Those are some of the big topics I think came up recently. I'll open the thread up to comments and general Q&A from this point. Happy to get feedback and answer any questions you might have. As always, thank you for taking time out of your day to visit OrangeTractorTalks!