Thanks folks. I'm really glad to see that overall most feel we're doing a great job here. It's easy to fall into a rut (it's comfortable like an old pair of slippers) as the webmaster and not look at what could or should be changed to make the site more friendly to both regulars and new folks. I wasn't going to directly answer anyone's thoughts was just going take it as more of a constructive feedback thread, file it in my brains, and work on things over time but there's a few things I wanted to answer talk about.
On the Flash (Dynacord & EV) banners: I really don't know what the problem is, I'm lost when it comes to flash and since the files are compiled (or I just don't have the right editors ) I cannot see the source to change things by trial and error. We only have one flash banner at a time I cannot tell if the flash file itself is causing the the whole line to be linked or it's a problem with my template, my template looks fine but again I'm not very good with flash. I will try and hunt down the problem and work with the Bosch guys to see if we cannot get it fixed.
@Joe: I haven't the foggiest idea what can be causing the attachments popup not work for you as I've never seen it happen before and I've worked with lots of other vB powered boards. I believe we tried to hunt this problem down last year.. we can try again though.
On the derailing/off topic posts: I agree to an extent sometimes I get a little annoyed with it myself BUT I do agree with the bar analogy and once a conversation starts the starter has little to do with keeping the same topic on going and more often than not the conversation ends 180 degrees from where it started. I cannot think of anyone conversation longer than a couple minutes I've had where we only talked about one specific thing. I believe it's more of a technology not matching the way humans think; The forum layout (thought mapping if you will) is threads go into topic driven boards and posts go into more specific threads and all of these are part of a bigger forum on one general topic. People just don't think like that and I think that's a big part of the problem. That being said we do spilt at the request of the original poster or even someone who has posted an offshoot in the thread. The problem with splitting is it throws off the chronology and can look a bit messy out of context so we don't going around splitting threads unless asked to split.
Baiting/Bashing: Overall, I see very little of it when compared to some of the other boards. We strive to be friendly to everyone which has gotten us accused of everything from coddling to supporting copyright infringement to being the devil's unwanted stepchildren. For what it's worth on some issues I think we've been to touchy feely and I've made a point to lay off such things. There's a good balance in there somewhere and I'm confident we'll get to it sooner or later. Other than that there's a few sets of people who go around hounding each other, I'm guessing for kicks.. My view so long as each holds their own and it's not disrupting the rest of our members why do should we play kindergarten teacher?
@Ruben (newsletter): We tried the newsletter, there's a poll around here somewhere. Between who didn't get it (there is no one newsletter system that 'just works' from what I can see) and those who didn't like it because for regulars it was just a duplication of forum content to people who wisely suggested interviews with our members which sounds easy but in practice it's a lot of work for me especially since I'm not the best writer in the world. It's not work that I'm unwilling to do, I just haven't had the time to sit down and map it all out. Perhaps over the winter I'll figure something out.
I think I got just about everything. Rob and Fred spoke a bit on the derailing and bashing. I'm glad overall people think we're doing good.