What Happened To The 'older' Members

[andywg]

I agree with a lot of things said on here. I personally have not seen many reasons for older members to leave.

I do. Read Arfie's post for why. The forum very quickly gets boring for me these days. Most of the members who had interesting tanks or fish I wanted to read about have left for pastures new. As I don't do a nano reef or a planted tank I have little in common with most of the forum. I also can't be bothered to answer the same question which is answered in pins and FAQs for the x thousandth time.

Furthermore, it is somewhat disappointing to see a google hero who posts rubbish so much of the time become reverred as some sort of fishkeeping god.

Arfie is also fairly close with the GC points. There isn't anywhere to actually chill out, especially as live chat doesn't work properly. LC used to be heaving with at least 7-10 people in on a school night and much more across the weekend all chatting and having fun. Now 5 people speaking is busy. Something happened with LC around 2 years ago that caused some people issues and it has never been worked out, as such many people who might want to try and get in there can't.

I will also suggest another reason for a downturn in people posting - admin issues. As William is the only admin and is not actively involved things that only he can sort out take far too long to sort out for impatient people who are already somewhat disenfranchised with the forum. Take the links to live chat, aquarium calculator or even the search function. All of them have been borked in one way or another for over week now with no signs of any progress on them being fixed. Trying to reply to a post that requires reference to previous posts is pretty frustrating when you can't search. I would be willing to bet that there are no other forums with a membership as large as this with only 1 admin to try and hold it together.

 

[aaronnorth]

TFF is a very popular forum with lots of members and on other forums it is often discussed about, especially repeated quetsions like BigC has mentioned. One that really ticked me off was "What does a Red Cherry Shrimp look like?"

...Google is your friend

I think most of the time people try to get their post count up as it automatically 'makes them more knowledgable'

 

[Ludwig Venter]

I also experience missing Karma on this forum and lately only come in to briefly page through familiar posts from people I know and check my PM's and then I'm outa here.... I cannot pinpoint exactly what it is, which "distances" me, but I feel dissatisfied (maybe not the word, but describing enough)...... something has definitely changed and it is encouraging to see some are willing to work at it.....

 

[Nick16]

i think its just as said, the same posts over and over, if people fixed the search function, it could then be refered to. i used to log on about a month ago and there were always 'hot' topics with good discussions and people having their say/opinion, now its posts that require one post answers. for me, the attraction has gone, thats why i am ow part of UKAPS becuase for my love of planted tanks, that is the only place where i can get ALL the info. it has already been said that people move onto specific forums like, planted ones, pleco ones, predatory ones, etc. there seems to be enough people here willing to give it ago, and try to get back to times gone by. i just think as shelagh said, a few words in the right places, may be a major help from some of the newbies. i have had some excellent advice from many people who have posted in this thread, especially aaronnorth, as he is very experianced with plants and planted tanks. but personally, i would like to thank all of those who have helped me, as i wouldnt be where i am now, i would probably be overstocking, lacking in filtration, do gravel changes every 2 weeks or something, and still dosing ferts with carbon in my filter!!

 

[BigC]

For fear of getting slated, Andy has raised a couple of good points there and one specific point in particular which is glaringly obvious, I feel needs to be addressed if we are to move forward. I will be raising this upstairs.
Its good to see that even though folks may be a little disgruntled of late they are still concerned enough to aire their views and pop in specifically to do so.
To the member above who mentioned small acts of gratitude for their replies, I too have dished out advice and many, many times have recieved zilch in reply, (probably wasn't that good of info then LOL) so I understand and sympathise that sometimes it can be a tad disheartening when someone who seeks help cant even be bothered to reply with a simple thank you note.
Regards
BigC

P.S. I have raised some of the points aired here Upstairs.

 

[Nick16]

cheers BigC, we shall wait for the outcome. i feel that in order to progress communication has to be made between some of the long serving members (not me!) and the mods. therefore, everyone can benefit.

