What are your thoughts on this forum?

[Dave Parry]

Well this forum has been up and running for a few years now, I can remember when it was first set up by Robin Woodhead when he was the Website Administrator. It was met with some hostility from the diehards that didn’t want anything to change. So I was just wondering do them people still feel the same way, are they still members I wonder.

Background Info
Just to clarify a few things here, the LMA’s original forum was being attacked at the time by people that was hell bent on stirring up trouble with some members, the problem with the old forum was you could put in any name so you could pretend to be someone else, ‘very naughty’ so something had to be done. Robin found a solution in the form of free forums with far better security; he then imbedded the code into the LMA’s Website and once set up deactivated the old forum. This is the forum we have today and why we insist you use your real name.

So do you think Robin made the right chose?

[Vince Raia]

I remember the old Forum, and when Robin set up this new version, which was very basic, and yes it did get a good kicking from the membership etc. because any old joe couldn't just put a posting on without registering, something that you have to do on all other forums anyway. But now, thanks to a lot of effort and hard work on the part of our Dave, it has turned into a really good web site, very informative, and lots of interesting subjects to view, and with Dave's constant updating and adding more new features, who'd want the old boring site back, certainly not me

[Bob Johnstone]

I have been FORCED to log in. Else I could not post, Hurray

A decently controlled forum makes for a much more pleasant expierience and while I did not know the old version I do see this one becoming an asset.

[Alan Cantwell 1131]

Its bang on Dave, Robins idea has born fruit, it has its moments, but its pleasant, and informative, keep up the good work, but its more than this forum, does anyone actually LOOK at the rest of the site? its awash with great stuff, go to that big, blue front page, press a few of the buttons in the drop down menus, if you havnt, you will be MEGA surprised

[Dave Parry]

Arr Vince, you are always singing my praises, good man, I have to say the forum has been a challenge for me and I take my hat off to Robin for the hard work that was done in getting this forum imbedded into the LMA Website, if he hadn’t we would be using two web addresses one for the forum and one the website, however he did remove some vital features like the preset colours and looks of the forum which one of them would have made it look more like our current website the avatar feature was also removed which is a shame but never mind, he was only trying to save disk space, it works, and works well, so we should be grateful.

The best thing that came out of this new forum is the real names, 99% of people that register use their real name, 99% I here you say, yes that is right, I have found as time goes on that one or two have slip in with an alias but they tend to slip up over time in their postings and when that happens they are removed, this is then followed up by an email explaining why there account has been suspended. I am a strong believer that everybody has the right to know who they are communicating with and it does tend to stop the poster from abusing other forum members because they can’t hide behind an alias.

So I am glad this forum had finally been accepted by everybody and I can only hope we will use it more in the future.

[Dave Parry]

Alan, you are so right, there is so much more than this forum our website is just as important and has needed a face lift for some time now. I do my best to keep it updated on a monthly bases but there are hundreds of pages on there some date back as far as I can remember.

It is my intention to do some more work on it over the winter months and try and revamp more of the old black pages but as you can imagine it is a daunting task and with the Journal also demanding my time it is a fine balancing act, however I will crack on with it as soon as it is possible. If you only use the forum by googling it then have a look at our website just click on the link.

http://www.largemodelassociation.com