Forum Transition

[bplunkett]

Dear Forum Members,

We are excited to share some news with you all that is a very positive step for this community. As many of you know, keeping these forums online and spam free has been a chore at times. Earlier this year when we had some forum issues, a fellow named Andy contacted CrossRoads to see if he could offer us some assistance. After some discussion and learning about Andy's experience we felt the best path forward was to let him adopt CrossRoads and Redwood forums. Last week we signed a deal and the forums are now part of the Social Knowledge family of forums.

Some members here are members and/or moderators on other Social Knowledge communities. They will be able to vouch for the way they are professionally managed. Social Knowledge works hard to empower, train and foster the mod/admin team so the communities can be managed by their peers. They also have advanced spam filtering and other tools to help make keeping the forums clean a bit easier. I'll let Andy reply now so he can tell you more about the plan for this forum and what can be expected in the weeks/months/years ahead.

It's been a great opportunity to get to know you all over the years, we look forward to a continued presence on the forums.

[Andy R]

<div style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal;">Thanks for the intro Brad. I know a few of you from Thor forums which has been a retreat for some of the regulars when there were software issues earlier this year. I am honored that Crossroads has allowed us to adopt the forums, we plan to work hard to make sure they'll always look back knowing it was the right decision.<div style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal;">
<div style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal;">As many of you know, I founded my first forum in 2001 for Airstream Trailers (link) and still run the site today. Through a random twist of fate I ended up adopting a forum that was going to be closed due to the cost to run it and before I knew it, I had a little mini-network of sites. Now we run some of the finest RV forums on the internet including Forest River Forums, iRV2, Fiberglass RV, Thor Forums and other various smaller RV forums.<div style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal;">
<div style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal;">Our plan will be to move the forums over to a new domain name (CrossroadsOwners.com) and switch the software to vBulletin at the same time. We understand the knowledge shared is a tremendous resource to other CrossRoads owners and no posts will be lost in the software conversion. We plan to launch smart phone apps so you can chat while you are on-the-go. I understand we need to earn your trust and feel confident that everyone will look back and see this was the right choice. Janet and a few others from my team will be around on a regular basis to make sure everything is getting taken care of and working with you all to build out our mod/admin teams.<div style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal;">
<div style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal;">You all probably have a lot of questions, so please post them here and we'll respond ASAP.<div style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal;">
<div style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal;">Kind Regards,<div style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal;">
<div style="color: rgb34, 34, 34; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal;">Andy

[Lloyd]

Glad to see this taking place. It was long over due.

[longhauler]

Glad to see Crossroads is taking some action with this forum. I feel their most loyal and most vocal customers are on this forum and always wondered why they didn't pay more attention to this forum. I hope to see some good changes in the near future.

[mark5w]

This is the best news I found on this forum in a long time. Andy, it seems like you have the experience and drive to help this forum grow and be spam free. Best of luck to you and welcome to the forum.

[Andy R]

Thanks for the warm welcome Mark.

Most people don't understand the amount of work it takes to run a top notch forum. I applaud CrossRoads for having the vision and investing to keep these forums online in years past. We'll work really hard moving forward to make sure this is the best community possible for CrossRoads owners.

If you all have any specific feedback, please post it. We'd love to hear any ideas you have for the forums.

Andy

[longhauler]

I would like Crossroads to be more active on the forum. I know on other RV forums there are people from the company that you can post questions and they will respond. Not sure if you would have any say so over this, but just an idea. Also assigning some moderators so they can review new member posts before they are allowed to be posted. I think this would help in preventing the spam.

Thanks for your help with making this a better forum.

[sking]

Yes! Now I'll be able to upload camping photos from my phone! (I'm a computer dummy)

[Janet H]

Hello everyone - just checking in. I work with Andy and will be around to help out or answer questions as needed and am delighted to be here. As Andy noted the forum will be migrated to a new software platform that has some fairly robust spam barriers and so we should see some improvement in that area. Until then, we can all keep an eye out for trouble. With camping season sadly drawing to a close for many of us (I</span>winterizedthis weekend) I imagine that we'll have lots of folks logging in </span>

[Lloyd]

Welcome aboard, Janet H.

[Lloyd]

Welcome aboard, Janet H.

[mark5w]

We all appreciate any help policing this forum. Glad you're onboard Janet.

[gball]

Welcome aboard. Glad to see this positive move. Looking forward to the new and improved site.

[dalemac377]

Glad to see this taking place. I hope Crossroads will have some presence here to monitor for information that can help them correct problems that owners have discovered. This info can be very important for continuous product improvement.

[socoguy]

Just what is needed to infuse new life into this forum. Many of us were feeling like we were more interested in its function and relevance than Crossroads. Sounds like a great plan and a positive direction on the part of CR.
Welcome Janet and Thanks to Andy. You will find that a pretty nice group of folks roam here. Looking forward to positive improvement.

[cwit]

I'm glad we get to keep our forum and you people are helping us. Welcome aboard Janet and Andy.

[BipeFlier]

My $0.02 worth!



The forum will run more smoothly now and be a better place to discuss issues amongst ourselves.



The down side is now that Crossroads has "farmed" the forum out, they will not monitor it so they can learn from what is posted. It will become a "user" only forum.

[anaro]

welcome Andy and Janet! To those unfamiliar with the other sites, Andy and/or Janet are frequently seen. They also tend to bring on members as moderators. I hang out on the forest river board and am a mod on the Thor forum. No complaints at all as to how either are run. They are pretty easy to use once you get used to the different format. I am glad to see no content will be lost.One question though? will we need to re-register or will our sign ins stay the same/transfer over?

[Janet H]

We are currently working on setting up the new forum and then will migrate the posts and members accounts. It appears based on preliminary testing that there will be no need to re-register. Usernames and logins should migrate fully.Edited by: Janet H

[anaro]

I know several people who are on here sporadically. how long do they plan to leave a redirect in place? Will they email the new address to members so those who use infrequently will be aware of the move?