From time to time I'm going to post links here to the history of ElantraClub. It might be fun for new members to check out and bring back fond memories for our long time members.
Long before I had the member showcases, I had Members of the Month. Here's our first Member of the Month page:
This is directed at both long time members and new members that plan on sticking around for the long haul. Lurkers and hit and run members (people who ask for help, get their issue solved and leave) need not read this. I think it's time for everybody to really look around at all of the community, from the forum to the main site to all the links we have here. It boggles my mind to see someone say " I had no idea you could donate or had VIP memberships" when there are links and buttons everywhere for that. I've spent 10 years developing EC into a very complete place. Heck, most members don't even know how many options they have via their "My Controls" area or how cool or informative the "My Assistant" is. Small features like the "Thumbs-up" button or the "Friends" concept are ofter overlooked. How many people have ever really looked at some of the profiles to see that even those are interactive and comments can be left... or that you can have both a small avatar in posts and a different "personal photo" on your profile page?
Next time you visit EC, Look and click on all the links in My Controls. Check out the Help pages or the chat room. Look at the bottom of the forums index page to read the club rules. I'm constantly amazed how many regular members don't use the "Insert Special Item" dropdown in the text editor. It allows you to embed Youtube videos and much more.
This place is much more than just posts. One of the most neglected area has always been the "Community" dropdown below the banner. There used to be 12 things there but due to members indifference I dropped 7 features including cool ones like EC Sudoku, the Photo Contest system and the Download Center. Still we have important stuff there like the Trader Ratings and VIP Membership info, Member Showcase and Car of the Month.
ElantraClub is anything you want it to be. If you want to lurk, lurk. If you want to save money with info before you go to the dealer, do that. Ask away. If you need an answer ask it and never come back if you want. But, if you like this place and want to be here for the long haul please, please check out as much of the community as you can. I think you'll be pleasantly suprised how much we have here and knowledge is power.
I just started an ElantraClub You Tube channel featuring videos members have done here at the club. Hopefully I can get members to submit more videos. They can be ANYTHING really. Family stuff, funny stuff, car related vids like showing off a new mod, detailing vids, dyno runs, a DIY, etc...
Feel free to PM me if you have videos online you'd like to be part of our channel. Or email me your videos. Unfortunately, a ton of the cool older vids we had here came up as dead links and couldn't be added.
I need your help on this.
You can check out our channel by clicking the "EClubTube" link in the "Extras" dropdown.
I'm very excited to announce the opening of the brand new EC Photo Gallery. This will allow all members to upload pics and have a personal album. Regular members can upload a small amount of pics and VIP's and Lifetimers much more. There are various categories for pictures in addition to the member albums.
Members can rate and add comments to pictures. Larger pictures get a cool lightbox effect. Each album gets a photostrip for easy navigation. VIP's even can send gallery photo ecards!
I recommend all members read the gallery tutorial (before starting) to get the most out of it.
I've done a lot of tweaking on this and I believe it's as nice as anything out there.
The gallery link is one of the tabs at the top of the board. Let's makes this thing great.
Back in the old days I made building up our DIY Zone one of my big priorities here at the club. It took a lot of prodding and begging and people got tired of my asking, but we now have a great library of DIY's. I think the time has come to do the same with our Wiki.
The whole Wiki concept seems perfect for a club/community like this. A member writes an article. Other members build it up and improve it. The thing is that starting a Wiki article is a lot easier than writing a complete DIY. In other words, add a basic article, then, other members can improve it. Maybe you have a great idea for something for the wiki but are worried your spelling isn't great or don't have a camera for pics... other members can edit or add pics here and there. It's a total team effort.
Let's give this a try. At some point I think ElantraWiki will also house all our old DIY projects and will be the future home of all our new ones.
If you care about this club moving forward help build our Wiki into a one of a kind resource of Elantra/Hyundai information.
Right now it is so underused it feels like a bit of a fail, but, I know we can do this.
I've added an RSS feed for those that can't get enough of the club. You'll find the RSS icon at the bottom left of each page. Feel free to check it out and subscribe. The feed will feature topics from some of the clubs popular areas.
We had a member join and his first thread was touting two product for PC's. Symantec (Norton) viewed both as a security threat on a Google search I did. The post was closed and he's been banned.
This club is about the car and fun. Anyone who thinks they can just join here and advertise crap to our members is sadly mistaken.
I've said it before "ElantraClub is a no-spam zone".
