Holy crap, it’s Friday, which means the Autopian has officially survived its first full week! I’m not going to lie: I’m exhausted, and I know David is too, and I’m pretty sure both of our diets have been the sort that would make a nutritionist slap us, hard, and with genuine rage. That said, we’re grateful you’re here reading this site, and we’re thrilled to work with incredibly talented contributors. David and I still can’t believe all of this is real.
Speaking of contributors, let’s shout them out by name, why not, because they deserve it. We got our fellow car-obsessive Thomas Hundal, cranking out the content; there’s Mark Tucker, giving us our daily serving of shitboxes, hot and fresh every morning; we have our incredible design twins, The Secret One and Adrian Clarke; our engineering-mistake confessor Huibert Mees; Rex Bennett, our man inside the Lane; the Navy’s finest pants-shitter, Bobby Mackay; small-town gearhead anthropologist David Wilson; the GOAT himself, Murilee Martin; our China-car savant, Tycho de Feijter; and our fantastic extra topshot artist, Syd.
How did we manage to pull together such a fantastic team?
We know we have a long way to go to make everything the way we — and you — want it to be. There are still changes we want to make to the design, the commenting system, the pace of our writing — pretty much everything. We probably should get our asses in gear and sell a few ads, too. (Until then, who wants to buy T-shirts in bulk?)
Most importantly, we want to know what you, our fantastic readers, think! We started this site because we want to produce stories and videos and whatever you want to read, watch, listen, and enjoy! If there’s something you don’t like, or want more of, or less of, or whatever, let us know, right here in the comments, and we’ll do our best to make things better. We’re constantly striving to improve, and we’re very open to new ideas.
Thank you all for reading. I really mean that, and I know David and Beau mean it, too. We’ve been busy, but we’ve been having a great time; it’s all been a reminder of why we wanted to do this in the first place: because we love cars, and we love the way cars bring people together.
Except maybe for a couple of jerks on Reddit. But you know, that’s the internet.
(image: Skoda Classic)
Looking good so far and I really enjoy the content. I agree with some of the comments so far. The comment system could improve, but it’s not terrible. The ability to sort by preference and notification of response would help to spur dialog and engagement. I also agree that putting the comment box at the top would be a good idea. I am sure the idea is to have people read the other comments before adding theirs, but honestly, most people don’t want that, and more comments are good for driving revenue.
But for the love of God, please do not add more motorsports content. There are countless other websites that cover that stuff and honestly, they will be able to do it better than you can. Stay in the lane of the relevant news, crazy stories about wrenching, and the human interest side of cars. We don’t need any more websites just reposting press releases from manufacturers.
As for stuff I would like to see, I think more DIY content would be helpful. For example, maybe a rebuild series on a SBC engine from the perspective of someone who has never done it before. The car community is a great group of people, however the consistent thing I hear from young people who have some level intrest is that it is hard when you know very little. Most people don’t know the difference between a camshaft and crankshaft (I know, it is shocking), so some DIY content from the novice perspective would be good, and who knows, maybe some of us geezers will learn a thing or two as well.
Great first week. I’d love to see some motorcycle coverage eventually.
Love the site so far!!! What i have suggestions:
-A tip/suggestion box/email for ideas or suggestions. Theres an event this summer Id love to give torch a heads up to, but unsure how.
-a way to save/favorite articles for later.
-comment sorting?
-motorsports coverage is cool. Heck, a ‘rewatch’ of classic races once a week would be cool. Show me the 53 lemans or sebring 86.
There’s a thumbs up button at the bottom of the article that lets you favorite articles. A list of the ones you’ve clicked will be in your profile page.
The only improvement I’d suggest at this time is that – something about the design language (maybe it’s the font, maybe it’s the header images used for the articles, maybe it’s the highlighting) makes the site look “busy”. Maybe increasing the inset margin/gap between articles might help? I’m not a web designer, but it’s the only complaint I’ve got – content seems to be A+ on-point!
Just stumbled on the site this morning after dumping J******k last Friday. So far, so good. Genuinely interesting and useful articles and none of the infantile commenting that is the sea J******k floats on. Looking forward to see what the future of this site looks like.
As a first launch week it went very well. I am already seeing items being fleshed out. For example the comments like wasn’t working and now is.
The writing is amazing and I am impressed with the range of articles.
As for improvements, most are minor:
– The profile section wants me to update it, but beyond a banner picture nothing can be added.
– In addition to comments liked, can we have a comments replied to?
– A general email address to report issues/suggestions/improvements?
– Article idea – Interview a reader. A story on what interests them, what they drive, is there a story behind the ride, etc.
“– Article idea – Interview a reader. A story on what interests them, what they drive, is there a story behind the ride, etc.”
THIS! I’m a member of a large IT community, and one of my favorite things to participate in was the “interrogations” series the community leaders did a while back. Each week, they’d interview a community member with a list of questions, some related to IT, some just random (crunch or smooth PB, for example) and at the end of each interrogation, the person being interviewed got to add their own questions for the next person to answer. It was a ton of fun and sparked a lot of interaction between the community members.