 

[OohFeeshy]

Aside from the various things already mentioned.... what's the point? After a few years, there's nothing left to ask (and if there is, you go and damn well look for it yourself instead of annoying other people with it), and you've answered practically anything anyone can ask so many times that it's difficult not to get carried away and write an insulting letter to said person querying whether they're completely incapable of looking things up for themselves, or just enjoy wasting everyone's time. The novelty of fishkeeping also wears off fairly quickly- it's all very well when you've just bought a shiny new tank and are decorating, planting and stocking it, but after a few years, there's a general feeling of 'meh'. Sure, it can be resolved by inputting new novelty, but that takes time, effort, and most of all, money, which when you haven't really been buying anything fish-related for a few years isn't an easy thing to start up again. Plus, given the deceptively long lifespan of fish, you're pretty much stuck there.

 

[BigC]

Shrugs shoulders of negativity........
There are always new members comming along, want to participate and interact and post questions and await replies. Yes its true that these Q's may have been posed many many times in the past and older members may well be fed up with such but by answering them again to someone new, at least they can take that information onboard and relate it to someone else further down the line.
BigC

 

[Nick16]

if we all stoped giving advice because we cant be bothered, this forum would collapse. the more advice we give out the better (good advice!) as this will hopefully bring the next generation of 'us' through.

 

[OohFeeshy]

if we all stoped giving advice because we cant be bothered, this forum would collapse.

Mhm... *half heartedly indicates general tone of many of the posts in this thread*

 

[Ace Of Spades]

if we all stoped giving advice because we cant be bothered, this forum would collapse.

Mhm... *half heartedly indicates general tone of many of the posts in this thread*

Wasnt you saying that you wanted threads to stop being about other things and about Fish. And yet the topic has drifted off anyway?

 

[Nick16]

me? about the cockyness of things. check out a certain members post and his replies to my posts. POST 9, its called TANKS FOR SALE. thats what i call pure rudeness. if he wants to be like that, then no one will help him.

 

[Arfie]

There are always new members comming along, want to participate and interact and post questions and await replies. Yes its true that these Q's may have been posed many many times in the past and older members may well be fed up with such but by answering them again to someone new, at least they can take that information onboard and relate it to someone else further down the line.
BigC

Of course new members come along and eventually they build up some knowledge and more importantly some experience and they pass it along to other new members. Eventually though many of them become "older" members, get fed up of answering the same questions etc etc

It's not a criticism of anyone, but if you are the sort of person who gets bored of the repetitive answering of the same thing, then the choices are limited, mainly resulting in flaming (which leads to a fight) or not bothering.

if we all stoped giving advice because we cant be bothered, this forum would collapse. the more advice we give out the better (good advice!) as this will hopefully bring the next generation of 'us' through.

That's exactly what does happen, but eventually people get bored.

Look at the posting from the mods (used as a group of experienced members rather than singling one "normal" member out), who are some of the most knowledgable and experienced members. How many of them are fequently posting more than 2-3 posts per day? very few of them (some are struggling to average 1 post per month this year!) especially the ones who've been in the job longer than a year then how many of them are answering the same old questions regularly? again not many. It's not a criticism of them, they must be as bored of the same old, same old as anyone else so they don't bother answering them, but with their moderating "duties" bringing them back, they come back to TFF. Other experienced members dont have that "duty" or any other need to come back so they don't bother and the next generation of experts has to come through.

Arfie

 

[dwarfgourami]

Also people sometimes drop out for purely personal reasons. I've been away for a few months partly because of my job situation (thought I might end up emigrating and selling all my tanks ), partly because I was sucked in by a forum whose members are far ruder and far more outspoken than this one- so nothing you old sweeties have done. Am now returning to the fold (hey! where's that fatted calf?).

 

[andywg]

/lots of fairly sensible and well thought out points

Arfie

Damn it Arf, I can't help but think the fact that we keep agreeing these days is the harbinger of doom. Maybe we should start automatically taking polar opposite views on everything?