Where is everyone?

[David Morris]

Hi All,

I frequently check JowettTalk, and there would be, say, two or three, new entries every week. But recently, there has been nothing! Have all the previous contributors fallen asleep? Or are they so busy just enjoying the summer in their vehicles, with absolutely no problems ( they are Jowetts after all, and they never go wrong! ) that they have no need to join in any discussion? Strange?

Or is there a parallel, and much more active discussion going on via some other other social media channel, like Facebook or What's App, that I don't know about?

All the best,

David

[Jeremy]

Morning David,

I think activity on boards like this is not as easy as using others environments like facebook and other social media platforms. You tend to visit facebook for other things and get presented with family, friends and clubs and interests in one place. Posting photos is easy there as well as the concept of "liking" posts etc. The Jowett car club facebook page is being used quite a bit more now than it was a year ago.

Clearly it doesn't have the historical value that this site has with the archive of information so its not a simple one way street. Although accessibility can still be an issue on here, what you want is almost certainly here, just finding it can be a challenge.

I tend to check here a couple of times a week. There has been some activity in the Bradford and Pre war section this week. I also use it as a look up search facility, but I go on facebook a couple of times a day. Perhaps this site needs to "live" as as an information resource and facebook and similar platforms as the more social side and shop window for Jowetts in the wider world?

[Forumadmin]

I would be interested if you can tell us how to find things you want on Facebook, rather than loads of advertising or irrelevant posts.
Most people use Facebook via an app which is continuously monitoring your device, your contacts and anything else it can use to build your profile so that it can target you. I do not use an app but a firewalled browser container to block that when using Facebook.
Facebook is designed to be addictive to act as a marketing tool for advertisers, not as a bunch of services for the enjoyment of Jowett club members. The forum is part of that loosely integrated set of software.
To get to use Facebook is actually more difficult than getting to use JowettTalk even though their identity checks do not have to weed out those not genuinely interested in Jowetts. You can set up a private group but that has to be administered.
Once you have registered, either with Facebook or JowettTalk access to post is the same unless you have set up two factor authentication. How many Facebook users have had their identity stolen?
My advice is use a password manager.

Note you can use your Facebook or Google identity to log into JT.

I do agree it is maybe easier to post pictures. I will see if I can make it simpler. JT classes pictures as attachments which can also be documents. There are 26000 attachments totalling 12GB currently on JT.
The issue is the phpbb developers or possibly one person in 2010 decided to do it that way. By that time JT had already been going for 4 years using phhpp with Gallery software used for pictures and documents, so we were stuck with the attachment process if we stayed with the unmodified version. The problem with any customised software is it needs long term support. My focus has always been to use easy to maintain open source software so that the service is protected against forced change by third parties.

Regarding participation, a conversation on Facebook is usually cluttered with diatribe, perhaps less on the Jowett Club group. But there is no organisation of posts, like we have with the different forums in JT, yet on the JCC Facebook group. It is just a flat file of posts with no hierarchy. I prefer quality and structure over quantity and unstructured information. Whether you think that hierarchy helps you post or to find what you want is open to opinion.

The 47000 posts on JT have accumulated at a rate of 7 per day on average. It is less now, but how does that compare to the number of contributions received by our club magazine editors? Getting people to contribute requires constant marketing by all so spread the word.

I am working on more integration to make it easier for club members to register and possibly non-members as well. However I have to be careful not to circumvent the phpbb security. Identity will be checked using a user's email address, prior to the registration process.

[Jeremy]

I agree that Facebook is cluttered with adverts and posts that the system thinks you will be interested in and other than the group and page structure it is just a thread of posts and stories. Going to a group specifically or a page will just give you that groups content.

There is a search facility but this is quite generic and like Jowett Talk picks up in key words so again like Jowett Talk finding the specific thing you are interested in is not straight forward.

