why does nloc suck monkey balls

[Jim Ienner]

Props to you for this ldtu: - i had and will have a link to this site

(remind me not to let you in my living room Doug)


:blink:

Just as an FYI...

DelValLO has a link to NLOC, NHTOC, and Lightningrodder on it's site. Even after all the bad blood that occurred years ago. It is a service for our members. Exposure to info is a GOOD thing!

The DelValLO club section here was temporarily suspended by Dwight. It has since been re-opened. But our club has moved our online prescence to our own site. MANY of our DelValLO members are also here and on LR.



Jim

 

[Silver_2000]

Just as an FYI...

DelValLO has a link to NLOC, NHTOC, and Lightningrodder on it's site. Even after all the bad blood that occurred years ago. It is a service for our members. Exposure to info is a GOOD thing!

The DelValLO club section here was temporarily suspended by Dwight. It has since been re-opened. But our club has moved our online prescence to our own site. MANY of our DelValLO members are also here and on LR.
Jim

I wasnt there for the bad blood - and have no history bad or good on that issue .... It would be helpful if some of the members could at least take a wait and see attitude ...

 

[FlaHP]

I went through the Rogues gallery of names on the no access list and saw quite a few chronic trouble makers

Many of those " trouble makers just told it how it was". Most knew there stuff too. Not just regurgitating stuff they had read posted by someone else. Some were the guys who were real do ers.
Many were banned for almost nothing

that I remember from back in the day so-There wont be any mass unbannings done.



IMO NLOC will just be a data base of the first decade of the History of the Gen 2 and Gen 1. Suck because this was home but traffic will dwindle unless something out of the box is done

If a specific case needs to be revisited - Ill consider it ...

Sounds like a ton of work. I have run a few forums and without traffic nothing really matters.

What specifically do the masses want ? If its x rated avatars, thats not happening either ... But Im open to other suggestions.

What ever it takes. I still do my searches here first. The classified section is the best but its close to dead now. It all boils down to traffic.

Props for trying

 

[Silver_2000]

Props for trying

Its tough to quote your replies but I would encourage you to participate. Because with out a certain amount of traffic the site will financially die.
Participation encourages more participation.

 

[junioRace]

Doug, gotta give you kudos for trying to salvage things. You face an immense uphill challenge. As you said, it is all about site traffic. I will assume that to get back your site traffic, you will have to get members to abandon other L sites to make NLOC their "home site". I don't really see several sites being on folks plates. The vast amount of Lightning owners will just stay and participate on one site, while surfing the others. I guess I can understand your reasoning for not wanting to allow provocative avatars and such. But to think that folks would not make the switch back over here just simply because they can't use a avatar with cleavage in it...well...that is not really an issue as I see it.

I switched to LRodder back in May of 2008, mainly because so many members here had migrated over there. From my perspective, it was the ownership and mods who really destroyed the site. Rather than listening to some of the concerns that members had, it was an "if you don't like this place, then we don't need you" attitude. I have no idea how to undo that damage. No different than a small business running off a bunch of their customers and then trying to win them back.

 

[oilwell1415]

Just because a few people say something that you don't agree with or that pisses you off

This is exactly what happened many times. If you ask for input and people are honest and courteous about telling you what you didn't want to hear you should be glad that they are telling you what needs to be improved, not get your knickers in a crusted twist because your world isn't perfect and start tossing people off of the site.

doesn't give you the right to shut down the complete North East club section.

Actually, yes it does. It was BigD's playground and he had the right to do whatever he wanted. The problem was that this site was more about him than about the trucks and the community. At LFest 1 I went up to him to thank him for putting on the event and basically got chewed out for not contributing enough to the event. Real classy. I went back for LFest 2 to be treated like absolute crap because my truck was disassembled and I didn't sign up for the whole event. No more LFest for me and that's about the time I started losing interest in the site as a whole.

Finally - here is an analogy. If I were standing in your living room screaming at you about how much you suck, how long would you put up with it ?

The problem with this analogy is that your living room is your private place and this site is not. A better analogy would be a restaurant. Some people will like your food, others won't. Of those that won't, some won't tell you they didn't like and move on. Nothing wrong with that. Others will tell you in a courteous manner that their steak was overcooked and the taters were too salty. You, as the restaurant owner, can fix this and keep them coming back. Another group will come to the restuarant and always find something to complain about no matter how hard you work or how perfect their visit was. In all of the cases above, you own the restaurant and you can handle the situations any way you want to. How you handle them doesn't just affect you and the person you are dealing with directly, but everyone in the restaurant at the time. If I am sitting in a restaurant enjoying a nice meal and someone at the table complains there is a good chance I will hear the complaint. How that complaint is handled will influence my decision to return to the restaurant regardless of how good the food is.

