I can’t believe it’s been over two years since that fateful day: March 32, 2022 — launch day for the humble auto website you’re reading right now. The Autopian. Lots has changed since then, lots has stayed the same, and lots is currently in flux. One thing that will forever remain is our site’s desire to get feedback from you, dear readers. You are what make this site work. You motivate us every morning to crank out the most Double-E articles (Entertaining, Enlightening/Educational) we can think of, and we are forever grateful. Anyway, let’s chat!
It’s been far too long since we’ve done one of these “Let’s Talk” articles with you wonderful readers, so we’ll try to do them more frequently moving forward. If you want to tell us what you’ve enjoyed about our site, what you loath about it, what you’d like to see improved, or if you just want to hang out and learn more about us authors or tell us more about yourselves, please head into the comments and bang on those keyboards.
Jason is in the hospital trying to figure out what’s going on with his recurring fevers, Matt and I are recovering from a huge week at Pebble Beach and Willow Springs Raceway (where Matt worked with our video guy Chris to organize the most epic shoot involving the 2004 Ford Shelby Cobra Concept (Codename: Daisy), a Dodge Viper, a C6 Corvette ZO6, and an original Shelby), and Mercedes is gearing up for her first international trip ever! Thomas is hopefully… you know what, lemme just ask Thomas. He always has cool stuff going on, often involving the ultimate duo: Good Food And Good Cars. From Thomas:
Oh gosh, my weekend plans involve writing some road tests, going for milkshakes at one of Toronto’s oldest ice cream shops, catching the Italian Grand Prix, figuring out what pieces I want to enter for the annual AJAC journalism awards, and possibly driving an original Series 1 Lotus Elise.
What do you have going on this weekend? What feedback would you like to give us? Let’s talk!
I’m enjoying a leisurely weekend and bracing for traffic patterns to change once school is back in session this week.
Morning from Va. Like this site, I read a lot about automobile stuff, and like the other s any thing that moves on roads or rails and flys. Nice to see the enthusiasm that this site has. Deep dives good on any subject. Graphics could be simpler but that’s not the 2020’s style. Keep on trucking!
The good: Good ol’ Torch and Tracy content. Always up for more taillight-based fiction and technical deep dives. And Torch, get better so you can write more taillight-based fiction!
I am also a big fan of airplane, boat, outer space, trains, ect content. All things that move are automotive, and should be included in automotive utopia.
Bishop articles are always fantastic and I should read more of them.
I absolutely love suspension deep dives from Huibert, suspensions are my favorite topic.
And of course Adrian’s articles, the snark is on point and the deep dives are excellent.
And the Aztek.
Basically, the good old core content of the Autopian.
The bad:
Not all of the content here seems to be a Utopia for automotive enthusiasts. Like Matt’s 8 articles about his predictably shitty Forester and his predictably boring CRV. Nothing automotive enthusiast about mom crossovers, sorry. We can all agree that they’re terrible, no need to discuss that topic further. Normal cars can be part of automotive enthusiasm, but not uninterestingly mediocre cars. And it’s not just Matt’s crossover articles; there are quite a few articles that just dont seem like they’re interesting enough to warrant an article.
And that may be part of why the community on the site is the way it is; I have watched the comment sections on this site slowly degrade over the last two years. It used to be fantastic; the nicest, best, most intelligent and intellectually diverse corner of the internet, BY FAR. There is still a lot of good, and it is still above average, but it’s been depressingly downhill. Mercedes’ recent F250 article was the worst I’ve seen in a while: massive blind hatred of people based solely on vehicle choice, baffling disregard for basic facts clearly stated in the article, and unnecessary political involvement with a heavy right wing bias. The Cybertruck articles were even worse. Obviously the staff can’t and shouldn’t control the commentariat, but the subject matter and writing style definitely affects who comes here and makes an account.
The amount of content: I liked it better when I could read every single article, from every single author, because they were less plentiful. I entirely understand if you keep the flow high in order to, like, make money, but that doesn’t mean I like it.
And now, the website. The website is not horrible, but it’s not great. And that was one of the big problems at Jalopnik, their website was choked with ads and completely laggy. Here, there are a few issues;
-The notifications are kinda broken. It still works great for me on desktop, but not at all on mobile, and I understand lots of folks can’t get it to work ever.
-The ads are a little much, mainly the types of ads. Video ads in the middle of the article are annoying but ignorable. The full-page “have to scroll for a year to get through it” ads are just intolerable and you guys should just get rid of them. I was also kinda disappointed in the quite minor reduction in ads my membership effected.