My point really was that Facebook and Jowett Talk are different beasts - the future of Jowett Talk is probably not to try and do what Facebook does but to be the definitive archive of Jowett information, be that copies of printed information or information generated by members from their experiences, both historical and current. In addition its a place for those seeking information so asking questions of the Jowett community about a technical or historical area. There have been some really interesting technical details on cone clutch lining for example which illustrate this point well.

Make the reason to come here "information" not "social" and you have a purpose. With a defined purpose the effort into site development can focus on being the best at that purpose it can be rather than trying to win a popularity contest with social media platforms?

I'm not for one moment saying I'm expert in any of this, these are just thoughts and ideas that run through my head. I've seen other resources like this come and go, some remain busy and others sputter and fade away. On the face of it there is no reason why some succeed and others fail other than the engagement of the people who use them.

[Forumadmin]

Thanks Jeremy for your insight. The purpose of the website started in 1990 has always been to promote the Jowett marque and it's clubs around the world.

All of the original technical and historical articles are still retained in the pre-2006 website searchable from the jowett.org search facility.

At the turn of the century a forum was started and in 2006 this moved onto the phpbb software with the pre-2006 posts moved into it so that they are now searchable.

Images and documents were not part of the phpbb software at that time, so Gallery software was used to store these. After I organised some collaboration with the other Jowett clubs the collection grew rapidly. In 2010 the Gallery software became unsupported. But the phpbb software now had attachments, so the Gallery was migrated to JowettTalk whilst trying to maintain some reference ability since documents and images had been previously referenced from JT.

Of course these migrations may add some complexity but at least references are not lost. Such early knowledge is extremely valuable to the modern Jowett enthusiast without the upbringing of running pre 1950 cars.

In 2018 the contents of the attachment documents were copied into a searchable archive. But this could not be run on the shared hosted website server so was run on my home server until the shared hosting server decided JT was now too big. So the website and the search archive were moved to a Google cloud Virtual Machine. The archive now has 8000 documents occupying 12GB.

Technology moves on, particularly with search systems which I have studied since before the days of Google and Yahoo. I am now using ChatGPT whose artificial intelligence capability is remarkable. I could move the archive so that it is searchable by Google or some version of AI. This might be able to be made free to the Clubs but only if the archive becomes public. Otherwise it will cost the members to provide the service. Who would be prepared to pay? Note that having such a service open to club members only is an incentive to join and continue to be a member.

Or, perhaps more relevant, is who would object to the archive and all the contents of JowettTalk becoming public? One objection in the past is that personal information is in the archive and JT posts.

[Chris Spencer]

Firstly we are a small club, the demographic of which by a large majority is of members that are in the 60 year plus age range - Information technology / computers were not present through our educational years (The most advanced technical piece of equipment in the modern comprehensive school that I attended was the school secretary's 'golf ball' type writer - something that the school age generation of today have never heard of yet alone seen) - Hence the vast majority of our members do not have the IT skills that the generations under us hold - Most of us are self taught when it come to IT and in large we hold the basic skills to get by. By far most of our members rely on social interactions either directly in person or by telephone - there's still a huge wealth of technical knowledge held out there along with help & assistance by many members - In the large it goes unseen & unrecorded.

Forums & websites regardless of how helpful are just not for everybody and I make this statement out of fact - I receive a number of calls from members every week that are seeking technical help with their vehicles and I'm not the only one taking such calls, Tim Brown, Drummond Black, Michael Kavanagh, Kevin Myers, Michael Koch-Osborne, Peter Holden, Paul Beaumont are others assisting our members to restore, maintain & resolve issues with their Jowetts (Not excluding our webmaster either)

You can bank all the technical information in the world on Jowetts, list it, file it, index it - But ultimately how usable is it and how many members rely upon it along with fact of how old is the information and has it been outdated by new / more modern methods / equipment / materials - I very rarely use it because personally I find it difficult to search / find / locate what I'm searching for in the first place and given that it's much easier just to pick the phone up and have a conversation with someone or fire a quick e mail off to someone who may hold the information that I'm seeking (In the main others do likewise)

