way too many sections
 

this forum has way too many sections. there doesn't seem to be that much traffic, and so you should merge the sections more.

I have to agree... a lot of the technical sections could be merged into fewer sections.

Also, $180 per month for hosting seems a huge amount for a low traffic site! $20-$50 per month should get VPS hosting that would do the job well enough.

Forums have been dieing off. Most traffic has moved to Facebook.

Despite low traffic, the bandwidth that the site consumes is actually very high due to visitors, spiders and spam.

The server host reduced the fee for me because I simply told him the site doesn't generate the income it once did. It's at the point where I don't have out of pocket expenses anymore at least. Or not much.

I've had cheaper hosts. You get what you pay for in terms of support.

A different perspective...
 

Yep, lotsa traffic on facebook and can you get swift responses. However finding history or any great level of detail, I still use the forums, as data moves on in Facebook or other social media sites like it and finding more detail information isn't really there. Plus, no easy specific search capability to pull up specific detail in a old thread. Most of the social chat has migrated over to FB and that is a good medium for it. Chat there, deposit detailed information here.

As far as number of sections in the forum, it at least for me, helps me begin my search and sort for topics, I know i can isolate a search depending on what tools are available, but already separated makes at least for me, much easier to go through topics for learning and reference purposes without having to read as many off topic threads.

I use 5-6 BMW forums as reference stores. Some with less sections, some with 1. I personally like the separation and groupings for this forum.

What do I know tho, I have only owned and renewed 7 TIs. I suspect there are others here who have done way more... :rolleyes:

I thought the other day if the site was still useful to me. Then made a donation, as it really is a great reference point for our cars. Anyway, Thanks Steven for assembling and administering this site. It still is very useful to me.

:)