Kevin Brown said:
If traffic is up but posts are down, we have to figure out why guy aren't posting. I suspect that some guys are wary of posting click & brags because there are so many fantastic write-ups showing exotics. I still like to see a resurrection detail on a work truck or daily driver.
For me, I feel like I've written so much about what I know, that it's ridiculously repetitive. Then, I tend to write in a long-winded sort of way and stop myself from posting simply because I don't have the 15 or 30 minutes to spare.
The same could be said of Mike Phillips in terms of having written so much about what he knows and being repetitive; half of his posts are typically copy/paste of stuff he's written in the past, and it's his paid job to do so (as well as develop new content aimed at pushing the latest stuff and making people want to buy it). Not that there's anything wrong with that, it is obviously a valid strategy that works for him and his employer.
Autopia, on the other hand, doesn't need to use those sort of tactics to drive visitor traffic, as people are already coming to the site specifically to use it as a reference/knowledge-base. Sure, some newbies do post and ask questions, but for every one person who asks a question, there are probably 5 more who just went back into the archives and found what they were looking for on their own.
This all begs the question, then: what sort of active traffic are we really looking to get more of?
If it's click and brags, well, we've already been down that road and it seems we all agree to disagree about what makes a good C'n'B and what should be considered acceptable here.
If it's technical advice about detailing and car care topics, then what segment(s) of the market are we not already able to cater to with what is in our archives? Is some of the archived information no longer accurate/relevant and in need of updating? If so, what can we do to entice people to take on those tasks?
Or is it the business side of detailing that will get people talking? It seems that a large majority of people on the site are either full time professionals, or dedicated enthusiasts who double as "weekend warrior" professionals. We've had a few people in the past who have made an attempt to bring the subject up with rather mixed results (though in some cases bedside manner was to blame for the response they received) but perhaps it's something worth focusing on, with the full understanding that not everyone has the same goals in mind or caters to the same type of market? Running a high end premium service doing in-depth technical work is in several ways different than running a profit-maximizing volume operation, but there are plenty of shared fundamentals to discuss as well as topics specific to each.
Ultimately it comes down to what purpose Autopia or its owners want it to serve. If they want to maintain it largely as an information resource that gets updated by its existing experienced active members as needed over time, trying to encourage more active posters is in some ways a solution in need of a problem that could ultimately end up diluting what is already built. If on the other hand they are looking for it to take on more of a marketing role as a sales-driver for 3D/HD, more active traffic specifically discussing the products is a necessity (hence David's "Free HD SPEED & POLISH???" thread).
So, is Autopia in the middle of an identity crisis? Does it want or need to be something different than it is now? Communities like this one tend to evolve organically depending on what its users want it to be. It is of course doable for the owners to force or at least steer an accelerated change but that sort of strategy will always come with a potential cost. Sites like AGO and AF that are largely sales oriented need a constant flow of new content to stay relevant (and thus an active push toward that content-generating goal); Autopia, in its current role as an archival library, seemingly stays relevant simply because of what it is and has previously been.
It's hard to say why some people are more loyal to one site over another when it comes to actively posting and sharing their knowledge, but we all have our reasons. Some may like the feeling of protection against attack a heavily censored and rigid environment provides them, and that is their prerogative, it's just not something they're going to find here. Others prefer the hands-off approach, and will migrate away from the more structured sites. And of course, there are always the social "cliques" who will act due more to peer pressure than logical reasoning.