-The feed format on the front page is fine, or it would be if it could show more than like 15 articles at a time, and makes you click back like 11 pages to see an article from last week. It frickin sucks. The author profiles are worse. Perhaps the articles could be chopped up into pages based on the day they were published on, and I could access them all from a calendar?
-I also would very much like to be able to search for older articles, but your onsite search engine is almost totally useless. Google does a better job of finding old Autopian articles than the Autopian does.
-I assume that the mobile experience could be made considerably smoother with a dedicated app. I hate having to download an app for every frickin news site, but your fanbase is very strong, and at least us members would happily have such a thing. You guys could pull it off. Something to think about in future development.
-Dark mode?
Tldr(and this sure is too long, jeez) I want more good ol’ Autopian content, less new boring content, and the website could use some work. I hope I wasn’t too hard on you guys, you generally are doing a good job, but you asked for feedback on the direction the site is going, and boy did I deliver feedback.
For dark mode- if you use google, (at least on your phone,) you can opt into their experimental universal dark mode feature. It works pretty well for this site, though theres are some quirks with images (and the smiley emoji looks ominous in dark mode.)
Look, if you’re not using an adblocker, you’re just using the internet wrong. Even the FBI says to use adblockers to protect against malware. While they concede it’s okay to whitelist certain sites, I wholeheartedly disagree.
No organization with a web site verifies the authenticity of the advertising shown on their sites. None of them, including The Autopian, care if smut, misinformation, or dangerous malware, is displayed and associated with their business. If they did, I’d consider whitelisting, or at least unblocking unobtrusive ads.
But they don’t, because they gotta get that money. Block ads everywhere. Just do it, and don’t feel bad about protecting yourself while improving your user experience one bit.
This weekend I’ll clean up my car, the poor dude just spent 2 months homeless because our parking elevator broke, and it came back online just yesterday.
I tried to keep bird crap away from him, but I suspect some of it damaged the painting on the roof (where my short arms don’t reach – I have a minivan). Respray maybe on the cards in medium term… About time, tbh.
As for the site, some of my usual suggestiins:
* Dark mode. I use an extension, but it is wonky;
* International units between commas? Like 10 miles (1.6km)? I know this is America, damnit, but would make at least reviews easier to understand;
* Embedded images on comments. I know, probably difficult and spammer/abuse prone, but we can still dream, right?
* Some sort of notification when you have a COTD. Once I made the cut, but I almost didn’t realize it because I was too dumb to recognize my own comment!
* Conversely, a badge on COTDs in the wild. Sometimes I read a really funny one and wonder if it made it…
* Profile page for the unwashed masses. I would love to write a few paragraphs about my cars on an user page 🙂
Could you lure Tom McParland into the Autopian van? And for the love of God, please tell Jason that he’s supposed to rest after major trauma. Don’t make me go all paternal.
Totally on McParland! By the very end, his pieces were one of the only reasons I stuck around the old site. I learned so much, and am planning on using his services to buy a car for a relative soon.
A site-supported option for dark mode would be nice.
Other than that…keep up the good work!
Dear Spouse’s truck broke down today, helped limp it to the campsite with a fresh battery. Will be back later to finish the job, there are worse places to do an alternator transplant than a lovely coniferous forest.
Looking forward to embedded photos and less intrusive notifications.
Best of luck! Is it an easy job?
Thank you! Don’t want to jinx myself but it should be easy enough. Need to remember a cheater bar for the serpentine belt tensioner though.
I’d like my notifications to stay put until I mark them as read. Now when I click on one they all disappear!
I just clicked on the bell to see a comment, had to click off because an advert blocked it, and now she’s gone.
Ugh!!
I hear yah!
Loud and clear.
The advertisements blocking the notifications are SUPER annoying, esp because once they’re gone, they’re gone forever. Idk why I can’t click on my username and see a history of every notification I’ve ever had
At the top of comments, there’s a button on the left (looks like a person w/ a gear) that will show all comments
You win for the day. This needs to be more visible.
Thanks! I can only imagine that it is a depiction of pre-LA dt.
HOLY ****! Why is this button not near the notification button on the upper right?!??!
Apparently you can click the little guy icon, that is right at the top of ANY post, where the comments start. I just found this out a minute ago! Check it out!
I remember mentioning that button in the comments at least twice to people asking about reviewing their past comments to tally up likes. It also gives commenters the opportunity to delete individual comments or request an email with a “Delete All” link. I know I have a lot more free time than most what with unemployment and the complete absence of any kind of social life, but am I the only one here who clicks on icons to find out what they do?
I didn’t even see it; just assumed that would be in the upper right somewhere
Don’t click on this particular one. Not worth it.
Too late!
Sorry
Oof… Did it again.