There are a lot of good members who have left this site over the years not because of their experience but because of how they saw other people treated by management. What YOU do as the owner/administrator/moderator etc is seen by a lot of people and is considered in their decision to return or not.

I'm glad this conversation is happening. It needs to happen so that the errors of the past are not repeated.

 

[Silver_2000]

Actually, yes it does. It was BigD's playground and he had the right to do whatever he wanted.

The problem with this analogy is that your living room is your private place and this site is not. A better analogy would be a restaurant. Some people will like your food, others won't. Of those that won't, some won't tell you they didn't like and move on. Nothing wrong with that. Others will tell you in a courteous manner that their steak was overcooked and the taters were too salty. You, as the restaurant owner, can fix this and keep them coming back. Another group will come to the restaurant and always find something to complain about no matter how hard you work or how perfect their visit was. In all of the cases above, you own the restaurant and you can handle the situations any way you want to. How you handle them doesn't just affect you and the person you are dealing with directly, but everyone in the restaurant at the time. If I am sitting in a restaurant enjoying a nice meal and someone at the table complains there is a good chance I will hear the complaint. How that complaint is handled will influence my decision to return to the restaurant regardless of how good the food is.

There are a lot of good members who have left this site over the years not because of their experience but because of how they saw other people treated by management. What YOU do as the owner/administrator/moderator etc is seen by a lot of people and is considered in their decision to return or not.

I'm glad this conversation is happening. It needs to happen so that the errors of the past are not repeated.

snipped quote
Your analogy is better than mine.

Just like over cooked and too salty - the things that happened here were likely subjective. Open to point of view, perspective and opinion.

But the point I'm trying to make is that In the restaurant example, most of the trouble makers arent customers and have no intention of being customers. No matter how you cooked the meal they would complain. They likely need to go so that the folks who are trying to enjoy their meal can....

To mix analogy a little if the trouble maker were actually customers, but they yelled profanities and spit on the wait staff and other customers during dinner, would you insist on retraining the staff to get used to it ?

I don't know what misdeed happened to what person or group in the past. I wouldn't even know how to reach them or what to say if I did. As I have said before if there are people that have been mistreated in the past and are interested in returning to see what has changed - if anything - they are free to contact me.

At this point I dont think spamming the membership with a news bulletin is the right step.

Im making the changes I can, to improve things. Hopefully they will help.

 

[oilwell1415]

snipped quote
Your analogy is better than mine.

Just like over cooked and too salty - the things that happened here were likely subjective. Open to point of view, perspective and opinion.

But the point I'm trying to make is that In the restaurant example, most of the trouble makers arent customers and have no intention of being customers. No matter how you cooked the meal they would complain. They likely need to go so that the folks who are trying to enjoy their meal can....

To mix analogy a little if the trouble maker were actually customers, but they yelled profanities and spit on the wait staff and other customers during dinner, would you insist on retraining the staff to get used to it ?

I agree completely. The ones you have described are the ones that need to be kicked out of the restaurant. However, you have to be careful about how you kick them out because all of your other customers will be watching. If the manager comes around asking people how their meal was and one guy says his steak was over cooked the manager shouldn't get in his face and start screaming at him. It was the cook that screwed up, not the customer. Why should the customer be the one getting yelled at? If I was at a restaurant I liked and saw the manager yelling at a customer for making a valid complaint I wouldn't go back there. If the customer was completely out of line and being an idiot and the manager handled them appropriately I would remember that as well because it tells me I can go there and expect them to do their best to provide a good dining experience.

 

[FastPhoneGuy]

This was my first site I joined after buying my Lightning. I really enjoyed it at first. Met some good people, went to a few gatherings in the Maryland area and made some good friends because of this site.

Then things seemed to change. Big D got mad at some of the Maryland folks and completely removed our section from the site. Really?

It seemed like he turned into a spoiled rotten little kid that didnt want anyone in his sand box that wasnt kissing his ***.

About the same time there seemed to be more vendor wars going on, especially between 2 camps. That same trouble has since moved on to lightningr0dder because they allowed the 2nd vendor over there. It will only be a matter of time before they have another meltdown there now.

I don't know of a solution either, but D caused lots of bad blood between users and this site with his actions. To be honest it sounds like Doug is defending him a little more than I would if I were trying to win people back.