I went ahead and paid to renew the server, domain etc. to keep this archive up for another year. I still believe it's a good resource, especially for the XD and MD generations of the Elantra.
If anyone would like to help defray the costs, feel free to use the donate link. Thanks.
Thanks go out to popeye for his $25 donation. I'm still paying monthly to keep EC up and every little bit helps. I'm trying to keep the site up as a resource as long as I can.
We had a good run but the time has come to take the community offline. I've been spending money just to have this as a reference for Elantra owners but I no longer can keep up financially. We will close on or around the end of May 2018.
It's been a long run. ElantraClub will always hold a special place for me, something I built out of nothing. A place that was one of the most active and important places for any Elantra owner to check out.
Over the years, activity has gotten less and less. Probably a reflection on the way social media has changed things and how saturated the internet is these days. It also kind of shows that the buyers of the newer Elantras aren't into their cars the way we XD gen buyers were.
I started the site back in 2002, and it never would have gotten off the ground without the patience of my beloved bride, Tammy. She let me work on this for hour after hour (on dial-up mind you) because she knew it was something I believed in. Tammy was always the best person in my world and that world change completely when she died unexpectedly on March 6, 2015. I loved Tammy to the ends of the earth and beyond and always will. She was my everything.
Just a little anecdote. My 2002 Elantra GT hatch was my pride and joy. I spent thousands modding it and hour after hour keeping it looking shiny and pristine. On that fateful day when I walked into the house after it had been totaled in a near head on collision, I went up to the bedroom to talk to Tammy about it. She knew how much that car meant to me and was shocked I was in such good spirits. Well, as I told her... a car is a "thing"; and I told her that having her in my life and her love was the only thing that really mattered to me.
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I tried my best to keep this place going. Even with the low activity and serious server/software issues, I tried to move us forward. Built an all new forum that was fast and mobile friendly. But alas, we were only getting a couple posts a week. I knew EC's time was over and reluctantly closed down the new forums.
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I am keeping this forum and the older archive up for the time being. If donations come in, I'll keep it up even longer.
Thank you all again for believing in ElantraClub. We were something special.
I started ElantraClub back in 2002 not long after I bought my 2002 GT hatchback. The car was so surprisingly good for what it cost and I wanted the world to know that this Elantra wasn't an Excel or a Pony. This was a bonifide good car. At the time, there was little information online about the car. Everyday for hours, I'd scour the net looking for info and would post it at the site. Any mod I'd find, I'd post it. Any article or review, I'd post it. After a while, I decided that ElantraClub should be true to it's name and I started to take members. This was before we had a forum. They come to the site and "sign up". I probably got close to 1200 members this way. Then I opened a forum. First at Hostboard. Then EZboard and then the forum you see today (soon to be replaced with a brand spanking new forum). I worked my ass off for my members. And then one day I realized I needed some help financially to run this place. I asked members for donations and they literally poured in.
Back in our heyday, we'd get 300-400 posts a day. Sometimes 500. Of course this was before Facebook (pardon my language) fucked up the net, especially the forums. Since about 2010, there has been a slow decline in activity at EC. At first I thought is was due to the fairly mediocre HD Elantra. But mostly it was social media. Those sites really cut into activity at online forums. But the thing is, a place like ElantraClub that's so specific is always better as a forum, not just a Facebook site.
So what makes EC unique? For one, me. I started the site and am still here 15 years later. I had the chance to sell the site to AutoGuide but didn't. This was my creation and no way I was letting some corporation turn it to shit. All the AG forums look the same, No personality at all. Over-saturated with ads too.
I've always believed that ElantraClub wasn't just about information about the car. We were always much more than that. Our off-topic area was super busy back in the day. We have an Alumni Zone for members who sold their Elantra and bought something else. To me, members are family. I don't want to see them leave just because they no longer drive an Elantra. This club is as much about people as it is about cars.
And that mentality will move forward with us at the new place. We're starting over with zero posts but it will still have the EC feeling and charm. It doesn't matter what you drive. It doesn't matter what you post about... off topic or on. EC is a community and it will stay that way. Hopefully members will join who want to contribute to building up the new place. People who will take pride in EC. I know sites are a dime a dozen these days but EC has withstood a lot of challenges and we're still standing.
Sure the community isn't the same hyper active place it once was. The script for registering new members is broken. Many parts of the community are gone...
