This thread is turning into a little diary along with the changes.

We just experienced a 30-minute outage due to a series of stupid things.

I mentioned the former agency that used to maintain DealerRefresh hacked our ad positions into the main site code instead of building them as widgets for placement amongst all the other Xenforo components. Because of this, Claude has to write its own special hacks to move widgets around the ads.

I wanted to remove the new Visitors Online widget from the thread pages. I only want that widget on the home page because something special is planned for the thread pages. When Claude added some code to remove it from the threads pages it broke a line in the main site code. On top of that, when he restored from a backup, he deleted the entire page of code instead of just that single line. This is where AI breaks <----lesson

Fortunately, we have a staging site where we build things first, and we were able to resurrect things from there.

A word of caution to dealers who wish to vibe code can be found in this post. If I didn't have 16 years of experience as a technology vendor, I wouldn't know about structured databases and pre-planned runs that can be reversed via multiple paths. Technology is frighteningly fragile. The trick to keeping it resilient is having escape and rebuild plans.

Alex Snyder said:

P.P.S. After these kinks are sorted, I am going to get back on improving the widget at the top of the forums list with the most recent threads

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Kinks have been smoothed. That was a PITA

Now it is time to improve the activity widget on the home page. Going to add some functionality from the old version. I built this on our staging server first, so this is the difference between staging and what you're experiencing now.



Here we go... deploying.

On the same goal of making things easier for new visitors to sign up, we have moved to a single navigation bar. Search and user account info are now in line with the traditional nav.

Before:


Now:


P.S. There are a few kinks to work through between our Staging site and Production site. I'm on those now.
P.P.S. After these kinks are sorted, I am going to get back on improving the widget at the top of the forums list with the most recent threads

Making some tweaks to the new Visitors Online widget. Combined it with the forum stats.



In building this, I realized our old forum agency had plumbed all the ad positions directly into the pages and not into Xenforo's own positioning system. We had to write a hack to get this new widget to show above the ads on the sidebar. I'm going to have to go back and do a MASSIVE clean-up job to get the ad positioning more manageable.

The stat is also plumbed into our new proposal tool, so if you're looking to advertise on DealerRefresh, you'll have a whole new experience there too. That was a gigantic job to automate it all. We used to use a tool called Proposify that had a hefty price tag and was extremely rigid in design choices and workflow options.



Now, we have our own subdomain (would have had to pay extra for that) on dealerrefresh.com with an email system for logging and site hosting all built into AWS. A database is automatically updated on Notion to track everything, and we even have a research call to do discovery work on prospects that help to generate personalized email copy.

All emails we send are pre-built into a mailto code, so Jeff or I only need to tap a link and then hit send from our own email client.

Yup @joe.pistell - this is just the beginning. My initial goals are to boost SEO (which is already amazing) and push new visitors to become members.

Here is a teeny tiny change to kick off the morning. I changed the styling of the Xenforo "Notice Board" feature to be much more in-your-face. With yesterday's Visitors online widget, there are 3 calls to action on the home page to get someone to become a member.

ohoh... Alex and Claude Code are flexin'

Latest Replies Widget Updates

We've made a few improvements to the Latest Replies section on the homepage:

• Jump to where you left off — clicking a thread now takes you directly to your first unread post instead of the top of the thread.
• Thread labels — prefix tags (like REVIEW, PR & News, etc.) now show on each thread row, so you can see the category at a glance.
• Read/unread indicators — logged-in members will see a blue dot and a subtle highlight on threads they haven't read yet, making it easier to spot new activity quickly.

Yet another AI update that you didn't ask for
I'm spending less time prompting building and more time researching how to improve my architectural thinking (i.e. systems thinking). In the most recent upgrades, GPT and Claude jumped from 'intern level knowledge' to 'senior leader level knowledge'.

