How do we get new people in Reef Frontiers?

[darklcd]

I for one am glad the forum is still here and available. I have been out of the hobby for about 4 years and looking at possibly getting another tank as soon as our house is done being built.

I may not be as into aquariums as much as I would like due to being in north western Ontario Canada the access to equipment and well pretty much everything else is quite limited but I am with MMeritton this one. When I got the ok from management to do another reef the first thing I did after being out of it for about 5 years was come here and get right back at it.

I can see fb taking some from the forum but I for one am glad that it is still here. A lot has changed since I was into the hobby and the forum still being here was and still is a great help for me. The numbers might not be as high as they were but those that are still here are very friendly and helpful.

This might not help solve anything but just wanted to put my two cents in and say thank you for still being around

 

[MendozaP]

I agree, Dark. People who are still here seem super friendly. I know Discord also took away a lot of traffic from various forums. Are there Discord channels for our hobby too?

 

[SantaMonica]

Unless discord has ongoing, photo-storage-friendly, searchable forums, probably not.

 

[windwaterwaves]

I would be happy to host it for free

 

[spieszak]

Hosting costs are covered by sponsors, who are totally awesome and still here because there is still a huge amount of traffic on this site.
At some point it seems all those folks that pushed people to search the forums rather than ask the same question over and over again won. LOL

 

[ac7av]

Well it’s been a few years since I've been on here and active. I was hoping to get back to it, but it sure seems like things have changed. What happened to RF? This was my home for a long time and now it seems to have turned into a ghost town. It doesn't seem like much activity here anymore. So where is everyone at, or am I just not seeing the new stuff on here? I see lots of people logged in but almost all guests, and not many members. What happened?

 

[Scooterman]

Well it’s been a few years since I've been on here and active. I was hoping to get back to it, but it sure seems like things have changed. What happened to RF? This was my home for a long time and now it seems to have turned into a ghost town. It doesn't seem like much activity here anymore. So where is everyone at, or am I just not seeing the new stuff on here? I see lots of people logged in but almost all guests, and not many members. What happened?

I guess like you people get busy and don't spend time posting on a forum when they can chat live on social media, we have the traffic just not the open discussions as before, it is what we have these days, the large amount of data is available to just about anyone, you can be a guest and read almost everything you need.

 

[Katchupoy]

A lot of times when I sell my corals through Craigslist. They never heard of this website. Even the other popular ones.

So let's put an advertisement in in Craigslist. Sell something in CL but also tell them that this website exist...

I always try to spread the word.

 

[mfinn]

I guess like you people get busy and don't spend time posting on a forum when they can chat live on social media, we have the traffic just not the open discussions as before, it is what we have these days, the large amount of data is available to just about anyone, you can be a guest and read almost everything you need.

One of the things I've noticed is the younger crowd would rather go to social media ( facebook) than a forum.
I've talked to local people until I'm exhausted about a local forum, but they say that they prefer the other.

 

[Husker12181]

I will admit that on every forum I have ever been on. When the response to every question is "use the search function". The casual or new forum member will leave and usually wont come back.

In MY experience when I finally get around to asking a question I HAVE already searched for the answers and came up with conflicting or confusing answers.

 

[Admin]

@Husker12181 I agree that most do not respond well "use the search feature". It is sorta like using a dictionary to find out how to spell a word you don't know how to spell it. If you knew exactly what to search a new person might find it, but not if they don't know exactly how it was posted on the forum in the past.

 

[mfinn]

I will admit that on every forum I have ever been on. When the response to every question is "use the search function". The casual or new forum member will leave and usually wont come back.

You must really get around. I only see that once in maybe a 1000+ posts.

While it may happen, it's more like a question about "what salt is best?" type questions when there are countless threads already on the subject.
And when I've seen the use the search feature response, there are always more answers by people addressing the question by the op.
People these days do seem to give snarky responses much more than in the past, but I think that's much more common on social media than the forums.
On another forum I go on, there is a big effort to keep these civil and friendly and I've seen people leave when they get out of hand.

And as far as the confusing or conflicting answers, you have been in the hobby long enough to know that there is very often more than one answer to many questions that are all correct. Sometimes you have to see what's common between those different answers and pick your own course.

 

[spieszak]

This isn't rocket science, and its not really changing all that much, at least not at the rate it used to. That makes it quite easy to lose interest in discussion entirely, not just in the forums.
There is only so much "help the newb" in all of us before we get tired because folks just seem to do what they choose anyway, regardless of asking. It takes a _lot_ of effort to answer the same questions over and over again, and have the same arguments, and explain the same views.
At some point it occurs that there really isn't much left to be talked about.... unless there is some led vs t5 vs mh type topic on the horizon, it may have just all been said.

 

[SantaMonica]

Craigslist is an interesting idea. You can post in the Community/Volunteer section for free, and ask for an aquarium/coral/reef volunteer to help with marketing.