Sounds kind of bleak. But, you know what? We have some pretty cool members who have been here for years. And who I think genuinely have an affection for EC. We still have a very good forum with reliably fast load times.
So...
We're NOT closing. Let's post about anything here. It doesn't have to be about the Elantra. Don't drive an Elantra anymore? Who cares. Post about your new ride here. Got something that's bugging you? Vent about it. It's all good.
Back to business.
EC, smaller, less active, but... we're still here and we have good people.
I was saddened to see that this website will be online until the end of the year at most. After finding out the news, I wanted to give a shout out to all of you. This site has been a great resource for me and you all have helped me a lot with modifying my car. When I first posted here in Sept of 2008, I had a bone stock 2004 Elantra. Now, the car has been made into something better than it was when I first bought it. Thanks again for the help everyone. I wish you all the very best.
Tripod is just a mess. They contacted me and said they cancelled the old ElantraGTClub account because they screwed something up. They took money out of my Paypal and claim they didn't. That company is a mess. Now I have no access to all the files and folders as they cancelled my account. Their phone number is disconnected.
Fuck them. Looks like the original site is no longer under my control and I no longer own the EGT domain cause of their incompetence. Sucks, but I'm glad to not be dealing with the Tripod BS.
Yes, a part of our site is gone but we still have this forum community.
I was restless last night and I decided to go to EC Affiliate Mall to check out Amazon. To my dismay, I was redirected to a page that said the domain no longer is active. WTF? Long story short, I've tried to contact, Lycos Tripod for support. Their phones have been disconnected and all I could do was chat online and all I got was a runaround. This is not a money issue. My account and the domain is paid in full. Lycos simply screwed this over and is ignoring my requests for help. I contacted PayPal but they said for now the issue is between me and Lycos. Problem is Lycos basically deleted the website and won't tell me why.
There goes the DIYs, the Car and Member of the Month pages too. The Affiliate Mall is gone. At least the links here at the forum still give me credit if anyone buys through links here and in the hot deals forum.
I do have most of the code for the old site saved but the problem is that it was designed through Tripods editor and it is formatted only for Tripod. Everything would need to be recoded. A near impossible task. Over 6000 photos are gone though, many of which will make parts of this board have dead links as I used Tripod to host many photos.
The thing that really sucks is I have nowhere to turn. My host for the gtclub site turned into an incompetent piece of shit and I didn't know what was happening. 14 years of hard work down the drain.
At least our forum host has been very good unlike Tripod. Now, if this would have happened before March 6 2015 (the day my wife Tammy passed away) I would have gone mental on Tripod. Now, I'm so numb this hasn't hit me as hard as it would have. Even so this is so ridiculous. I've been paying for the services at Tripod for 14 years and didn't miss a payment yet someone deleted my domain. Pure bullshit.
Ok, here's the deal. I think you all know I turned to the affiliates as a way to get some funding for the site. The problem with the old affiliate setup was that it took extreme amounts of work and there were tons of glitches. Ultimately, it just didn't seem like it was worth all the work. And as you know I dropped the idea.
Well... I just found a way to not only make it easier to maintain and setup, but also a way to offer even better affiliate sites. A company basically runs the program for us. They take 25% of any commissions we generate but once setup, it's just much easier for me. I'll be doing a new affiliates page with links to many of the best retail sites online. Like before, you click the banner and if a purchase is made, the club gets some credit. Unlike before, there is way less hassle for me so I think this is the way to go.
Also, if there's a site or sites you like to shop at, make a post in this thread and let me know the site name and I'll try to add it.
Hopefully I'll have everything in place in the next few days.
Important For the affiliate program to work: 1. You must allow cookies and have javascript enabled. 2. You need to turn off any ad blocking software. 3. You have to click an affiliate link or banner on EC first. 4. Once you're at a merchant's site you can't click any other (different site) link during that "session". 5. Items that were previously stored in your cart (lke at Amazon) don't get credited; only new items clicked during your current "session".
Not following the above "rules" will cause the sale to not be credited to EC.
This is just crazy. We have the best Elantra community and forum online without doubt. We have a fine moderating staff. But nobody is posting.
The Elantra is one of the top selling cars in it's class so I know people own them. We have a fair amount of members too. They must have something to say about their cars, good or bad. Wouldn't you think? The 2017 Elantra is out and there is zero buzz here from members.
I checked out a Honda Civic forum and they are lighting it up in posts about the 2016 Civic.
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