I don’t mean to bother you.
Damnit! There I go again.
Seriously though… oopsie daisy. I don’t mean to
…keep replying like this.
Too many
notifications
already
I know!
It really is a suboptimal system of replying notifications here though.
I totally agree.
100%
You have a lot of free time on your hands don’t you?
Too much currently.
David; I miss your write ups about all your dilapidated jeeps. I loved trying to figure your problems and wonder if your solutions were something I can learn from. Please keep wrenching.
Everyone else; the J word site lost its mojo but you found it. All the site over the last 20 years that came and went- usually lost there recipe before they lost readers. Keep it up- I specially look forward to reading you guys daily.
Note: since auto news is everywhere I’m sure it’s hard to not just be an echo and repeat the same news but always adding more inside and insight into interesting nuggets is always awesome.
Thank you guys
Yeah, I loved all the rusty wrenching articles and would like more (there’s less rust now obviously) Also keep it up w/ the humor/good stories/fun
I’m working on my ’54 CJ-3B right now! Thing cranks over with vigor; but the fuel tank appears rusty. So I need to figure that out.
I figured as much…you always have a good project…that’s awesome and looking forward to it
Thomas: what’s the 411 on the ice cream place?
Tom’s Dairy Freeze on the Queensway. They’ve been serving up frozen treats since 1969!
Nice!
Noted, thanks!
Still stoked two years in, and some of the hires along the way have been really good- Mercedes, Lewin, Adrian, and others
Content idea: stuff pertaining to maps and motoring, be it classic roadmap oddities or off-roading map-app reviews.
Remember when we were talking about alternative names for “The Morning Dump” because there was no way y’all were gonna run with that name for a daily article for long…
Those were the days amiright!
Haha, yes! I’m glad JT and I stuck to our guns and kept it!
The name “The Morning Dump” is the only thing I hate about this site.
I still say it should be “The Warm Up”.
I’m enjoying it, even if I’ve never really liked the use of red and cyan. The writing more than makes up for it.
Red and cyan is a heck of a pairing, but at least it’s… different?
Don’t change it. It’s perfect. Unusual, like the writers here which makes it fitting.
Oh, I dunno. It’s kinda close to the livery for Frontier Communications. Their cyan is paler, and yours is closer to teal, so it is different. But your typefaces (and to be fair, writing, and…you know, everything…) are much better.
I thought you first day was March 32, 2022. See the first article in the archives: “Welcome To The Autopian: The Ultimate Car Website For The People”
Correct! Woops!
I guess it’s just me, but the site has a real West Coast vibe. Yeah, I get that many of you are out there, but for no one to come to the Dream Cruise because everyone was at Monterey? Disappointing.
Actually, I think there are more of us living on the East Coast now. Maybe we should make the others come see us…
Whoa whoa whoa…
Let’s not Biggie Tupac The Autopian.
Eminem representing
We also did have someone at the Dream Cruise!
Yes, but Steve is local. That’s not to take anything away from his excellent article, but it seems like the Motor City is very underrepresented.
It’s really just me in LA, though JT and Matt visit. We’re all over the place, really. New York, Chicago, North Carolina, LA, Toronto, and freelancers/contributors everywhere, including TWO in Detroit. Have a look at Johnathon Gustin’s pieces! AND Steve Balistreri’s.
I wouldn’t say Detroit is underrepresented. It’s certainly better represented than the vast majority of cities, though I get that it’s not the same as having a full-time staffer there.
Some headlines:
Here’s What Happened When A Bunch Of Michiganders Went To Drive New Electric Cars
This Michigan City Took 30 Cars From An Alfa Mechanic And Now They’re Sitting In A Junkyard
I Stayed At The UAW’s Vacation Hideout In The Middle Of Nowhere. Here’s What It Was Like
Here’s What I Saw At Detroit’s Legendary ‘Autorama’ Hotrod Show
Why The Woodward Dream Cruise Is Such A Gearhead Paradise
Detroit-Area Autopian Readers: Let’s Meet Up Before Dream Cruise!
Planning a day vehicular trip to the local growers market while hauling some expensive carpets back to the shop (we took three home to check) and then heading to a store that has a specific product my spouse has a hard time finding, finding somewhere new to get lunch all while taking side roads we have not been on before.
I would like a super cheap subscription that only unlocks the members only articles each day, but I love the site and how it’s run and will contribute when I am able.
Best of luck, from a long time fan since the times of that lighting site I don’t go to now (why would you?). So glad you struck out and made an incredible continuation of a car website for a certain type of car person.
We have a place!
