[glynh]

I like the site as it is, it’s a good balance of everything. I also enjoyed the addition of the racing wrap up, if someone was able to put the work in it would be nice to add a full list of races,times and channels for the next weekend at the end.

With regards to the forums, when I first started here having to join a lot of separate groups put me off as I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to.

I don’t mind the idea of liking comments as long as there’s no downvote as that can ruin the feel of sites. Also ordering them by likes would make it very difficult to read new comments so it would need to be optional.

[Anonymous]

Ah, easy one @keithcollantine. Please, please, please bin the automatic ‘awaiting moderation’ system. It is insane! It trips over the most harmless words. Then I promise I’ll subscribe, honestly :)

[HUHHII]

I think perks for F1 Fanatic Supporters should be rehauled. If ad-free version of the site is the only perk I’ll get by donating then sending money really doesn’t feel tempting.

A possibility to use animated GIFs as avatar, a possibility to add custom signature on forums or something else like that should be considered. Maybe you should add edit option for comments but make it available only for supporters of the site?

[BasCB]

I agree with @xwtl that the forums have gotten somewhat less prominent with the latest changes. I think it would bre nice to have them figure more obviously in roundups and maybe on the hope page with “hot topics”

Apart from that, I enjoy evey time I see a new feature or line of articles, inlcuding the lovely weekend wrap ups and off course the reviews and top 10s and statistics ones.

Would be great to see a return of the tech articles.

As for news, I think its fully enough to cover the news as you do so far. Its good to have it here if its mostly based on team press info, because here we can discuss them. I would love to see you get back into interviews again, I really enjoy the ones you did (shame we don’t get those McLaren regular press phone ins anymore, guess Ron is not into that.)

[Strontium]

Two ideas I would be really keen to see:

1. Being able to see usernames as well as display names of people in the forums
2. A forum group for conversations regarding multiple different motorsports (such as comparisons)

A few more ideas are:

3. Greater integration of the forum into the main section (this forum is absolutely amazing yet so underused)
4. (As @glynh has suggested) Something, perhaps in the Thursday morning roundup, that has the times of all the motorsport events and sessions for the weekend.

Merry Christmas and happy new year everybody :)

[Keith Collantine]

Thanks for all the feedback so far everyone – please keep it coming!

@lolzerbob As @bradley13 mentioned FOM’s broadcast restrictions are why GP2 (and F1 ad GP3) don’t feature in Weekend Racing Wrap.

@hunocsi I’ll see about adding updates to the weather articles during the race weekends. I suspect there wouldn’t be much to add usually, though.

@craig-o Comment rating is an interesting idea. I would like to tie it in to COTD ideally but that would mean writing some custom code which is always time consuming. Definitely a good thought though.

@xtwl The Racing Wrap is definitely staying!

@xtwl @bascb @strontium Interesting points on the forums because with them appearing in the sidebar (on the ‘forum’ tab) I thought they were more prominent now, not less. Between plugging them in the round-up every day and occasionaly via social media I think quite a bit is being done but suggestions are always welcome.

@glynh I’m curious about what you said about groups – what made you think you weren’t ‘supposed to’ join them?

@lockup The comment system is a lot more complicated than that! It is constantly being tweaked, but there is absolutely no chance that moderation will be removed, we would drown in spam if that was the case (see this earlier explanation)

@huhhii That’s a good idea, noted.

@strontium I’ve put the forum user name suggestion on the list

@glynh @strontium Regarding race times, I like it but I think before doing that I’d like to have the ability to let people choose a time zone so they could convert the information to their area. The time involved compiling that information (how many series?) would also be a problem to solve, as especially on race weekends I’m not sure I could fit it in.

[glynh]

@keithcollantine The group thing isn’t too bad, I just wasn’t sure why it’s needed. When I started posting in the forums I couldn’t reply to anything if I wasn’t in that specific group so until I had a look around it seemed more like a private discussion area.

[Anonymous]

Ah spam @keithcollantine, fair enough I was thinking it was just working on abuse and rudeness. I’d just noticed that often if I change one word and repost it accepts it.

Still, it is quite frustrating sometimes. I don’t suppose you could add a whitelist of member IP addresses perhaps?

