Truck Of The Month Thoughts

Hey friends, December Truck Of The Month (TOM) is up for voting now.

In regards to that, I'm looking for advice on how to make it better. Currently, we have nominations at the 1st of the month and polling mid month. Winner is also announced at the 1st of the month. I'm good with all that. However, we circulate the same trucks over and over again, as those that don't win are brought forward into the next TOM nomination and polling cycle. Occasionally, someone will ask to add theirs but I'm thinking now that it's not that common to have someone do that. Maybe, I just haven't been around long enough. Anyway, some of you out there have some incredibly beautiful trucks and it would be nice to see them. I've seen several in the threads and wondered if they had ever been in our TOM contest. I suspect too some are modest and it's not a big deal to them and thus don't enter.

Having said all this, I desire your thoughts? Something I've thought about is having some sort of picture database with a brief on the owners truck. We do have the picture gallery but it isn't specific to just that. If we had something like that, I wouldn't mind personally pulling maybe three trucks a month from it and posting them in the TOM contest. Every month there would be three new trucks. I'd probably categorize them somewhat like we did in the virtual truck show....i.e Working Mans Truck, Trailer Queen, etc.  

Thoughts please?

John  

Machspeed wrote

Thoughts please?

John

Hi John,

I never post my truck because there's already a zillion pictures of my truck on here and I was lucky enough to win a prize in Gary's online truck show. I didn't want to be clogging things up with more pictures when there are plenty of others that need to be showcased.

However, I'm all for posting pics in a Gallery of some sort. That would be easy enough.

I like the idea of the gallery.

I'm in for the gallery idea as well.  But there are at least two ways of doing that:

Forum: We can set up a picture gallery on the forum.  We actually have one (Bullnose Forum/Picture Gallery) but it is kind of hodge podge.  We could set up a new one specifically for the TOM if that is what you are thinking.  And we can put you in charge of it.

Web Site: Under Documentation/Picture Galleries we have quite a few pages on specific trucks.  This isn't quite as easy to do as I have to make you and editor for the web site, but I can limit your access to that one page or group of pages if we want.

Personally I think doing it on the forum is best, but we'll have to figure out how we want to do it.  Note that the current gallery has archives, so over time people could go back and look.

Anyway, look it over and see what you think.  We can probably even tailor it quite a bit.

John;

I dont think thats a bad idea having some sort of gallery for you to choose from.  I know with me, i have already asked to have my pic changed 3 times already as my truck continues to change as time goes on.

Some other thoughts to this.....we are growing, a good thing! I want to get to know our members and I'd like to, in part, do that with our TOM contest. Think you guys do too, as we are a personal bunch. At least from what I've seen. Having said that, while the pictures are important, I want to incorporate a more personal component with information on the truck and owner. I'm thinking stuff like: owner's name, name of truck if named (we had fun with this in one of the past posts), how long have you owned the truck, what is it about the truck that you like, location, etc. Even a short story on the truck would be nice....i.e. this was my father's truck, etc. All this in the TOM contest and again, just three trucks. Why three, I like the number....lol!!!  

Thinking, that when a new member joins, we ask him if he would like to have his truck eventually entered into the TOM. Request pictures and info and I would put it together and put it in the gallery. Don't know that I want to call the gallery TOM, thinking we call the gallery something like Members Trucks or something. Also, don't think I want it to be a forum format where people can add things. Basically, a folder with a picture or two and the info only. One can see but not add. I would pull the trucks from this gallery. Input please?

Gary, you understand the logistics of the website better than I. Pictures and info would probably have to be emailed, which I have no problem accepting, if we can do that. Would initially be a lot of work at first, but I'm good with it.    

     

Rembrant wrote

Machspeed wrote

Thoughts please?

John

Hi John,

I never post my truck because there's already a zillion pictures of my truck on here and I was lucky enough to win a prize in Gary's online truck show. I didn't want to be clogging things up with more pictures when there are plenty of others that need to be showcased.

However, I'm all for posting pics in a Gallery of some sort. That would be easy enough.