 

[Silver_2000]

About the same time there seemed to be more vendor wars going on, especially between 2 camps. That same trouble has since moved on to lightningr0dder because they allowed the 2nd vendor over there. It will only be a matter of time before they have another meltdown there now.

I don't know of a solution either, but D caused lots of bad blood between users and this site with his actions. To be honest it sounds like Doug is defending him a little more than I would if I were trying to win people back.

As you stated, every site has the same kinds of issues as the site matures.
Dwight is an old friend, I'm not trying to defend him as much as offering some perspective on why some decisions are made.

I'm not interested in winning people back. I'm interested in maintaining the site in a way that makes sense for me. In a way that is sustainable and that I don't mind associating my name with. It also has to fit in with the 5-8 other forums on my servers and the rest of my webhosting business.

I appreciate viewers feedback and I appreciate members feedback even more. But the priorities of the average viewer on the internet is often not the same as the priorities of a long time member, and neither exactly matches the priorities of the business end of keeping the site functioning. Im doing what I can to keep all 3 in line.

I would ask that people on the fence give the site a chance. I haven't banned any members who had content in the 45 or so days Ive been doing this ... and I haven't deleted any sections.

What will make the site work is if people view it and participate.
If you think you can help in a productive way, do it - you can start by reporting spam posts or posts that you find offensive using the

link. We could also use some more moderators. If you are interested in helping let me know.

 

[chesebro]

Seeing how slow traffic is on here now, I think winning people back should be a goal! With out members theres is NO NLOC..
I been here for about 5 years,lurked around for a while and I can tell you,this place has been a hostile inviroment for a while. I dont know bigD my self but, I did get to witness some unfair moves on his part,witch has always kept me from becoming a paid member. Hopefully things can turn around and maybe have some old members back

 

[FastPhoneGuy]

I'm not interested in winning people back. .

If you want this to be a Lightning site I think you DO have to win some people back. (I do think there are some you dont want back also lol)

The Lightnings arent being built anymore, the community gets smaller each year with trucks wrecked, sold or just plain lost interest.

If and when Ford builds a real Gen 3 Lightning you have a great opportunity to capture the hearts of new enthusiasts but until then you have to realize getting new people interested will be very very difficult.

When I joined this site it had much more traffic, I never saw stats but when you clicked new posts it was multiple pages long. Big D drove people away. NLOC needs to find a way to bring some of them back to maintain and grow IMO.

 

[oilwell1415]

if you want this to be a lightning site i think you do have to win some people back. (i do think there are some you dont want back also lol)

the lightnings arent being built anymore, the community gets smaller each year with trucks wrecked, sold or just plain lost interest.

If and when ford builds a real gen 3 lightning you have a great opportunity to capture the hearts of new enthusiasts but until then you have to realize getting new people interested will be very very difficult.

When i joined this site it had much more traffic, i never saw stats but when you clicked new posts it was multiple pages long. Big d drove people away. Nloc needs to find a way to bring some of them back to maintain and grow imo.

+1.

Edit: Got a little quick on the trigger. All you have to do is look at the last posts in the forums to see that people need to be attracted back to the site. There are probably 10-15 forums that have had no posts in over a year. The road race forum was never a barn burner, but you could get information about making your truck handle from people who had been there and the traffic was at least steady. There hasn't been a post there in a year or two. I know those guys are still out there, and I know there are others out there that road race their L, they just don't come here any more. That may be why my interest in the site comes and goes. I road race my truck and like to talk with others that do the same. I can't do that here because most of those guys have been alienated. A big part of that was dumping the road race portion of LFest. There were a lot of people that said up front that if the road racing was dropped at LFest they wouldn't be back and they haven't been. LFest was the only place you could go and get on the track with several other trucks to see how yours stacked up. That opportunity went away and took 10 or 15 members with it. I'm sure the stories are similar with other segments of the site and event.

 

[Silver_2000]

While I'm interested in feedback and will consider the issues on a case by case basis I'm not going to unban everyone enmass as has been suggested. That's madness.

And Im not going to unban everyone that sends an email saying that Bigd banned them and they didn't deserve it.

If a mistake was made on your part or our fine. Send an email or PM describing what happened - take SOME responsibility for the outcome and explain whats different now. Things have changed on this end - what has changed on yours ? If the answer is nothing then in most cases we are doomed to repeat ourselves ...