[GeeMac]

Honestly, the blog is pretty much spot on at the moment. The round-up and regular (and it must be said, speedy) news updates keep us up to date with what is happening while the regular comment pieces and “rate the race”/”driver of the weekend” sections create room for debate. I have to mention that I love the “start shots” piece you do ahead of each race, it really whets the appetite ahead of a Grand Prix. The post-race statistics is also another piece I always really look forward to, the comments never fail to turn up a few gems.

I do miss are the technical pieces you used to put up periodically however (in collaboration with a chap whose name has slipped my mind) and, speaking selfishly as someone who no longer uses social media, I do miss the weekend in tweets summary you used to do. Lots of tweets over the weekend are either just bumf or poor “jokes” from teams PR people, but you always managed to pick out the key ones and it added colour to the coverage of the weekend. The odd Top 10 wouldn’t go amiss either, there have been some crackers over the years.

Keep up the good work @keithcollantine!

[David Not Coulthard]

TV times should be in UTC (or explicitly noted to be in UTC+x)!

@huhhii I’m not sure I’d like to see signatures – I can’t stand the horrible images that look like they were made by someone experimenting with a few of Office 2003’s features that are called “signatures” (OK a lot of signatures aren’t actually like that but you know what I mean:)!

Animated GIFs might be up to WordPress (unless non-Gravatar avatars are actually back without me noticing – are they?).

[JackySteeg]

I absolutely love the racing wrap, but I would like to see a few more features on other motorsports. I enjoy reading guest articles by fans who have been to Grands Prix, but I’d be interested to see some from fans who have been to non-F1 events. I’m sure there are a few F1 fanatics who’ll be attending BTCC, WEC, IndyCar etc. this year!

Perhaps some more historical articles on other motorsports, too. One of my favourite features of 2015 was that excellent series on Formula 3000. And 2016 does mark 20 years since the CART/Indy split, so I reckon that’d be a good excuse to delve into some IndyCar history…! :)

[HUHHII]

@davidnotcoulthard Yeah, I’m not sure about signatures either, but I think supporting the site should give user some extra customization options and that idea just popped up in my head first.

I suppose there’s WordPress plugin which adds GIF support, but I’m not sure. I don’t have that much experience with WordPress. If it’s technically impossible to implement then that’s a huge flaw in WordPress.

[Keith Collantine]

@lockup Doing it by IP opens up a new range of problems – not everyone has a static IP, what about when people move or use different devices, etc…

@geemac Thanks for the positive feedback! I liked the Twitter digests too, though there was always some overlap with what went into the round-up which is partly why they don’t appear any more. But I am still thinking of ways to better incorporate social media content. There is good stuff on there, but as you say a lot of it gets buried in dross.

@davidnotcoulthard (and @huhhii) I don’t like signatures either! But gifs in the forum should work fine:

Interactive maps: Lewis Hamilton's globe-trotting 2015 and what it meant for his racing https://t.co/Sbj6IPLrcI #F1 pic.twitter.com/OeVtfHpome

— F1 Fanatic (@f1fanatic_co_uk) January 7, 2016

@JackySteeg Non-F1 stuff will continue during 2016 and possible expand a bit. There’s definitely a rise in interest on stuff like WEC and IndyCar.

[Anonymous]

I’m not equipped to hassle you about it in detail @keithcollantine :) I can only explain it’s quite frustrating when the post is all nice and legal. What do other sites do? It doesn’t seem to happen anywhere else. How much spam do you get from logged-in long-term members? A whitelist doesn’t have to be 100% to be worthwhile does it? Anyway I can only leave it with you and wait patiently.

One unrelated thing I would love on the site in 2016 is detailed test times. A guy called Kruvas used to run a site with a brilliant spreadsheet – we could see all the stints, lap by lap. He was using Wiliams’ data I think, then that data stream got cut off. Is there anything you can do? Any pressure you can apply? The teams seem to have the data, at the track.

[sato113]

1. being placed under moderation for no reason/ no wrong comments. Seems to happen randomly and it’s very hard to get hold of keith or a mod to be removed from the ‘black list’.

2. navigating the forums is tricky. what’s the difference between the forum and the groups? why when I start a new forum thread can I not find it anywhere after?

3. disappearing comments in the forum. I posted a month or so earlier in this exact thread, checked a few days later. Where is my comment?

4. Drop down menu boxes at the top don’t auto collapse once you’ve navigated to the page you select from the drop down box itself.

@keithcollantine

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