Keeping the spirit alive; Why ClassicCougarCommunity is here

Cougar Community Classic Cougar Community Discussion
1

About a year ago MercuryCougar.Net was acquired by Vertical Scope, and I wrote the following article:

Friday, 24 December 2010 16:48
Here is what we learned today on MecuryCougar.Net:

Hello Mercurycougar.net -

You may have noticed the server downtime yesterday. Today marks the dawn of a new day at Mercurycougar.net. I have, effective today, transferred ownership of Mercurycougar.net to Vertical Scope.

Mercurycougar.net is now part of the automotive family of websites owned by Vertical Scope. This is a great thing for the Mercurycougar.net members. You will soon be introduced to Helena Ciardullo. She will be the new administrator for Mercurycougar.net going forward.

You may be wondering why?

For most of you, you already know I do not take part in the day to day goings on of Mercurycougar.net. I manage the back end stuff and pay the bills. I’ve been doing this one man show since I started Mercurycougar.net ~9 years ago.

My heartfelt thank you to the stalwart members of mercurycougar.net for making this one of the best classic car forums on the net today. Over the past ~9 years, Mercurycougar.net has become THE authoritative resource for fanatic classic cat lovers.

Our Contributing members have been responsible for keeping this site alive and for the most part, out of my own pocket book, for which, I’m eternally thankful.

Personally, I am an senior leader at a fortune 30 company and simply don’t have time for the car hobby I’ve loved and that has kept me out of trouble for the past 20 years, between traveling and spending time with my kids. My twin girls are now 8 and keeping me busy with all the goings on of kids immersed in grade 3.

I really struggled with the decision as this is a bit of my baby, having started it back when I was restoring my own 69 XR7 cat. As it happened, it turned out it was more about the journey that the destination, so to has it been with this website. I’m sure that all resonates with you. Time for me to move on and for the community to get alot more invested attention.

My time has been less and less over the last couple years and I didn’t feel I was bringing the members all that is possible for Mercurycougar.net. Vertical Scope brings capital, staff and marketing to ensure the longevity of Mercurycougar.net and take the site to a new level. This means more options and more opportunities for Mercurycougar.net members.

How does this affect you?

The beautiful part is it doesn’t affect you at all. I have been working with Helena to ensure a seamless transition and to close any outstanding issues. All the site modifications stay just as they are and our devoted members continue to enjoy the site as always. Other than a new admin behind the scenes, Mercurycougar.net continues as it always has. I will still drop in every now and then, as I do now.

The next level!

With the resources available to Vertical Scope, Mercurycougar.net is on the cusp of great things. I expect to see new vendors signing on and the potential of specials and group buys for our members in the future.

All the best,

Logan

Logan has made a huge contribution to the Cougar Community for many years. MC.Net has been, for many of us, a constant companion. We have Logan to thank for making it the great institution it is.

The question in everyone’s mind must be, what can we expect from the site in the future? I think one thing is clear; the new owners are not Cougar hobbyists. They are interested in the site from a purely business perspective. The site will need to yield enough revenue to make it worth the investment in time and money. By definition, they will have to make changes that make this happen, and those changes mean that they will need to increase the advertising and exploit the eyeballs on the site as much as possible. Exactly what this will look like remains to be seen.

The objective of ClassicCougarCommunity.Com has always been to bring together the different parts of the community. We haven’t tried to recreate The Classic Cougar Network, or to compete with MercuryCougar.Net. Both of those sites were created by Cougar enthusiasts for Cougar enthusiasts. They were labors of love more than money. I have always focused on trying to find areas that were not being served elsewhere, and to bring those items to the web.

Over the past nine years, I have personally posted more than 4500 times on MC.Net. And like many of you this gives me a sense of skin in the game. I have also been hosting the annual Barrett Jackson party for this group, now going on it’s 5th anniversary. I am happy to do this because I feel like the members of the board are like an extended family. MC.Net has brought guests from all over the world to my door, and I am grateful for all of this. I believe that much of the goodness of MC.Net was that we all felt that we were guests in Logan’s house (he said as much) and every one took care to treat it that way. I have misgivings that the site will be able to maintain that character as a commercial venture.

We will be revising the forums on ClassicCougarCommunity.Com. Initially, we set the forums up on this site to look and feel very different than MC.Net. This was an intentional effort to keep the forums here from splitting traffic away from MC.Net. We will be updating the forums here to a look that will be much more familiar to MCNetters. Let us just say that we want to keep the new ownership of MC.Net focused on keeping the great legacy of MC.Net intact, and if that doesn’t work we will have a ready alternative.

