Why Did I Receive This???

[Barry M Wheeler #2189]

Sue, your "change" only took fourteen years to accomplish. I have you beat by a few on one matter. Back in the mimeograph days of the S/S, there was a question from a member wanting to know why his El Centro Green 1941 Cadillac convertible had another color besides that one stamped on the cowl data plate.

I mentally noted the query, but since I didn't know the answer, passed it by, (as I assume most everyone else did.) Then, years later, I splurged and bought the third edition of Roy Schneider's book, Cadillacs of the Forties.

As Roy promised, there was a pretty nice assortment of new material. One such was a small picture of the GM display at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in NYC. Naturally, the Cadillac on display was a light colored convertible. About the third or fourth time that I perused the picture, I finally noticed that the "A" pillars and the portion of the door above the crease line at the top was painted black.

"Duh!" They had made a "two-tone" convertible. And I remembered that query some twenty years ago. I finally found the request and called the guy. The car had been re-painted in the interim in the main color as by then, it was probable that a darker green top was not available.

So, all things come to him who waits. Congrats, Sue. You finally prevailed.

[Carfreak]

I guess if your name is Reynolds, Santos, Hall, etc who have vast multitudes 'in the phone book' its not such a big deal but MANY persons were against the Name Rule including myself.  It'd be different if the Forum were restricted to only CLC members from seeing what we post. 

As I reported to the Board about a dozen years ago, according to Hagerty Insurance at least 10% of vehicles are stolen from an owner's locked garage.  My vehicles may not be the most valuable but they are important to me most with a lot of sentimental and some with historical significance.  It makes me uncomfortable to post that I plan to attend an event along with my specific unique name. 

[Bryan J Moran]

It's fine with me if you don't want to post your personal information and use what they call an Avatar and sign on name.  But it was odd to see a post stating your voting decision and no personal information.  Just a name, nothing else.  Personally, I don't care what people want to know about me and Jason puts a lot of information in his signature area. 

So, basically the requirement for a name/signature or whatever was somewhat ignored from the beginning of the rule. I can't even remember my original name - I used Roadmaster49 for quite awhile.  Now I just say who I am on this forum and the AACA site.

[Eric DeVirgilis CLC# 8621]

But it was odd to see a post stating your voting decision and no personal information. 

Members' personal information would be revealed in the CLC Directory.

So, basically the requirement for a name/signature or whatever was somewhat ignored from the beginning of the rule.

It had always been a firmly enforced forum rule that a minimum of first initial and full last name appeared in a forum member's posts. It could appear as a user ID name, on the signature line or anywhere else so long as it was displayed. Never was this rule ignored.   

[Carfreak]

Never was this rule ignored.   

Maybe not ignored but often overlooked and also not verified.

[Stefan Bartelski (CLC Webmaster)]

As mentioned in another discussion here, the decision was unanimous except for one opposed. Personally I would have preferred a dual level system of limited posting privileges (ie: five posts max per day) with restricted access to Classified sub-forums for nonmembers and full posting privileges for paid members. Not being a board member so I wasn't in a position to propose it. However, even that wouldn't address spam issues which have become more frequent which was an important factor in the decision.

Another forum that I'm a member of also charges $25.00/year for full access/posting privileges which also allows unlimited time to edit posts. Nonpaying members cannot access the trading/for sale sections and cannot edit their posts. As far as I can tell, paid members represent around one-third of the audience. 

The following paragraphs are my personal observations on the respective topics. I am not a member of the board and do not represent any board level opinions or possible decisions.

One of the main reasons for this change is to encourage more members. The other forum you referred to, that charges $25 for posting privileges, is asking what we ask for the cheapest level of FULL CLC membership. I have been telling the complainers, of which there are few but not as many as I expected, that this change is not to make the user pay to be able to post, but to give them all of the benefits of CLC membership, including FREE posting.

If the metrics in a few months do not show the expected uptick, there are some features in the software that we use, which could be implemented. For example, it would be possible to allow posting by non members in specific forums, e.g. the four classified forums. On the other hand, we could also expand the online CLC Marketplace of paid commercials and send the non-members there. 

There is also a subscription feature in the software, that could be explored. However, what might we charge? Right now, the e-membership is $25 p.a., which works out at just over $2 per month. Should we charge $1 per month or 10$ p.a.? It hardly seems worth the effort for both the non-member users and for the club.

Let me add, the number of really negative emails about the change has been very, very low. Admittedly not zero, but the 'grumble' emails have also been less than quite a few positive messages that were sent.

[Carfreak]

A quick review of 'new' CLC members joining the Club AND being active on the Discussion Forum since the announcement a few months ago appears to be about 30. I'm going by newly assigned sequential CLC member numbers to persons using the Forum. 

Likely there may also be some persons who allowed their Club membership to expire and chose to renew in order to continue to post here that were allowed to use their previous Member Number.  That quantity is unknown to me; not sure if it could be determined. 

[TJ Hopland]

I asked about re using an old number and was told that would only be possible if you had expired since the new company took over the 'paperwork' side of things which has only been a couple years I think so not likely that many that fell into that category. 

[cadillacmike68]

Not so sure in this day and age of weirdos out there that I would call it paranoia. More like self preservation.

I was just reading in the news where the new electric hot water heaters, like about everything else can be controlled by your smartphone with just an email address. Imagine someone obtaining such personal information and shutting off your water heater and then locking it by resetting the access information.

I have such a water heater and made sure the wi-fi was turned off in it and locked it manually.

My brand new water heater is as dumb as a rock and I like it that way. I would just like them to last longer.

I've been on here for some 25 years and haven't had any issues that could possibly be traced back to M Santos being visible in the user info area.

[cadillacmike68]

Maybe but now it is my choice.

And how many Mike Santos are around? Or Reynolds, Hall, Moran, etc.?

Yeah, but you still have your email showing and that's a FAR bigger invite for hackers.

[Carfreak]

Interesting you pointed that out, I definitely did not set it up that way.

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

Yeah, but you still have your email showing and that's a FAR bigger invite for hackers.

Email addresses are not visible to Non Members.  Unless, the Members put their own email addresses in their posting, as in Sale or Wanted Forums.

Only Members can see email addresses by hitting the Letter Icon.  Which is accessible via a Members' Profile, which Non-Members cannot access either.

Bruce.