Please Help Us. Is our Forum Interface Behaving Badly?

[Gary Hatt - Publisher BCM]

I just had someone tell me that our Forum is looking terrible after we upgraded our website last month.  He said the Banner Ads at the top are all messed up and the Google Ads on the right side that pay for this Forum are missing.

Please help us improve our Forum by replying to this with a note if your session looks messed up on your end and what browser you are viewing it in.  Also please let us know if it looks fine to you as well.

Thanks for your support.  We strive to do the best we can to keep improving the Forum, the Website as well as our Magazine.

Thanks.
Gary

[OKIE9ERS]

I've not noticed any difference, but I only last month got back on here frequently--retired and getting on the bus project. About half the time I'm probably on my android phone. All I can say is everything's working

[richard5933]

It looks okay for the most part, but since the latest update there is one REALLY annoying feature.

When I go to BCM I do so by following a link to my unread posts. As soon as I click on the first one in the list, I'm now presented with a pop-up ad which must be dismissed before being able to proceed to the page.

My general way of reading the various unread posts I have is to middle-click each of them to open them in a new tab. Since this new pop-up ad started that doesn't work anymore - as soon as I middle-click the first post the pop-up gets in the way and screws up the whole process.

[mqbus767]

Looks ok to me. I've viewed the site on Windows and Linux using latest Chrome. About once per visit I get a full screen modal ad that pops up, but the other ads on top and RHS look good. I've posted, uploaded pictures, etc. without any problems over the past few months. I'll try on Firefox when I get a chance, but I'll leave Edge to somebody else.

[Nova Eona]

Mine looks fine, banner ads top and side as expected.  The on-click pop-up ads are only really a nuisance because I like to middle-click or ctrl-click topics to open them in a new tab, and the ad screws that up.  Not a big deal.

[Utahclaimjumper]

I never get an ad of any type and never have,, I use Chrome with a Duck Duck Go override and PCMatic ad blockers..>>>Dan

[Van]

All looks normal here, great job team. 

[Tedsoldbus]

Gary and crew,
I am only 6 months on, but all computer items working same as day one. I use Crome and no problems with the adds. When I spool up, there is one small ad in the middle of the screen. I just click the "X" in the corner of that box, it goes away, and can jump around to several sections add free.
Father in law, who just handed me hard copy of his FMCA magazine, still snivels he wants hard copy of BCM. I told him to get over it. But he is 90, so that's not happening. I printed two with 4106 articles like he had for 30 years. Bad idea. He wants more. If anyone wants to sell around 10 of them, old GM or Flx heavy as far as content, I'll pay the shipping!
Great job on the website and magazine!!

[6805eagleguy]

.
Father in law, who just handed me hard copy of his FMCA magazine, still snivels he wants hard copy of BCM.

Well I think the same, but I can see why the move was made to digital. But. You can't sit down and pour over a digital magazine.

Website is working fine

[lvmci]

My older smaller Samsung tablet, just shows the replys as it always had, with one add on top and a few on the bottom after the reply. the new 10" Samsung  tablet shows a more vertical opening page with adds on the side, Thanks for adding the duplicate, bus topic click here, on the bottom, tom...

[Gary Hatt - Publisher BCM]

Well I think the same, but I can see why the move was made to digital. But. You can't sit down and pour over a digital magazine.

Website is working fine

There were several reasons for going to the digital format and the reasons get stronger all the time.  If you have not tried it, you should.  We offer a full money-back guarantee if you are not satisfied.  Here are the reasons that get stronger all the time.

Why we no longer offer a printed version of Bus Conversion Magazine.

By going to an all-digital format in May of 2018, as many publications are now doing, we were able to more than double the page count. We can also embed videos and add additional content including hyper-linked display ads, classified ads, bus events, and more. We also cut the subscription price by more than 50% to make it affordable to more people.

More and more people were signing up for the digital edition, as printing and shipping rates kept rising so it became prohibitive to print and deliver the magazine anymore. BCM is a specialty publication with limited circulation because not as many people are converting buses like they used to, as we all know. Printing fewer copies of a magazine costs a lot more per unit item than printing thousands of magazines, as National Geographic does.