2

Right on Bill!! :thumbup:

3

X 2

(Hey I didn’t get that annoying 10 characters message!) :clap:

4

So looking back over the last year what has happened to MC.Net?

As it turns out Vertical Scope has been more neglectful than anything else. Bob, one of the moderators has taken a lot of heat for some heavy handed moderation, banning people and changing posts and the like, but the bigger picture was that Vertical Scope was not managing things well. There are several things that people were reacting to, and Bob became the lightning rod. Bob is not a bad guy, he is my friend, sure he made a few mistakes, but that only tells a small part of the story.

Here are a few of the things that I was hearing from people migrating to CCC.Com: They don’t like the “Cougar Women Photos” type ads that appear when you are logged in, and in particular they don’t like the ads as they are seen in-between posts by non members. Lots of posters use their real names and don’t like seeing an ad for a questionable site right above their posts. They also see things like the completely empty front page, and wonder what happened to the build story that used to be there. They don’t get the blogs section. They make requests that never get answered. They wonder about the Ride of the Month and then realize it only exists to enable Vertical Scope to sell a Quaker State ad. I could go on, but I think you probably have noticed things as well. Probably the biggest issue was knowing that Vertical Scope could decide to clear up some server space without even thinking what they would be destroying.

They say that the opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference. The reaction of Vertical Scope to what was going on was, at best, indifference.

From my point of view, the interests of the Cougar community and Vertical Scope don’t seem to be very well aligned. As I write this the Occupy Wall Street people are taking up seemingly permanent residence on Wall Street and many other locations. They have a right to complain about the way things are, but they also have the right to go out and do something about it. I think the latter choice works best. So, with the help of a few committed volunteers, we are trying to make this site the best place to share all things Cougar.

The focus of ClassicCougarCommunity is on meeting the needs of the community, not on competing with any other site. For this reason you will see links to MC.Net, The Curb, CCOA, The Classic Cougar Network, and others right on the tool bar under resources. We don’t count eyeballs, but we do like to see smiles.

So tell us what we can do to make this better, to make owning your Cougar more fun, that is why we are here.

5

As always… well said Bill.

I have one small selfish request. Perhaps the one thing I liked best on MCN was the “Mark Forums Read” function. Oftentimes I don’t plan to read every new post that comes up on a forum. I read the ones I want and like to mark them all read before I log off so what pops up next time is ALL new. Do you or could you have that option here?

Maybe it’s already here and I just don’t know where. LOL!

6

Here here!!

Once again well said Mr.B!

I still think that a hostle takeover would have been a tad more fun and quicker and honestly it would have put them out of their misery instead of the lingering prolonged downward spiral course they seem to be on unless things change for the better.

7

You already are!

8

On the Board index page there is a Mark forums read button above the Topics column.
Is that what you’re looking for.

9

Bravo!!!

Well said Bill

10

Amen, Bill.

I believe you have managed to put into words what we have all been thinking. For CCC.com and all you do for all of us in the Cougar community, a heartfelt Thank You.

11

Hey Bill,

I agree with most of what you’ve said. I created a login to this site early this year but kept forgetting to periodically check in. In the last month or so, MC.net has not been as entertaining as it used to be and I started getting bored with it.

While I’ll still be over there just because there is so much activity, I’m going to start checking in here daily as well.

Thanks for all you’ve done and are doing for the Cougar community, including providing this website.

I like the direction this is going in.

Jeff Bingaman

12

That’s EXACTLY what I was looking for. Thanks Z! I owe you one. :thumbup:

13

Bill thank you for this site and keeping the classic cougar community together. MC.net has gone down hill. I don’t blame moderators I blame the owner and administrator. Its strictly business without passion for the Mercury Cougar or its members. We have a great thing here because of you and the other members. “Build it and they will come” :slight_smile: You have done that with CCC.
Steven

14

At the risk of sounding like I’m ripping off a “line” from a former MCN member, or Budweiser ad copywriter, or “former-oil-field-worker/semi-pro football player turned country music singer”; I can only say “I LOVE THIS PLACE”

