New Registry Tech Data Section: Members Only?

[A26B]

Originally Posted by Aurora40

I guess I'll put my two cents out there. Not necessarily as a yes/no.

I think a formal tech section would be great. If it had accurate, up-to-date info, pictures that weren't red "x"s, was easy to search, etc. The forum is good to a point, and sticky type threads are good to a point. Dynomite's efforts are certainly appreciated, but limited a bit by the fact that it's a forum. If the info in a post needs to be updated, only the original poster can do that, etc.

I'd only point out that this is a difficult problem to solve, especially without an ongoing effort to keep articles up-to-date as information or methods to fix these cars change/improve. This is the kind of thing companies with huge resources struggle to do well.

The objective that I perceive, is very much as you describe. There is an article in the Oct 2011 issue of Corvette Magazine, titled "Water Pump Swap." It's for a C5 and used here as an example for discussion reference only. it contains step-by-step pictures. I think it would be even more effective if the text was directly under the associated photo.

That said, I share the thought that more information that is created by registry members should be a membership perk. You don't want to contrive the value of being a member by like moving posts or something, but if the registry had elegant solutions behind a paid wall, that sounds excellent.

I agree & support that concept as well.

My other thought is this: Whatever form this new information takes, people will need to authenticate if it is member's only. My suggestion is that the current form of this is pretty poor. This forum has one username/password for use that is different from the one used to access zr1netregistry.com/members.htm And then of course there is some different set of people that are on the registry vs open listservs.

I personally think that the authentication should be standardized and fixed before adding more properties that will utilize it. A single account would be great, single sign-on would be even better. I'd have to think this would make the membership director's job a bit easier too, as now there are at least 3 things you need to set/unset as a person joins or leaves, the forum, the listserv, and sending them the "shared" info (which you can't actually revoke from them if they leave).

Excellent point and well above my knowledge level!

So to summarize:

I think a more formal solutions/maintenance section for members only would be excellent.

I am concerned it would be a large effort to keep it up to date and useful, and I'm concerned that the current method of identifying yourself as a member would make for a clunky experience.

It would be a large project, but can be made managable if taken one procedure at a time and remain a work-in-progress. It will be easy to use if established in an outline/index manner, perhaps similar to the GM Service Manuals.

Thanks for your constructive input.