Need for regional forums?

[Jeroen]

OK always looking for ways to keep this place as interesting as possible for all E21 fans worldwide. What I noticed on other forums is that they add regional sections. Somehow I don't feel we need a separate section for European topics (I guess?) but perhaps we should add some regional forums where people from other areas can meet and where specific issues and events can be discussed as well? Thinking about sections for Australia/New Zealand ; US ; Asia ; ...?

What do you guys think?

[garyw51]

Great idea as long as members are prepared to contribute. Being an Oz member there do not seem to be a lot of contributions from this part of the world. As an example the BMW Drivers Club of NSW has been trying to get historic registration going for a couple of years. We have one e21 on historic plates and one of mine on full registration in the club. We are running an historic day later in the year and I will be using this forum to promote it to e21 tragics like myself so that it is not just 2002s etc that attend. The concept of regional forums is good.

[Jeroen]

Thanks! We used to have quite a few Aussie members but most moved on to a different car I believe. Still, you're not the only one here and regional forums might help finding each other. There's still a few of these babies around down there! Writing down one yeah

[e21-Mark]

I think obvious differences, such as language, means that some regional division is quite natural. When it comes to things like UK events etc. there will only ever be a small number of mainland Europeans who are interested and vice versa. With technical issues it would be nice if all threads were understandable by all nationalities. Maybe we could have a Google map that shows all members and their locations?

[Jeroen]

That could be a nice one as well. Anyone have any experience with setting up such a Google account?

And Mark, further: proceed with some regional stuff as proposed you think? Not ready for a spanish section, bit hard to moderate for me haha

[arshad76]

I guess there could be benefits, but personally I'd think it would be a shame and create more siloes and cliques. I like the fact that we have one forum from people all over the world who enjoy one car. This would be choked if we split them up into sections - oh well

[Jeroen]

I could try and take my moderator job seriously and only allow local issues, move the rest to the general topics if necessary?

[Reck]

I'd have the same concern as Arshad. Are there really enough members to justify splitting it up? You might get like one post a week in an AUS forum..

BTW, why not make the forums open to view as a guest? We might get more members if they can see how active/useful the forum is! Also.. I like to log in from different locations to lurk and I get tired of signing in!

[Jeroen]

There's a couple of good suggestions!

1) We could just make a few regional topics in this forum and keep things in one place

2) With new anti spam measures taken we might open the forum up again as well, also is annoying under various versions of MSIE atm as they keep asking you to log back on
Will start working on the 2nd suggestion right away... done!

Thanks!

[Madhatter]

if ive moved, does that mean I can still post in the australian section?

[Jeroen]

lemme think about that

but considering the responses sofar there's no real need for a regional section and if preferred we can always open the Gaint Aussie Topic here, right?