My restorations & workshop activity is all recorded & documented to a forum but not this one for a few reasons - Firstly I would like to reach a larger online non Jowett audience that know little / nothing of the marque rather than the already converted on this site - Secondly from my own experience this is a clunky / awkward site to use - doesn't post full size images / difficult to post images to and takes far too long to document a restoration thread

It is what it is - Keith has already explained the historic reasons and I don't seek answers on my views, just merely giving my reasoning on the original question 'Where is everyone' - Well we are still out there working hard, doing things our way - The JT forum just isn't everybody's effective method of communication though - Many other members have alternatives that they prefer, be it the habit of a lifetime, old school preference or something more modern regardless of what advertising media may target them as a consequence. In conclusion then, you will find us scattered when you come looking for us, a minority of members on JT, A much larger selection of members interacting with each other directly and some doing their own thing, A select few of us might just be on holiday whilst others purely rely on a certain magazine called 'The Jowetteer' arriving every month.

[Forumadmin]

Just a small point.
On JT, pictures are posted as large thumbnails and clicking on the thumbnail will bring up the full size image, which in some cases is very large.
The size of the thumbnail can be easily configured but is a compromise between download speed and detail. Some JT users do not have the luxury of full fibre 1Gb broadband and some may be using mobiles with much lower bandwidth.
You should also be able to configure your browser to make text bigger, and hence the pictures bigger as the text will wrap around the picture.
JT uses a responsive layout meaning it provides the best layout for the browser window and thus provides a good experience on mobiles, tablets and desktops. By altering the browser window size, and particularly width, you can take advantage of this.

Whilst having access by phone or email to experts is useful not everyone knows everything so having a forum is a way of pooling our knowledge and at the same time recording it for future use. Also such experts are sadly becoming less which was recognised as a danger in 2006 which is why the Library on JT was started. Yes modern knowledge is also important but if it is not shared and recorded then it can easily be lost.

You can drag and drop all your images for a restoration thread at once into a post. Yes there are some restrictions on the size of the image as space costs money and 12MB images are very seldom required to have clarity. In most cases images should be downsized before uploading, after all you do not want to use up all your data allowance downloading when JT will resize the images to what you could have done on your desktop.

The thumbnail width is currently set to 400 pixels. Now if you have a 3840 pixel wide UHD screen then this might appear small unless you change the zoom of the browser window.

[Jeremy]

I agree Chris, online isn't to everyone's taste - a good reference document and a good chat or a combination of everything. I personally do everything - as you know you have had plenty of questions from me, as has Paul B and a few others I could name. The generosity of those giving answers is the unbounded strength of the club.

I have an IT degree, and have written various systems/programs in the past, I've used computers all my working life and yet these environments are still challenging at times. It is very easy to forget how challenging others find these environments. I remember once when I was training a room of people of mixed age. One person was struggling with the mouse. They moved it down the table, over the edge and started down the table leg. I asked why and they said they needed the pointer to go further down - they hadn't used a mouse before and didn't know you could pick it up and move it without moving the points and they didn't know that if you moved it faster the pointer moved relatively further. It is a good lesson for all IT professionals to remember what we take for granted others have no or limited experience of. The flip side is giving a 15 year old a rotary dial phone - they didn't have a clue how to make a call!

[Forumadmin]

David's question is thought provoking.

In 1990 Jowett owners may well have asked what is a website, let alone known how to get to it. So I ran a series in the magazine in 2006 explaining the Jowett website entitled 'Jowett.org owners manual'.

Some Jowett owners had figured out how to use email in the later part of the century and I received many from them. Some I posted on a contributions section on the website providing each contributor with a webpage. https://jowett.org/jowettnet/dt/contrib ... utions.htm

This link shows the worlwide contributions made. https://jowett.org/jowettnet/dt/contrib ... ebuild.htm

I still have many email and telephone conversations, many of which I precis and post in JT as their content could be useful to others. Why not do the same?

