Multirotor forums site update
Multirotorforums was founded by Bart Cocchiola on the 5th of January 2011 (I signed up as a member 12th January 2011)
After almost 4 year, this very popular site is going thru a major upgrade to a new forum software and a new look. Expected date for the change is Sunday November the 23rd (the site will be offline from the Friday 21st)
The new forum will have a look and feel similar to www.giantscalenews.com , and be powered by XenForo forum software.
I asked Bart why he created Multirotorforums .
Bart – “MRF was created to allow us to speak freely about the different equipment from the different manufacturers that we were using at the time so we could learn from each other. Everybody was struggling to make progress with their equipment but we were scattered all over the place.”
Most of the forums available at the time were (and still are) provided by the product vendors, and quite often posts that portrayed the vendors product in a bad light could be deleted, or the poster banned. Multirotorforums was a place to go where the poster would be free to share their experiances and problems without censorship.
I also asked Bart what he hopes the new-look and feel forum will bring
Bart – “We intend to bring more industry info and news to the site via home page posts and to include some of the emerging multi-rotor activities like Quad Racing that we haven’t really been following as closely as we should have. We’re in discussions with RCFlightDeck.com to include event scheduling information at the site as multi-rotor specific events are becoming more popular. Between the featured articles on the homepage and the expanded coverage of more multi-rotor specific activities we would like to become an even more inclusive community for multi-rotor enthusiasts around the world. It’s very exciting and we’re very much looking forward to keeping the mellow groove while amping up the enthusiasm. !”
The new site will be using the XenForo software , which does not allow HTML in forum posts. HTML in posts are an entry point for hackers and so to make the software/site secure they just don’t make any provision for HTML to be used in posts. This will mean for some users learning to use the new forum software “tags” to get their links and videos imbedded in their posts.
Multirotorforums have a user base of over 16,000 members and 186,000 posts. There is a dedicated beginners area, general info, vendor support, and a large section dedicated to aerial photography, thermography, and filming. His forums have attracted a lot of users from the aerial photography industry. There is also a large dedicate group of moderators in the background keeping the spammers at bay, and the food fights under control.
And finally, Bart, what do you see for the future ?
Bart- “Looking forward to seeing where all of this insanity goes in the next five to ten years…..delivery drones? FAA and other countries’ regulations? military adaptations? civilian equipment advances? evolution of the different companies we’ve come to know? Will Kloner finish his pilot’s license? new battery chemistry??!!?? every aspect has so much room for growth it will be amazing to see what happens!”.
Thank you Bart for your insight, and I wish you and Multirotorforums good luck for the future.