Whats interesting is AI can be so smart it startles me every day, then, it does things so ignorant I yell at it like is a brain-dead teenager that knows better. I am designing a business system with layers of interconnects and dependencies, the stuff that a domain expert intuitively knows. Most of the AI errors I am seeing map back to the larger, architect like scope.

We can get that taken care of.

EDIT: Done!

Thanks - will adjust.


EDIT: Done!

nash_midwest said:

Do yourself and your dealership a favor: do some research

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lol, I asked claude to read this thread, claude replied:

Rob's forum post to reading ratio is 1:0.

Rob has no idea that he is posting in the most bleeding edge car guy forum ever collected, all time.

I'm so confused

Alex Snyder said:

Just showed it off to @joe.pistell

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#MindBLOWN

I've been building an AgenticOS for myself. I got tired of prompting Claude, then waiting, hitting Allow Once, then waiting again. I wanted a way to run multiple projects simultaneously. I also needed something that could interface with our VehicleLyfe backend for reporting and coding. Finally, I needed something that could take some burden off of @craigh so @Jeff Kershner and I can make some changes to DealerRefresh. I needed a UI that worked for my brain.

I did a lot of the research and planning in Perplexity. When I felt like things were good enough, I asked it to write a prompt for Claude for me. We have been iterating from there.



This is my dashboard that my day begins with. In the morning, I have my tea or coffee and talk to it. MacWhisper is integrated, so it can quickly transcribe my voice. That transcription goes to the "Operator" agent, who assigns tasks. There are multiple agents running on various versions of Claude for what is needed. This way, I'm making one prompt that is turning into multiple threads of AI activity. I don't have to sit and watch a single thread, then keep hitting "Allow Once" over and over.



It also records my meetings.



After the meeting, I get a brief synopsis and the takeaways. It is routed so that each takeaway can become a new project or link to an existing one to update it.

Reports are generated automatically. My favorite is a recap on everyting I accomplished that day. All other reports are meant for our board. They pull data from the backend of VehicleLyfe to create executive-level briefings on how our clients are doing.

You're probably wondering about the "2nd Brain" - that is the memory of the system that can be taken to other AIs. We are heavily invested in Claude, and I'm heavily invested in Perplexity personally. If something needed to change, I can pass the 2nd Brain to the next system. I don't have to start over with nothing. And all it is an Obsidian library of markdown notes. Claude writes to it. Dead simple.


It is a continuing evolution. Just showed it off to @joe.pistell and thought it was in a good enough spot that it might help some of you.

Lidrappen said:

I’ve had good luck boosting visibility by mixing solid on-page work with content built to help my site optimize for AI search engines, which pushed me into more AI‑generated answers people actually read. It paired well with technical fixes and a steady flow of clean backlinks. If you’re already covering the basics, adding that AI‑focused layer can make your site stand out in a way traditional SEO alone doesn’t.

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What does 'SEO alone' mean?

lol what on earth did I just read

hassanejaz040 said:

A recent study shows that AI is helping car dealerships respond to internet leads faster and more consistently, improving overall lead responsiveness. However, it also highlights risks like system integration issues and poor follow-ups during AI-to-human handoffs, which can still lead to missed opportunities. Overall, AI improves efficiency, but it works best when combined with strong human processes and proper system setup.
Click here:

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Calm down with the spam my guy

AI power user observation.

As the intelligence of AI increases, it's abilities to reason rise with it. When you hit AI with a question, you see it work, you see it reason thru your input to create its output.

TODAY, right now, I am using AI to build AI.

Mission: Position my SaaS startup of 2, to scale to be ready to do the work of 20.
--This weekend, I gave AI that mission, I tasked AI to build a system that read and organized every file on my business and reoriented it all to be AI agent friendly. I am 40% complete, at step #53 with a goal to create a full AI automation operating system for my startup.

@Eric Miltsch, update


I'm glad I am a trader


GM is rockin'

All vendors should exclude mobile app traffic from their Google Ads accounts. Any who aren’t are committing malpractice

And calls should not be Google ads goals for sales campaigns. I’ll die on that hill.