EMLRA (Ex military land rover association) forum down

[nathanglasgow]

Anyone else on here a forum member of EMLRA. The site was down for weeks and now it's back in a different format and I can't log in. Seems you now have to pay and join club to access and contribute to the once public forum. Hope this is not the case as there was loads of good info on it.

[Bloke]

My EMLRA forum credentials aren't being recognised either. Looks like they've nuked the old forum accounts and started from scratch. What a shame. I used the EMLRA forum heavily some years ago when I had a Rover 8 and a Series 3 Lightweight. Though it had gotten VERY quiet on there in recent years.

IIRC, the EMLRA Facebook group is also restricted to paid members only. Seems a bit closed minded to me.

[nathanglasgow]

Bit annoyed as i made  good few posts and it seemed there were only a handful of other forum members keeping the forum active. This just looks like an attempt to turn forum members into paid full members. It's just a poor attempt at income generation for someone. Any fully paid up members care to comment?

[fv1620]

I wondered what had happened as for several weeks it was returning can't find that site. It seemed strange that a few days ago I received an email with a new user name (my membership number) and a password, but no explanation as to what was going on.

Also noted a change in site to https://emlra.org/ this then took me to new tarted up but seriously slimmed down home page. It looks like as before if you can register to use the forum without necessarily being a club member. But my recollection was that previously anyone could peruse the site for info but couldn't post unless they registered as a user.

It is shame that a casual visitor to the site cannot peruse what questions & answers have cropped up that may encourage them to think that this is a helpful place I want to join EMLRA, it was our shop window.

It is a shame if all the previous exchanges & answers have been wiped out, as so many issues regularly crop up & can still be of value years later. I have made many thousands of posts mainly offering advice and it will be quite tedious starting to answer all theses problems with vehicles as they crop up with time.

This weekend I will be at a show with several members of the committee and will raise these points.

[nathanglasgow]

Ive had a reply to an email I sent to Wayne the membership contact of EMLRA. He confirms they have stopped non paid up full members from having access to the forum. It is now only for paying members. I told him it's a poor show and will in all probability kill the forum traffic. Praise be for the mostly free S2C forum.

[fv1620]

The forum traffic has been pretty low in the last couple of years anyway and I have no idea what goes on in faecebook.

For any group it seems, if not arrogant, then very short-sighted to exclude non-members. As I like to think of the site as being a shop window to draw people into membership if they like what they see. The arrogant bit is the assumption that non-members have nothing to offer, sometimes people with some knowledge or experience that shared on the forum may actually help members as well as other users.

For example I do not belong to the S2C, I used to about 25 years ago but as I no longer have a S2 it seems a bit pointless. None the less I enjoy hearing about the vehicles & from time to time chip in with what I hope is useful advice if it is electrical or military.

So please don't follow EMLRA and I shall be expressing my view to the committee at the weekend in person.

[Wittsend]

There are no plans or intentions to make this forum "members only" and to make users pay for access 

It would kill the forum 
(as others have or will find)

99% of this forum as accessible to the general public.
We have one small section for S2C Members only which deals with club news and information - which is fair enough.

 

[nathanglasgow]

Good man Clive, maybe they'll have a change of policy.

[diffwhine]

No way anybody would pay for my waffle, so as long as I am a LRS2C member, we can't charge for forum access... 

[Seanlandy]

I did wonder what had happened to the site. As a new LW owner, of course I looked for all the possible sources of information. The EMLRA one being one of the obvious forums. As has been pointed out, there was very little in terms of content, or certainly recently, so came upon this forum and joined the club, largely due to the fact the help offered here in and of itself, easily out weighs the membership. A point perhaps missed by the EMLRA. I am sure there will be members on both sites, but will wait to see before joining. The Light Weight forum, also seems little used, which is a shame, but as in most cases, the majority of forums are contributed to by a few regulars. Without sounding naff, this does make it a friendly forum ready to offer help and assistance to those of us who certainly need it.

[Exile]

Have Facebook groups killed off most forums?

I think that has a lot to do with it.


This forum keeps relatively active I suspect, because of the old codgers on here who don't use FB very much.


Anyone disagree...? 

[Alan Drover]

I'm not on Facebook and I'll never be on Facebook. I'd better not express my opinion of those who are.

[diffwhine]

I'm a late middle aged codger and I just don't get Facebook. As far as I can see, the screen shows about 20% stuff which might be relevant to me and 80% general rubbish or videos of morons doing stupid things. Maybe I'm old before my time, but can't really see the point of it. Also too many people happy to shoot others down for asking questions. A forum is nice - it's self contained and no other flannel there to bother you.

[Beowulf]

I`m a full member of EMLRA but hadn't visited the site for a while. You'd think paying members would have been told about these changes, but I`ve not received anything.

When I last looked in on the new site, there were a pitiful 5 posted topics across the 5 main categories, so it seems that everything that came before has been lost. It`s sad to see any club go under, but didn`t someone say, use it or lose it?

It`s another sign of the times, as in the same way the younger generation are much less likely to watch television, instead they get everything on their phones.

Whatever magic the S2C    is making, lets keep on making it, because it seems to be bucking a very sorry trend 

[nathanglasgow]

I'd imagine the core members of EMLRA are possibly even more old codgerish and Facebook adverse so I just don't get making the forum essentially 'pay to view'