Responses to the contributions appeared and so then I added the facility for people to contribute directly, rather than me having to enter all the posts into a thread. https://jowett.org/oldjowetttalk/ Interestingly David was the last to use this service!
As activity increased and some undesirable activity was posted, the phpbb forum software was chosen. This allowed contributors to be vetted before they could post. It is still the most popular free open source forum software. A good choice 20 years ago.
I suspect now the majority of Jowett owners are able to use more than just email, even if the email, forum or Facebook account was set up by somebody else.

During the pandemic many learnt to use Zoom and this was because they were not allowed to meet but still wanted to interact socially.
I do think JT has slightly changed focus to being more an archive than being for conversation. But it is still the best place to ask a technical or historical question as it's readership is worldwide.

JT's clear intention is to bring Jowett owners together from the whole world, not just Yorkshire.

JT supports owners who are not in the UK and we value their technical and historical contributions.

Unfortunately there is a huge difference between the number of readers and number of contributors. Just look when you login at the bottom of the page to see how many are on line to JT.

[Chris Spencer]

Whilst I applore our webmasters efforts and no matter how hard you try the forum will only appeal to a minority quorum of members - record all the technical information information that you wish but equally don't disregard the information that others hold in person too - This will get largely passed on through generations / new owners and if it didn't you wouldn't have a technical archive in the first place with the exception of what written documents are available.

Hard sell it has much as you like but long restoration threads / workshop activity on this site are a no go for me - I can write & post up my daily activity in a much reduced timespan on my favoured forum to that of here along with the fact that on JT its only seen by small minority rather than the much wider audience that my threads appeal to elsewhere / worldwide

[Keith Clements]

Chris,
Are you using a desktop or mobile to record your restoration?
Do you take the images on your mobile camera, then upload to your desktop?
Do you write the text on your mobile or desktop?
Do you use Proboard attachments to store your images or link to an image stored in a service like Photobucket?

As far as I can see there is no, or little, difference between how images can be loaded on Proboards and phpbb. Please explain what the difference is.

From proboard help.

Add Attachment: If the forum staff has attachments enabled, you will see this button on the posting page. After you click the Add Attachment button, a new window will pop up letting you know how many files you can upload at a time, along with what the file size limit per attachment is. To attach a file, click the + Add Files... button, and then choose a file that you would like to upload from the Browse window that pops up. Once you choose a file, you will see a progress bar for the attachment that is uploading.

Once the attachment has been made, you can use the Insert button to have the attachment appear inline within your post, or you can use the Delete button if you decide against adding an attachment. Otherwise, you can click the Done button found at the bottom of the pop-up window and your attachment file will appear at the very end of your post after your thread has been made.

From phpbb user guide.

Attachments allow users to upload files and attach them to their post. The ability to attach and download attachments is determined by the "Can attach files" and "Can download files" permissions respectively.

To add an attachment, find the Attachments section of the posting page and click the Add files button. A comment may be placed in the File comment text box. Clicking Add the file will upload and attach the file to the post. To upload multiple files, repeat the process. Attachments may also be uploaded by dragging and dropping a file onto the message area of the posting screen.

To delete an attachment, find the attachments list at the bottom of the Attachments section of the posting page and click the Delete file button for the desired attachment.

Attachments can be displayed within the post text by clicking the Place inline button for the desired attachment. When an attachment is placed inline, text similar to a BBCode is inserted into the post text so that it may be moved. If an attachment is not placed inline, it will be displayed at the end of the post.

Attachments are controlled by a set of restrictions, namely file size and file type.

File Size: The maximum file size for uploaded files is set by the Administrator. The default is 256KiB.

File Type: The types of files allowed for upload are restricted by their file extension. The allowed extensions are set by the Administrator.