Just started reading this site less than a year ago, but I’d been a loyal reader of J******* from 2012 until its downward spiral. I commend you for keeping a well-written and interesting blog going in modern times. Two things I’ve noticed: a lot of articles have clickbaity headlines, even good, intelligent articles (I get that you have SEO to consider and there’s tough competition for clicks, but one of the things I liked about the old site was, for all the silliness and internet-aware approach of the Gawker sites, it didn’t really lean into clickbait, at least not as far as I can remember); and a lot of writing looks like it could have been edited a little more carefully (typos, missing words). Other than those, no complaints, keep up the good work.
Does the old site even have writers anymore or is it 100% AI-generated content?
Little bit of Artificial Intelligence, little bit of Natural Lunkheadedness. I check once a week in case Amber DaSilva wrote something fun.
You guys are doing a great job, if not we wouldn’t be here. Only thing missing here is oppo, could be the oppopian….
My plans for the weekend started today. Got my new winter wheels, mags and tpms mounted and balanced for the EV6.
Started converting my side by side’s plow to a quick attach mount for the tractor.
And today was the first day of school for 3 of my kids and my youngest’s 3rd birthday.
Thanks to you David, Torch, Beau and the whole staff of great writers and reviewers. Here on the eve of Labor Day, we want to let you guys know we respect your honesty, integrity and hard work! In today’s day and age it’s tough to find good, hilarious, real content. A glass is lifted to you!
Aw, you’re a peach (I stole this compliment from Jason).
Thanks. I hope you get more time to write (loved the Goodwood/Duke’s Ball write up!) and let’s hope Jason gets back to somewhere close to 99% Torch. I know I miss his great content!
Currently watching last week’s F1 race for free on Pluto, thank you Autopian for not spoiling the result!
That headline makes me nervous. Makes me feel like I’m in trouble.
I think Jason should find a new mechanic so he doesn’t need to go to the hospital anymore. Statistically speaking, good health is a good thing, and frequent hospital visits indicates poor health. Hence, by the reverse, fewer hospital visits indicates good health.
Is there a way to make it so the oldest comment is shown first
I wish!
Sitting around doing nothing as I recover from carpal tunnel surgery. Small potatoes compared to Jason’s larger ones.
I am also getting the itch to change cars. Logic says no, but my heart, and perhaps boredom, say ‘maybe.’
I’ve been thinking the same about changing cars. Maybe something cheap & fun instead of selling or trading in my daily. Hmmm…
Cheap and fun is a great combo, highly recommended
Yeah, I have wanted to do a project for a while, but with the hand issues, jobs around the house like cleaning out the garage have fallen behind. Add in jam sessions and a need to lose 100 pounds, and I won’t have a lot of free time, so an interesting daily would be the likely play.
It would have to be juuuuust the right car too.
Tomorrow is my birthday so heading out for a beer in a few. Plan on taking the kids on a little hike tomorrow morning, a pool day tomorrow (may be the last weekend pool day weather wise before we’ll close it).
I intend to detail the van, but that’s been my intention for five straight weekends now. Wish me luck.
Also, when I click my notifications, once I click to respond to one, they all delete automatically. Been having that issue for a few weeks not sure if anyone else has been. Makes it tough to check responses sometimes.
Happy birthday tomorrow!
Thanks!
Same here (the notifications thing, not the birthday thing). Luckily I’m team #zeroinbox and my comments aren’t super popular so I don’t get many notifications, but I don’t like clearing my notifications without knowing why I notificated in the first place.
Team Zeroinbox!
High five my friend!
I love the “delete all” function. Though now it’s no longer necessary here.
Sorry if your time gets wasted by this particular notification.
This last paragraph is my issue too. I feel bad because I can’t respond to the notifications that get lost if there’s more than one.
Yeah I get the guilt as well.
Look at Mr Popular here getting multiple responses to his comments!
If you click and hold, then open in a new tab, you can read the comment you clicked on, then go back to the previous tab and repeat on the next comment.
Hey good advice there.
And I think the responses are more a function of me commenting on damn near every post, lol.
Ditto.
Admittedly, I’ve stopped bothering with notifications. They’ve never worked well for me. I had thousands of notifications before, but now it just says 536 for some reason. I just be sure to check the articles to see what I’ve missed. Maybe one day our platform will be able to work notifications out the way we want them to!
Oh I can’t even imagine the number of responses the staff/contributors get. You guys do a pretty great job engaging us though.
I’m in South East Queensland, down under and it is officially the last day of winter here, the temperature is around 36c or 97f. Been like this for several days, should start to cool down on Tuesday, to mid twenties C, high 70’s F. Good pool weather, if you have one.
Happy birthday!!
Thanks!