PlanetCatfish, forums and FaceBook

[MatsP]

Gee whiz, I did not know name dropping was the thing to do, should I list all the Ph.D. and other experts I have been able to contact personally over the years. Most recently in the past few weeks I contacted a Ph.D. research marine biologist in Hawaii for a back and forth on artemia and a Ph.D. biochemistry professor in S. Africa regarding the use of Rooibos (Aspalathus linearis) in aquariums. It is a wonder I was able to do this sort of stuff without FaceBook. (Any hint of sarcasm is strictly intentional )

I have been on Facebook for about 5 years now. I have around 600 friends, ranging from people that I'm definitely personal friends with, through second and third cousins that I've met a few times to some people I barely know who they are.

However, amongst those friends are several Ichthyoligists and other scientists (I reckon around 20 of my Facebook friends are "fish-scientists" of some sort or another, a few of which I've met, most of which I've had some useful discussion with), and they are definitely perfectly happy to discuss things in public. Of course, SOMETIMES they are not. But I don't think it's a general rule that just because someone is a scientist, has a PhD or is a professor, that they can't share their knowledge on Facebook. #

Another benefit of these friends is that they often post photos from their fish collecting or photos of fish from the collections in a museum. When I see that, I pop a message saying "Can we use this for Planetcatfish". I don't know exactly how many pictures that means we have, that we perhaps wouldn't have because we didn't know the photo existed...

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Mats

[Jools]

Just to keep this on topic, the discussion is about Facebook as a discussion platform for the planetcatfish community rather than everyone on Facebook or rather than everyone who can access email.

Sure, anyone can email a scientist. But what is the benefit to the community? It's one to one and not to be seen again. Sure, lots of folks are online on Facebook but again, what is the benefit to the community if you can't find what you posted last month.

I am pitching this more at what Facebook might become in terms of a discussion forum.

Jools

[FuglyDragon]

At the very least you should / could add Facebook and G+1 like buttons to each forum thread so we can 'like' posts we err like, will maybe pull in a few members for the forums.

[Coriequest]

I sort of like Facebook but think it can't take the place of this site. However, you could have a FB presence that could drive people over here. The purpose being to serve our whiskered fish friends and add members. I don't post more often here, because every time I want to, it makes me log in. Often, logging in is way more than I want to go through to leave a comment. This site is similar to SFBAAPS in terms of the format but I don't have to log in every time there. At SFBAAPs, I only occasionally get a log in screen (which I suspect is when something technical has has happened at the server.) I think someone who has a presence here, likes FB and knows a lot about catfish, could choose something interesting to post that has to do with catfish under your name over there. Diehard haters of FB wouldn't miss much by not seeing what's on FB, but PC could be there in an way of being an intro or referral to this site. You wouldn't have to post a lot, maybe once a week or so. Visitors will post but you wouldn't have to respond based on what I see on FB.

[Jools]

Would FB users like a daily digest of all new forum threads posted on FB every day?

Jools

[jac]

Not for me thank you.

[unblinded]

Would FB users like a daily digest of all new forum threads posted on FB every day?

Jools

Not sure if you ever got an answer to this. I use FB every day (I've got a lot of downtime on my job). However, I don't visit the planetcatfish page on FB but like once a month. I do visit this site about 20-30 times a day while browsing. Therefore, there would be no need for a user like myself to have threads updated on FB. The FB page doesn't carry much substance, IMHO. MOST FB pages have little substance and seem to be geared for the 10 second attention spans of today. I'd rather come here if I want to read the newest info on catfishes. FB is more "hit & run" info for me, whereas if I want to soak in and get deep info on a subject I check out a forum. Just my 2 cents.

[Jools]

Yeah, that makes sense to me. Forums, generally, are seeing a lot of tail off in traffic but it is mostly that "10 second" type posts. I've kind of settled (for the next year or two) on using FB to push out notifications of new images and, until FaceBook has a more forum like functionality, I won't considered doing much else.

Thanks for the input.

Jools

[JamesFish]

Hi Jools,

I don't personally use facebook and have no intention of doing so. I find its to invasive and you lose your right to anything. Not to mention the number of mindless spam tools now designed for it is unreal.

I think expanding the forum to make it more accessible is great but if someone is on a page less than a couple of seconds frequently it suggests its doing nothing ripping content.

Planet catfish has some great resources but I do find it hard to find things in or awkward to navigate. I'm not a frequent forum user never have been.

The posting to face book to say a new image or article in a section you are interested in has arrived I do think is a good idea as people don't tend to regularly check forums anymore but do get a flash update saying contents arrived.

Overall this forum works well, has very limited amounts of spam appears (Congratulations on that one) and a helpful set of admins and members. Anyone keen on catfish does belong as a member here even if its one of the humble ones.

Perhaps expanding the forums useful information would bring more people in? For example the members here have a wealth of knowledge on what cats generally get along together, suitable tank mates, special requirements and things that are hard to find (Its normally expensive learning them). Could it be possible to tap this information into a wiki? Its not a forum but would give a wealth of information that should appear in google over time and help direct members to the forum. Some of your articles already do its how I found this place.

Possible expansion could be aqua scaping with catfish given the sizes most get to its not something easy to do with some.

Hats off to the catfish of the month on the main page its given me a few looks at ones I have never seen before and a few great reads. *Dreams of giant catfish tanks*