On JowettTalk the maximum attachment file size is 40MB, although this was only increased to allow the highly detailed A3 scans of the engineering drawings , so please limit file size to about 1 or 2 MB which should be adequate. Many file types are allowed and are grouped into images, text, documents and archives. Those allowed in the image group are gif, jpeg, jpg, png, tga, tif and tiff. Document types include pdf and doc.

JT is configured to allow 200 attachments into a post, but please limit to about a dozen as otherwise the post will take a long time to load and update if you make a change to it. If you are using image links then please apply the same limit of 12.

I often upload a dozen attachments at once with no problem, either by selecting them in the Windows explorer and then dragging and dropping into the post window, or by selecting them in the browse list presented by the attachment screen.

[Keith Clements]

Some website stats for this year.

25 videos have been downloaded from the video archive.

8 members have used Member Services to join the club
28 have used Member Services to check their membership details ( most of this checking is done in Nov and Dec so this stat missed those)
106 members have registered and used one of the Member Services facilities.

The email system has routed numerous enquiries to club officers. ( I could count them in each officer's mailbox, but does anybody wish to know?)

The archive search facility has been used 1128 times to search through the 8000 documents it contains.

The forum, JowettTalk, continues to provide a service to members and non-members with its wealth of searchable posts collected over nearly 25 years.
Total posts 47433 • Total topics 6337 • Total members 699 •26000 attachments totalling 12GB

40 newly registered JowettTalk users this year some of whom have become members.
But of those only 5 have posted anything. Why? Note that registering allows you to search and, if you are a club member, read the members only sections.

48 JT users have posted over 100 times. Well done to those, but why not add some more?

[Chris Spencer]

And this is where it ends - our webmaster going to every degree to defend the site instead of accepting it for what it is - at this point and just like most others we just switch off / cant be bothered to get into reading what you have even written because we have have better ways of spending our time on our cars.

[Forumadmin]

Chris,
I am trying to understand your criticism of JowettTalk with an aim either to improving the service provided to it's users or to help with what may be an issue for others.

As you see I researched the BRM site that you use and could not see how it differed in adding images to a post.

I too have better things to do preparing for the Revival, but I do take seriously responding to such criticism as any service provider should do.

[Chris Spencer]

Keith - To post images on this site is a utter pain - firstly you have upload them (no different from what I undertake on BRM) but then they have to to be inserted into the post - they just upload as image file numbers and you cant view them until they are inserted into the post itself - upload several images in one go and unless you have noted what the image file numbers and the content of what that file image is then you are working at random - quite often having to delate a image or several because they in the wrong order to the text in the post - the order of images when uploading several reads from bottom to top in order too rather than top to bottom - just utterly confusing - The images don't post full size and hence are not that appealing especially in a restoration thread and no I don't want to click on each image to enlarge it - just like you wouldn't want to pick up a magnifying glass to view every image when reading a book. On BRM I just upload the image with one click and there it is in full size - viewable directly in the thread exactly where I want it under the intended text. I've already stated that JT is not my target market - This is absolutely not about marketing a business either as I have more than enough work to keep me occupied for a number of years. My appeal is largely to non Jowett owners via a non Jowett site - From which there has been some conversion factors - some of it appealing from the marque models and others finding that the ethos of the club is equally appealing.

To come back to the the original question made by David 'Where is Everyone' resulted in several answers from various members - A conclusion from which can be drawn that we all still out there undertaking work on our cars whilst life in general gets in the way. Members communicating with each other through various methods & media for their own reasons - JT forms a small part of those methods, I appreciate that you would like to see more activity on the site from more members but it doesn't appeal to everyone - sadly JT is not the be all and end all of what happens in the land of Jowetts.

Finally after receiving the response that I have no desire to post my restoration threads to JT for my own reasons to you set off into an extensive defensive post mortem - Its not why any of us log into JT in the first place and I could be wrong but its probably why others don't bother with the site either. I'm pretty sure you'll have some answers meanwhile I'm off to rewire a Javelin.