There was also the cost of resending several magazines every month because people moved without telling us, or their magazine was lost, stolen, or damaged in the mail. Sometimes subscribers would be missing months, not just one. Sending one or two individual issues costs significantly more than sending many issues using bulk mail, and also takes a few minutes to process each one to get it ready for the mail carrier.

Of course, we also had to print about 100 extra issues each month because we never knew exactly how many we would need after the mailing. By providing an online magazine only, we can simply email them another copy very easily if someone misses an issue, which rarely ever happens anymore.

Producing a printed magazine was also challenging because we have to adhere to a specific number of pages every month that is a multiple of four pages. It was a very time-consuming process to cut out content and deciding what photos to leave out. We ended up tossing out some very good material to fit all of our stories into a 32-page format. The print edition requires a multiple of four pages and to add four more pages could easily cost us several hundred dollars. 

With the digital edition, this is not a concern. We just add or remove pages as necessary to include all of the material that we believe people want to be included in the articles, as our page count can vary with each issue. With a printed magazine, adding four more pages was significantly more time-consuming and costly per month, so that was not an option.

Also, by going digital, we do not need to keep track of when people change addresses, as we only use their email, which seldom changes. This saves time too as many snowbirds change their address twice per year.

The digital edition makes it easy to make changes after it is released if we realize there is a mistake in the magazine which has happened a couple of times, we just make the change and upload the new copy. This is not possible with a printed edition.

The great thing about going all-digital is that we now can provide all subscribers access to over 150 back issues online with searchable content so you are not only getting one issue each month but also access to hundreds of issues 24/7, which is a ton of bus conversion information. The digital content is all searchable in a matter of seconds, rather than searching through over 300 printed magazines to find one article. 300 printed issues also take up a lot of space in your house or bus.

Subscribers also now have FREE access to several Books on PDF; with all the information you would ever need to convert any kind of bus into a home on wheels. That is a LOT of value and is included with every subscription.

Printing and mailing the magazine was not the only cost of offering a print edition, which many people do not realize. There is also the cost of maintaining an office to store over 5,000 magazines, having a space for shipping the magazines, storing extra envelopes, boxes, scales, etc. Office space is very expensive. With a digital-only magazine, many of our employees including myself work out of our buses to help keep costs down.

We now have more subscribers from Canada, Mexico, England, Australia, and other countries because the cost to ship printed copies was very high, but the digital edition opened up the world to us.

We also have an option where you can read BCM for free every month. Simply send us an article and we will give or extend your subscription for 1-5 years depending on the length and complexity of the article, so you can read BCM for free as long as you send articles, as many people now do. We are always in need of interesting articles.

We also have a very active Forum where there are over 400,000 posts all about bus conversions which is available 24/7 as well. You can check it out at https://www.busconversionmagazine.com/bcm-forum/

If you wish to have a printed copy of BCM, then you are welcome to print it out each month as that is an option, we allow for our PDF files.

Thanks for your understanding.

[Utahclaimjumper]

I started the print mag back when it was started by the original owner (not to be named)
When Gary went to digital I was less than enthused,, but I see it's working out and it sure beats a total shut down..>>>Dan

[buswarrior]

I started the print mag back when it was started by the original owner (not to be named)
When Gary went to digital I was less than enthused,, but I see it's working out and it sure beats a total shut down..>>>Dan

Folks have no idea how close it all came to not being here, magazine or forum...

Quit yer bitchin and get with the program?

Busnuts are (and always have been) too cheap to pay what the print magazine would cost, if Gary priced it for proper sustainability. It wasn't properly priced when it was being printed before Gary owned it.

It is no small miracle that the BCM empire continues to amuse and abuse us.

Gary, stay the course.

Happy coaching!
Buswarrior

[bobofthenorth]

Forum displays fine with no aberrant behaviour for me on Firefox.

[epretot]

I like the forum and have no legitimate complaints about its layout.

However, because you asked, I have never experienced so many ads in one place. Its kinda crazy.

I just close and I'm happy.

E