I think I was one of the first to join this page; wanted to see it grow. I’d already had mis-givings about the drection of MCN; having seen nearly identical “events” on StangNet. For those who have never been there, StangNet is/was very much like MCN, but has MANY sub-forums covering the entire lifespan of the model line - even Mustang II’s. It’s is still “credited” as being owned by a guy named Mike Rayburn; but Rayburn has been completely absent from member or public view for several years, and the forum is “Administered” by two personages (Tim and Brian) who popped up as ‘members’ a few years ago. There are other Mod’s; but, when there are questions, one of the Admin’s comes bustling in and “educates, straightens out and subdues the cretins”. Yes, I know that sounds rather heavy-handed; but… well… you’d have to read it to believe it. The “discipline” sometimes does indeed appear retaliatory and vindictive in nature - frankly, Bob is “Mr Rogers” in his actions compared to these guys. The interesting thing is that, with Rayburn purportedly still owning that Forum; a little “exploring” on my part has repeatedly led to “Drive 9” servers.
Let me say up front, I DON"T HACK! Just like to run basic tracert searches to see where “latency” (bottlenecks) slow down my web-crawling

There are quite a few automotive boards on “Drive 9” servers; mostly other major brands, but at least one F-series truck enthusiast Forum, one other Mustang Forum and a Bronco Forum. At least they obviously cater to automotive enthusiasts - who/what is this “Vertical Scope” outfit? From what I’ve seen, it’s just a company that purchases legitimate discussion forums for the purpose of placing advertising; with ZERO interest in what goes on in the discussions, so long as it does not interfere with click-through counts. I understand free-market economy and commercialism; however this is like buying up fertile farmland alongside freeways for the experss purpose of “planting” billboards and having zero interest in raising crops. What happens when interest drops and the click-throughs decide they’re not getting there advertising dollars’ worth? What then happens to the “tribal knowledge” stored in that dying Forum?
(Yes, I in fact did just willfully “borrow” Bill’s aptly coined phrase!)

Fortunately, this Forum has none of that “texture”. It’s more like a “small-town tavern” where guys meet to compare experiences, air their gripes, ask for help, and generally tell bad jokes and poke at one another in good fun. I repeat, “I LOVE THIS PLACE”
And it just gets better every day. Our bartender keeps coming up with new brews on tap, more pool tables and an awesome collection of pinball machines!

Now if y’all will excuse me, I gotta go find that “Donate” button on the Front Page. Oh wait, it’s right at the top of this page!

15

Okay, I finally went out and answered one of my questions… “Vertical Scope” owns SEVERAL Mustang Forums, 460Ford.com, and NewCougar.org; among quite a few other “Ford Boards” across which I’ve never stumbled. Interesting.

EDIT: And “Drive 9” claims to only operate StangNet. Uhhhh… okay, but I’ve had other Forums “tracert” back to servers with their name… :think:

16

Well said Bill

The new owners have delivered no value to the community. They are making money off our hobby.

Does anyone know if the purchased the rights to the intellectual property when they purchased the site from Logan? If they haven’t it’s time to start going through 10 years of posts and copy off the important stuff

17

It would probably be easy enough to batch download each post and save it to a database. I bet I could program that up in like 2 hours. It would probably take several hours of running to get all the posts. And then I dunno what would happen with the database. But I bet I could populate it pretty easily.

18

All your base are belong to us!

19

TMH, that is a good idea! You would need to be very careful to be certain that you didn’t pick up anything but the content of the posts. I wonder if the posts could then be populated into a blank forum shell, then the shell could be locked so that it would not require administration. The user agreement on the site now doesn’t say anything about terminating your rights to your comments.

I need to qualify what I am saying. I think that making a back up copy is a good idea, but I also think that as long as MC.Net continues to host that material, that the back up should not be used.

20

Yeah, I would write a macro that would presume a fixed format for the View Topic page, would start from x=1, and then would loop through and load each page, starting from message #1, select the text inside the message body, save it to the db, select the poster’s name, save that, select subject title, save that, select post time, save that, and then go ahead and add 1 to X and do it all over. I’ve done that before, almost 10 years ago, but that was for a pre-php web forum so it was super super easy. With mc.net it might take a little more tweaking which is why I guessed 2 hours to get it up and running instead of like 15 minutes.

And yeah, I wouldn’t be doing it to then rehost the messages on another website while mc.net is still alive, but rather to cover the bases for the doomsday scenario people keep mentioning where the new owners of mcn decide it’s not making enough money and they just pull the plug. To lose all those posts would be a damn shame. That’s why they oughta be archived by someone who couldn’t care less about the money aspect.