Hello Everyone,

You may or may not have pickd up that the site is changing its name after nearly 3 years of being on the web.

The new name is www.powerslide.net - and the transition from motoGPForum.com to powerslide.net starts next week.

Why the name change?

The name "motogp" is a worldwide trademark owned by Dorna. They are activley seeking out sites that contain "motogp" in their domain names and taking legal action where appropriate.

I got wind that they were doing this around a year ago, but choose to carry on as normal. Within the last two months I know two other webmasters that have had Dorna contact them - one webmaster closed his site down, the other removed all content so it appears as a dead site - not good.

Dorna have been in contact we me previously over various issues - and I know they visited the site in November.

So really - I'm pre-empting any notifications from Dorna - as:

a) I dont need the hassle

I wanted adequate time to prepare the for the change over

c) I didnt want this in the back of my mind all the time

d) If Dorna did give me approval to use the name - they might start imposing their will on the site and I dont think people would be happy with that somehow!!

So I'm taking the easy option - change names.

Why Powerslide.net?

I wanted to pick a new name that was future proof, motorsports related, memorable and expandable - so I negoicated the purchase of this name from a previous owner in November.

The small number of people that know about the new name (the site testers) have all commented that it sounds really good.

Whats the plan for the forum then?

My 1st love is motoGP - so the site will always have a bias towards the sport. However, we will be converting the other motorsports section into new sections for Superbike (World & Domestic series) & car racing (F1, Touring cars etc).

The site is also going back to basics - just a simple hompage, forum & gallery only. I want to be spending time dicussing racing - not maintaining the site. This is the reason why I created the site in the first place.

We will also be teaming up with a select number of other websites, to help boost each others visitors and hopefully encourage more users to take part. in the forums The first partnership is underway with a large network of fantasy league sites - so its all looking rosey.

Other than that - the plan is to ensure this place stays on track in terms of quality discussions.

Site Advertsing?

The site is now running the latest forum software thanks to the dontations - but I dont want to repeat the "cap in hand" approach again. We will be looking to have non-intrusive advertsing on the site, so that advertisers get good exposure - yet members feel that its not over the top. The site testing team have seen example of the static ad's - and the concensus is that we have the balance right.

If you look at other sites, like crash.net etc - they all have intensive advertising and pop-ups - this isnt the way we are going.

s the site changing colours?

Yes it is - sorry for another change! We have been testing a really fast loading design - its white though! So it will take a few days to get used too, but people are finding it really easy to use and naviagte around. I'm sure there will some tweaks needed after launch - but I'll be taking all feedback on board after a few weeks - which gives people time to adjust.

So - do you need to do anything?

The site will be changing over within 7 days. You you will need to update your bookmarks with the new details and ensure you add "mail@powerslide.net" to your email address book - this will ensure that any site emails (PM notifications, emails from other members etc) will all get delivered correctly.

Once the transfer has taken place - any old links will automatically redirect, i.e:

http://www.motogpforum.com/forum/index.php?showforum=20

will automatically redirect to:

http://www.powerslide.net/forum/Site-News-and-New-Member-Introductions-f20.html

I'm sad to see the name go - it does show people instanly what the site is about. But I hope everyone see's this as a new chapter in the sites history and a positive move!

Please post any questions or commenst below.

Ben.

How hard it's been to keep that a secret!

I only the hope the other members like the new scheme as much as we testers have.

Ben, out of curiosity, when someone searches moto gp on google now, will powerslide.net be one of the main sites popping up?

haha - I'm suprised it wasnt slipped out somewhere.

I'll be doing as much as possible to transfer the sites search engine ranking, links and positions. There will be a period of drop off - but I'm confident that things will be back to normal.

We are #1 for "motogp forum" and on page 1 for "motogp" & "moto gp"............the forum searches brings in more hits belive it or not!

I do search engine optimisation in my day job - so dont worry about this

Sounds eminently reasonable to me. Thanks for continuing what is obviously a labour of love for you which provides considerable enjoyment for many.

I have no objection to advertising at all; you do have a family to feed. I am glad you have found an alternative to what crashnet do though; I don't post there but if you ever look at their site the pop-ups are intrusive and annoying.

agreed, couldn't have said it better myself think the new name is good too!

You and ben are both obviously garry mccoy fans.

I like the plan but it's a shame about Dorna's heavy hand. I better go careful whenever I have to actually write "MotoGP".

Thanks from me too, Ben. Especially with your new responsibilities.

BTW michaelm - I use Mozilla Firefox with the adblock add-on and find crash (and many other sites) a joy to use in comparison to using IE....

Thanks for the advice. I am something of an internet neophyte.

All good and reasonable to me.

Lets make sure the fun and frolics stay at our usual high standard!

Pete

cool name and hope all goes well with the new forum,the name will be well suited when they tone down or rid of traction control and we start seing rubber and smoke coming from the "powerslide".


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45R9AB_3N5E

If Dorna was to get some control here, say bye to many big posters. They'd see the Lounge as a waste of time, which it is, but way worth being late for work for.

Rog would be censored. And that would be a bad thing for the forum alkie.

why not:

www.motorgp.com

Half the old American champions already call it that.

or maybe

www.motoegpforum.com

use a little homonym action to mess with them


anyways, powerslide.net is quite good.

Congrats on finding a good domain name

I hope this stays mainly a motorcycle racing site with NOTHING TO DO WITH NASCAR

Nascar's for pussies.

Also NASCAR is so boring as well. It is the only motor sport thing I don't like. I like everything else but that. It gave me a headache seeing the cars going round and round no turns no twisty tracks no nothing. Also it sends me to sleep like football does.

powerslide.net works for me!

again, good job BEN! nicely done and hope the transition goes as well as the stuff already done ie. smoothly!

Just a quick post to say I'll be moving the site tonight - you may (but hopefully wont) not be able to logon.

Remember - update your bookmarks and add mail@powerslide.net to your email address book

Keep fingers and toes crossed please

Sounds good Ben. Thanks for the hard work during a time of such enormous responsibilities at home with your new kid. It’s appreciated.

I have a feeling the site will be attracting a few more car racing fans like drifters and import car enthusiast with a name like "powerslide". It must have been difficult finding a domain name (I’ve tried and its sucks coming up with something that hasn’t been taken), perhaps it was too difficult to find one with a bit more hint that it’s predominately a motorcycle enthusiast site, but perhaps that’s what you were going for, eh. Either way, its sounds good to me. I think you may be a Hayden fan underneath it all being that his style emulated the magnificent “powerslides” of Mr. McCoy.








(BTW: to all the NASCAR bashers, WTF? They are motorsports fans like us. So lay off the unwelcome call. The new name sounds all inclusive, so lets not shush anybody away just yet, you never know, they may become MotoGP fans).

Amen!

We could do with more members, no matter how blind in their choice of sport they are.

It'll get interesting when we have the car members vs the bikes ones in intra forum battles.