I'm sorry guys...

[dc]

We had some serious problems this week with the move to the new server and forums. As some of you may have seen this morning, the posts that were transferred made it here en masse, but had adapted the user numbers for the F2000 registry base. It was a complete mess.

In the effort to keep things from being perpetually hosed for ever on this forum, we had to put the last 6 months of 1241 Formula Ford threads to sleep. I am truly sorry for any inconvenience this has caused. I have worked on this problem for a total of 13 hours in the last 2 days, on top of my day job. I cannot and do not have the will to continue to fight with the forums any longer. I was 2 Excedrin away from pulling the plug completely last night, and this morning's onslaught of complaint e-mails almost pushed me over the edge for good.

Here is what we have now:

All of the user registrations from the F2000 site and formula1600.com still exist. FF guys may have to make some updates to their profiles and preferences to get things back to normal. Please clear your browser and FORUM cache before doing anything (especially complaining), just to make sure that all of the changes have taken hold.

The new forums will be working off of one user base, to allow searches in ALL forums at once. This includes the User Registry. What that means, is that you should make sure your profile is filled out, to aid in searching by make, year, region, etc. much more effective.

We also have released the new SPECformula.com forums, as well. They can be found at the root of ApexSpeed.com, or by clicking the "forum home" link above. I'm sure you will pick up the new navigation through these forums quickly.


Again, I am very sorry for the loss of the FF posts, but it was just an unfortunate byproduct of the changeover. Give it a week and things will be back to normal.


--


Doug Carter

[Jerry Santucci 33]

Hey Doug...
hang in there! and thanks for all the hard work and PLEASE do not pull the plug! we "all" want this site to work, you will no doubt here "some" complaints, but a great deal of us realize how much effort you put out for us. THANK YOU!
and to Kim... Please forgive Doug and a BIG "THANK YOU" from us..

[DaveW]

Hey, Doug, as I said, that's the price of progress. Thanks for both the FF and FC sites. I really appreciate them.

[Dave Hopple]

I was 2 Excedrin away from pulling the plug completely last night,
and this morning's onslaught of complaint e-mails almost pushed me over the edge for good.

Doug, Thanks again for the effort here at formula1600.com. I guess we will have to start all over? I know Sauce is good for a bunch of new mega page generating post topics... (kidding Mike)
-Dave

[Todd TCE]

No Sh**! Don't bail now!

The folks who couldn't log in or whatever just need to be patient. It's not like this doesn't happen on other sites!

I'd say keep up the good work, take a break, read the suggestions as they come in, make some tweaks as your time allows, and forget the past threads. We can and surely will touch on all of them again.

Your efforts here are greatly appreciated Doug. As I said on the FFU; for work like this if it became a subscriber site for a reasonable fee I'd be happy to pay a modest fee. Others wouldn't but then they don't have your head aches either!

[kodiak]

Doug,
I cannot believe how rude some people can be. What type of person sends a complaint email to someone who works their tail off to bring the racing community together. I would like to thank you for all your hard work. The sites look great and I'm thankful that there is someone out there that will take the time to create a forum for us. I sure couldn't do it. Keep up the good work. Thanks
Daryle Redlin
Kodiak Motorsports Inc

[rickb99]

I was going to send this via E-mail but I imagine your're getting 100's of those. I suspect, in addition to the hours you admit to, you have put a whole lot of emotional and brain energy into this massive project. Thanks for all your time and personal efforts.

Doug,
Is there anything I could do with a couple of CD's FROM YOU with all the old F1600 posts. Any chance I could help sort through them for the F1600 guys and put them back up one-by-TEDIOUS-one?

I've got some time and would be willing to help them out if it's possible.

[Murray]

Hey Doug; There are a bunch of us who are really greatful for the super effort you do and the service you provide for us. Keep up the good work, we are with you.

[Nick St. Laurent]

Forget the old posts, what's important is that this forum exists. It's an extension of the race track and the race weekend. Thank you Doug.

[Robert J. Alder]

House bound in Denver for three days during a snow storm and no Formula1600.com. What a BUMMER! SURE NICE TO HAVE IT BACK.

[Bob Lutz DB-1 #54]

Doug - thanks for all the hard work - it's great to have a forum like this - besides, I'll bet you don't get many hits on old articles anyway - what's new is NEWS and what's old is history

[Garey Guzman]

Doug,
As stated above, your hard work and dedication to the open wheel community is greatly appreciated by the vast majority of the users. But as in any community, there are always whiners and complainers. It's just their nature. It's always much easier to complain than to offer constructive critisism followed by a possible solution. Maybe they didn't get hugged enough as children.

I volunteered to be the newsletter editor for the SoCal SAE section late last year and I can certainly empathize with your situation. When I get complaint letters, I'm always quick to reply that this is a volunteer position and that if they can add to the solution, please make suggestions or come talk to me at the next meeting. My experience so far has been that complainers aren't very good at following through. Let 'em whine while we enjoy life!

Seriously, does life get any better than this? Racing and/or talking about racing!

[dc]

Hey guys, thanks for the support. You have no idea how much I appreciate it.

I just made all of the old posts available in the FF ARCHIVE at the bottom of this forum. The posts are now all READ ONLY discussions, because all of the names of the posters is looking for user numbers that overlapped with the F2000 forum.

Please don't use the names of those individuals as fact, as most, if not all of the posts show authors that are totally incorrect.

It will be completely searchable throughout these forums.


doug

[John Merriman]

WOW! Looks good Doug!!!

[Doug Narby]

Hugged, hell!
Maybe they didn't get slapped enough. Anyone who complains about the administration, content or quality of a free public resource deserves to get hosed down or something. Keep up the great work.