Hi Grant, here is how to do it:
1. From the main forum admin page, click on vBulletin options in the top left corner.
2. Click on Forum Display Options (forumdisplay) in the dropdown menu.
3. Change "Length of Thread Preview Text", I think 150 works well.

Best,
Toby

No probs :). It could simply be a small section on the website, perhaps at the bottom below the "All Miscellaneous questions" section? Users simply post a new thread after joining, tell a little about themselves and their relationship to bikes, and get a warm welcome from the other members!
When I joined the IndiaMike forum (a great forum about India travel) I posted in their "Introduce yourself" section and it made me "get into the forum" pretty quickly. Their section is at http://www.indiamike.com/india/forumdisplay.php?f=76 if you want to have a look.

With all the great personalities with various approaches to life gracing this forum it would be interesting to find out a little bit more about people and what they do. How did you get in to biking and why do you travel?

You're hired! :) thanks! :)

Contact me direct - anyone who is interested - and we'll work it out.

Thanks Toby! Done! I'm learning.

Good idea - Will do when I have a few minutes - next week. remind me if I forget!

Grant

Yes - go to Trip Planning, then on the left the TP menu will have expanded considerably - lots more stuff there.

RE many people miss - yeah I know - but am at a loss as to how to get people to visit the other areas of the site more - there is a lot of info there!

suggestions appreciated!

I think it's coming... :thumbup1:

Hi, hope this suggestion box is still open :)...

May I suggest a decrease in the amount of posts required before you are allowed to send a PM. For the moment this is set at 15, perhaps this could be set at 10 or lower? I have PMs I cannot reply to because my post count is still not high enough.

Best,
Toby

Toby, maybe you should post this 'comment' several more times (and make a few repies on you're own post)....:wink3:

minimum posts required to pm
 

This thread is very much open! :)

Re pm restrictions:

I had to set it somewhere, and not at 0 as some would like. :)

The reason for it in the first place is to stop the spam scumbags from posting spam pms to you. And believe me, they do with pm systems. This seems to be the only reasonable way to stop them. It's actually recommended to set it at 20.

Spam (and I'm not talking about email spam, that's another whole subject, but only spam on the site) has been a big problem for me, taking up a lot of my time to remove it and prevent it. Form spamming is a huge problem, I have had to close the guestbook, and stop commenting on the blogs to fight it. The blog comments were getting over a hundred spam a day, and spread out over 125 blogs and thousands of pages currently on the site, that's a giant pain in the :censored: to deal with.

I hope the pm restriction isn't too onerous, but I need all the help I can get fighting spam!

NOTE: IF I find someone spamming, they WILL be blocked and banned! Please report all spam to me asap.

thanks for your understanding, Grant

Now that is quite the sneaky idea... I would never think of doing something like that. :innocent:
[Post 13 and counting...]

No problem Grant, it makes sense I guess. Sorry to hear spam is such a problem, guess this is the case for most popular websites these days.

Cheers,
Toby