I have some concerns about the open forum section. I think its a great idea, and should stay, but is giving bogus stats for certain members and should be made into a seperate site.

When I see somebody with thousands of messages, I imagine that this person has been helpful in discussing MB topics and has absorbed information over the years as well. However, many times they have just been running their mouths in the open discussion and may very well know little or nothing about cars. Its wrong to count experience (in the form of # of posts) gained in the open discussion forum as experience in the tech forums. Perhaps the answer is as simple as not counting the posts made in that forum at all!

Also, I couldn't help but notice we lost boneheaddoctor. I don't know what he did in the open discussion forum to deserve it (tho i'm sure he did something!), but I generally found his replies in the tech and diesel forums to be helpful; its unfortunate that his banning in one forum carried over to the other. The seperation of these two forums would prevent things like this from happening...I remember Kirk vinning had some things to add as well, and he is also now banned for running his yap in the open discussion.

Finally, wouldn't it be good to move the vintage forum up to the tech help and diesel forums? The vintage forum is now a full two pages down the list, and will fall further and further behind in posts and community interaction as newbies miss it and post too the tech forum. Eventually, I'm afraid the vintage forum will loose out to other sites on the net that cater to particular older benz models. Over the years people have bled away as these other sites go up...I can imagine a w114/w115 site springing up and taking the last few members from the vintage forum. It needs to be more prominent!

Anyway bill, this really is a fantastic resource for MB users, and truely the only place to go for DIY benz info!


cheers,
dan r.