I love how the posts are very positive and informative. I would rather read something upbeat or learn about something than hear a constant stream of negativity.
Rename “The Morning Dump” to something less sophomoric.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I feel like sophomoric is the vibe they’re going for here?
I agree that the scatology could be toned down a bit. Keep it silly though, by all means.
The content has been spectacular, and it’s so refreshing to not have to throw a political spin on anything.
My only suggestion for improvement is the same as others have mentioned, allowing photos in comments and some notification of replies/likes to comments.
You need some ads too… seriously. We want you to make money at this venture.
And/or a paid subscription option? I’ll be honest, I’m going to use AdBlock no matter what site I’m on (jalopnik is a great example of why I feel no guilt in doing this), but I’d gladly throw 5/10 bucks a month toward the team to help keep the site running.
It’s great to see you guys escaped. It was taking way longer than I thought it would, but now I see why. You were building your own site.
I had been reading the old site since before both Torch and DT showed up, but couldn’t comment. Glad to see that is allowed here. Obviously you won’t want a “Greys” system, but you’ll need some sort of moderation and reporting system, people being people.
I’m enjoying the site. Works well enough on a phone. Some of the details will smooth out as you develop it.
Also
– Comment-box should float or be at the top of the comment section.
– Possibility to use real name would be nice. I think commenters with real name behave better and makes the person more real.
Performance/functionalty isn’t great.
-Pages load rather slow and it might take minutes to load all the images (smaller resolition images for the page and click opens the larger images?=). Smaller images would improve the perf without pouring money to AWS :D.
-logging in doesn’t sometime enable commenting. Requires few refreshes.
-logging in directs you to you profile page. Why I was somewhere I wanted to be, the profile page doesn’t contain anything useful.
Visual stuff:
– the logo doens’t look great as is in the top bar. Perhaps reverse the colours or make it all green? It looks a bit like stuff I do on mobile apps before UI designer steps in and fixes things.
Really enjoying so far! I think the Ford GT and clay model behind the scenes stuff was my favourite, but it’s all good. The only gripe I have is that there’s almost too much to read (not the worst problem to have); it’s a lot to get through! You don’t have to work so hard 😛 Tied to that, a couple articles felt a bit long/rambly and lost me. All in all, a very strong start, looking forward to more!
Also, I would happily pay money over being subjected to (obtrusive) ads. The site is so clean and beautiful right now
Everything has been awesome and very well balanced between popular and new (content wise); only noticeable improvement for me would be faster page load times – at least a smidgen under 3 sec for articles if possible, that’s only better than 50%, plus will help with traffic since on average 40% of consumers will wait no longer than 3 seconds before abandoning a site, or in this case maybe an article? Keep up the good work, cheers 🙂
Lots of good content to keep those clicks clicking.
Otherwise keep at it!
You guys are hitting it out of the park. Everything left I had enjoyed about Jal(umm, that other site) without all the woke-ness laid on thick. Quirkiness galore! Brilliant work, all. This is the kind of thing I think people will eventually subscribe to once the Internet goes that way when people are completely, totally done with ads (I give it a year or two).
You did fantastically by just showing up. The two most entertaining writers from Jalopnik in doses I’ve been hoping for is a dream. The rest of it’s just protocols that will be smoothed out. Thanks, guys, this is gonna be GREAT.
I don’t know that there’s much I can add to the constructive criticism in these comments. Love the site, sad that sometimes I have to push off reading an article because it’s long, but is that the worst problem to have. Keep it up!
Doing fine. Back in the day (1960s) a GT car (Gran Turismo) was defined as: “A car for those who wish to travel rapidly in style without particular concern for economy.” How about some stories on T cars, Touring Cars: “A car for those who wish to proceed at a stately pace in absolute luxury with no concern for economy whatsoever”. Say, a 1965 Cadillac El Dorado.
One comment from that isn’t about the content, really, is the quality of comments. They are great so far! It really feels like a car lovers’ community.
Ok, now a couple of minor complaints: I have on a small number of articles not been able to post a comment. It says I’m not logged in, but most others work just fine. This has only happened a couple of times, though.
This last one is really minor, but, despite the fact I have information in my profile, I still have a frowny face saying I don’t have any information. I’d like to see that frown turned upside down!
Honestly, this site has surpassed my expectations that I had while waiting for it to start up. I can’t believe the amount of excellent content already here. Have you guys slept at all yet?
Great first week. But trying to figure out why my profile picture isn’t sticking. And, no, this isn’t a duplicate comment.
Great first week. But trying to figure out why my profile picture isn’t sticking.
Great first week.
The account login doesn’t work most of the time. I log in to make a comment, but when I go back to an article after logging in – I’m not logged in anymore. Very annoying.
And please enroll David in a remedial pop-culture references class, with emphasis on the 70s to 90s to cater to the older readers.
Love many suggestions here. Paetreon to minimize adds is a big one. Gifs, and updates to the comments is the other. The content is first rate, great job!
Awesome! A lot of good content that came fast and furious – tough pace to keep up with. Maybe a parts/auto forum for selling and buying?