That's what I'm talking about! And you have a gorgeous truck that needs to be in the TOM contest, my friend.  

John - I think the idea of a picture gallery controlled by you would be ideal.  You can see what the one we have now looks like, so it needs some oversight.  Some consistency.

And we can call it whatever you'd like.  It'll be "yours", and although any of the admins will have the ability to make changes we'll just have to agree that we won't.

You could start by adding the entrants from this year's virtual show.  There are surely enough pics in there to get a good start, and you can add them by right-clicking the pic, getting the URL, and paste that into the "Or copy an image from the Internet:" line of the Insert Image widget.

Maybe you want to create a template that you'll use.  You could ask newbies to fill it out and use that to create the entry in the gallery.  But, be aware that some of our members join just to ask a quick question, so not all will care to fill out your form.  Don't take that as rejection.

You could even have the template as part of the gallery, I think.  We'll have to play around with this a bit to figure out what we want it to look like.  But I've created it, called John's Proposed Picture Gallery, and we can change the title as well as lots of things about it.  I haven't fully explored what can be done with a picture gallery, so let's figure it out together.  All admin's can edit it, but let's you and I do it.  

Just posted my truck up.....easy peasy! Love that it shows the picture without clicking in. This will make it easy for me to pick and catoragize different trucks for TOM. What I posted up is kinda what I'm looking for.

Now to add more trucks. How do you suggest we do this, Gary?

Play around with it. Click Options and you can even edit the title.

You should decide if you want completed trucks or if it can include partially-built trucks. For instance, Big Blue is drivable but not done. Dad’s truck is years from being drivable.

And what info do you want in each entry?  Do you want it to be standardized or random?

Maybe you could peruse the show entries. There is a lot of info for each one, but it would give you an idea of what the folks might submit

I like the fact that you are trying to make it more appealing John. Adding more then one picture and a description of the truck and mabey something about the owner.

One of the things I have noticed about the TOM is the dismal amount of folks that actauly vote.  The current TOM has had 54 visits and 12 votes. Much like our national elections, we have 4.5% of the people deciding on the truck of the month. It could be that adding a little more info will get more folks to stay long enough to vote on one.

Really like the idea of adding more pictures and a more in depth description. Many have done a lot of different things to their trucks and being able to showcase more is exciting. The stories behind the trucks are just as interesting to me as the pictures.

IMO I’d include partially or unfinished projects. Most of us are in that stage anyways and looking at Dad’s truck, I don’t care if it’s years from being done, it is very cool. It could give some of us an extra nudge to keep working on our projects.

Thanks fellas! Thanks for you input.

Jacob, that is exactly what I'm thinking and for all the same reasons. Not just about the pictures but the story behind them. The story may make a bigger difference than the pictures. So, I would want all members trucks. Remember too, I'm going to try and categorize the entries.

I would want some specifics: 2-3 pictures, name of owner, name of truck if applicable, location/state, year of truck, how long owned.

Desirable information for entry: Interest in the Bullnose Ford, intriguing story on truck, plans for truck, etc.  

I touched on all this in my introductory post. I'm going to encourage the moderators to put their own trucks in.

I guess my question is how do we get this information from new members and what's the best way to go about getting it to me. I'm thinking as they are admitted the admitting moderators ask about it, much like we do when we ask them if they want to be on the map.  

John - I'm happy to do that for my trucks.  However, could you take a look at what I have in the show write-ups and let me know if you want me to revise, write a story, or what else needs to be done?

<a href="http://Lewy Bodies">Dad's truck

Big Blue

I'll do whatever you want, just need to know what that is.

As for the map, we decided some time ago that asking a bunch of things in the intro email wasn't getting us what we wanted, so now we just ask for things like the map once they are "in".

John  this all is sounding very good to me as well.    I think it is a good idea about the stories, although if you do decide to go this rout, i would want to rewrite mine but generally be the same thing.  also my truck show pics are rather out of date now.  The truck is almost to a point where no physical changes are going to be happening anymore with the exception of the correct tail lights and new bigger tires.  you may also get some ideas if you go to my thread " Brutus's progress in pictures "