 

[CarlWinslow]

I had my first Lightning and was one of the first people to have a documented issue with a certain vendor on here with certain blower work I had done. I called them out, supplied dyno sheets and time slips to back it up, found other people having same issue, got banned, no questions asked. Not long after, said vendor came forward and admitted issue with their said blower work and worked out a revision, I contacted D and attempted to get my account reactivated since I was a regular on here every day, taking in information and sharing what I knew, but door was slammed shut. I moved on from my old membership name (ChillOutWayne) and started this new one, and then was out of the L world for a while when buying my house.

Now back on again with my 2nd L and trying to share info and take in again the best I can...in fact I dove into my headgasket leak project in my garage myself and trying to help people with theirs. I have always liked this site and have gotten some great info off of here, but for a while there things did get dicey. I can understand if I was blindly bashing a vendor, but to have facts to back it up and just trying to get some answers AND have the vendor come forward and still not negotiate a return under same name was ridiculous.

 

[ozbolt99]

long one, but not a rant

First off, thanks Doug for keeping the site up and running and hope this doesn't take up too much of the forum's bandwith with all my run-on sentences. I'm probably what they call the 2%,long time looker,not much of a poster, and like road course's I look on here occasionally but not near what I used to and it's not one cause but too many to list.
Heres just a few observations:
1. I'm the original owner of an awesome 99' L and it's the best car/truck I've ever had period!!! But it's a 13yr old vehicle and until Ford gets off it's *** and let's SVT go to town on a vehicle like they have the Mustang we won't have any new blood to pump into the L family( other than those that sell their L to another guy, and leave the site).
2. Speaking of losing members I can remeber a few years ago our own local group had probably 15-20 trucks but time went on, people lives went on, etc.
Now we're a core group of 5 guys and can't meet up near as much, but our last one at Hooters had a few past owners and we still had as much fun as if we all owned L's. So I hope you do get more of the past/current owners to come by the site cause many still have vast knowledge that could help a guy with a ?...p.s. wish i had a fraction of the knowledge some of these drag guys have!!!!
3. Which brings up the fact that this site helped me get a test-and-tune together a few years back. L's from all over the midwest were able to get a tune from a great guy, Sal from PSP, and none of it would have happened if we didn't have a place to talk about it. Thanks NLOC.
4.LFEST...what memories:cr::tongue::chat::nono::help:ldtu:
I had the great opportunity to go to 5 of them and met absolutely awesome,warm helpful people and see insanely fast trucks!!!! I did even get to do road track time (I believe Lfest2) but was told it lost money doing this event. That's why Dwight had to let Vipers and Corvettes run on the track also to make up some money and wouldn't be back...still miss it...
What I always hoped was that we could tie it to Chevy's SS/Cyclone/Typhoon national meet which was at KCIR also and have a shoot-out. Never sure where SRT's did theirs. Unfortunately we lost KCIR this year to greedy idiots who want a park in that area. Hopefully in the future LFEST is revived and NLOC is the place to go for the info.
5. Finally thanks to all the folks on here, my MKLO clan, and Sal for helping me have a soon to be 12sec daily driver truck to haul all my relatives stuff on moving day and haul *** the next.. sorry again for the long post guys:BL:

 

[Mike Mck]

I went through the Rogues gallery of names on the no access list and saw quite a few chronic trouble makers that I remember from back in the day so-There wont be any mass unbannings done. If a specific case needs to be revisited - Ill consider it ...

What specifically do the masses want ? If its x rated avatars, thats not happening either ... But Im open to other suggestions.

Works for meldtu:

 

[oilwell1415]

I did even get to do road track time (I believe Lfest2) but was told it lost money doing this event. That's why Dwight had to let Vipers and Corvettes run on the track also to make up some money and wouldn't be back...still miss it...

This was part of the problem. He was told many times that he would have to restructure the costs for the various activities to make money and he didn't do it, then he made up other reasons why he had to nix the road track portion of the event. One year he said there were only 2 or 3 trucks signed up for it, but there were more than that in just one run group. As far as allowing Vipers and Vettes run, that is pretty common at any track event. There are very few vehicle markets that are capable of sustaining an entire road track event on their own. Bottom line: the event was mismanaged from the start and he wouldn't listen to anyone who had been there and done that when they tried to help him. Most of those people have since grabbed a life vest and abandoned ship.

 

[QKSILVR]

I loved the track event. I skipped LF 3and 4 cause we didn't have it anymore. I can drag race any weekend. I can't roadrace every weekend. So the track event was a big draw for me, even though I was new at it. Plus the fact we had LF only in the central US all the time.

 

[adamda8b]

i guess this is my good bye peice out lightning rodder here i come