Is the forum dying?

[Jim_Mercer]

Not sure why I am making less visits and even fewer posts when I am spending so much time online as I cannot do much in greenhouse/garden. When I do look at the forum I glance at new threads but seldom open them, perhaps because I find current layout difficult to read, I've tried changing display options but while it did help here it made everywhere else worse

[DaveW]

As to the "knowledgeable" disappearing from the Forum, most of those were the pre 1970's -80's members of the Society who have now largely died off. The younger generation are the Social Media generation, mostly more attracted to "chatty" type Social Media groups having only a superficial rather than botanical interest in the plants. I have directed a quite few on other sites over here from around the world.

All Forums depend on people posting, but in the past you needed a reasonable camera to post pictures. However that is no problem now with smartphones. You only have to look at the number of posts below the avatars to see who have been the ones doing most of the posting in the past.

[Zoom]

I haven't been on here for a while because I got disillusioned with it.
Whenever I looked for help and advice the responses were far & few between, not very encouraging for beginners or intermediates.

[DaveW]

Hi Zoom,

It rather depends on the advice? Some complain they get few replies, but generally if somebody gives say the correct identification or advice others will not bother simply repeating it. Not in your case, but one thing you do get is some new members joining and not waiting for answers to their questions, either never logging on again or only for a couple of days after if you look in their profiles. With International sites and members on different time zones it can take a few days before all answer, or even longer should people be on holiday so keep logging in and if you don't have an answer ask again.

However no request should ever go unanswered and on other forums I was on if nobody answered it was up to the Moderators to do so, as they usually do here. As a past Moderator on a Nikon camera site if I did not know the answer immediately I had to search the web for a link that either explained it to me or the questioner for the answer.

For a forum to work you need people to ask questions for others to answer. However you also need the more knowledgeable and those with larger collections to post pictures of their plants and contribute mini articles for others to see and comment on to keep the interest going. Most members of all sites tend to be "lurkers" and nothing wrong with that, but some have to contribute for them to be able to read.

Iann has probably done the most to keep the Forum going with over 14,000 posts since he joined. As said look at the posts below their avatars to see who have provided the content in the past, but please contribute in the future if you can rather than leave it to the few.

[TomInTucson]

Hi Zoom,

It rather depends on the advice? Some complain they get few replies, but generally if somebody gives say the correct identification or advice others will not bother simply repeating it. Not in your case, but one thing you do get is some new members joining and not waiting for answers to their questions, either never logging on again or only for a couple of days after if you look in their profiles. With International sites and members on different time zones it can take a few days before all answer, or even longer should people be on holiday so keep logging in and if you don't have an answer ask again.

However no request should ever go unanswered and on other forums I was on if nobody answered it was up to the Moderators to do so, as they usually do here. As a past Moderator on a Nikon camera site if I did not know the answer immediately I had to search the web for a link that either explained it to me or the questioner for the answer.

For a forum to work you need people to ask questions for others to answer. However you also need the more knowledgeable and those with larger collections to post pictures of their plants and contribute mini articles for others to see and comment on to keep the interest going. Most members of all sites tend to be "lurkers" and nothing wrong with that, but some have to contribute for them to be able to read.

Iann has probably done the most to keep the Forum going with over 14,000 posts since he joined. As said look at the posts below their avatars to see who have provided the content in the past, but please contribute in the future if you can rather than leave it to the few.

As a reader of many plant forums (more than a new topic initiator), I think your break down of the different types of responses (or lack thereof) fairly well sums it up. The forum format (and search features) are far more informative, and enjoyable. than the "social network" environment. To each his own. but I come away from this forum feeling that it was time well spent, and the complaint of a temporary lull in activity is a little bit unsubstantiated, compared to the extensive amount of "dead air" on FB, and the like.

[Mike P]

As a comparison I posted the same photo of my M senilis on the society FB page. It has currently had 715 likes. One thing you can say for it is that it has wide reach and hopefully amongst those folk there will be some who seek one out and grow it.

[edds]

I think having a 'like' function on the forum would reveal a larger number of people lurking and enjoying the photos. Maybe not Facebook numbers but more than reply.

I seem to remember a discussion though where that wasn't an option on this version of software.

[el48tel]

I think having a 'like' function on the forum would reveal a larger number of people lurking and enjoying the photos. Maybe not Facebook numbers but more than reply.

I seem to remember a discussion though where that wasn't an option on this version of software.

You are correct. Not a feature of this type of software. Two organisations for which I work use the same base software. And we have asked for the feature.

[Mike P]

This hasn’t happened to me before but the FB likes for the senilis have now passed 1000….maybe folk don’t often see them?

[DaveW]

Really on this type of Forum you can only go by the number of views since the subject started to get an idea of what interests people enough to view.