The site has gone off the rails. It's crashing and burning. We've lost the core of what we're supposed to be as a community. I accept my due culpability in allowing this to happen; I've been happily talking about tigerfish and working on my photo contests for a long time, blissfully unaware of the problems.
MFK has survived as long as it has because it had earned a reputation as a repository of extremely high quality, reliable information. We are supposed to be the elite of the freshwater fish keeping hobby, the absolute top tier of both performance and knowledge. It has been brought to my attention that MFK has lost this reputation, and is now considered something of a joke in the greater aquarium community. I will not allow this slide into obsolescence to continue.
The main problem on this forum is now what I call "facebooking". In my eyes, this is the rapid influx of new members over the past 18 months or so as a result of our very successful social media campaign to refresh the member base. It has worked more or less; there are a ton of new and active members, the majority of whom fit right in. I love all of these rookies, y'all are wonderful.
But then there's the very small, extraordinarily vocal group who does not. These are mostly younger males who are all enthusiasm with very little knowledge to back it up. There's a common complaint being brought up to me that these new kids are giving bad info, presenting themselves as experts when they clearly are not, and generally harming the quality of content on the forum by giving advice on things they have no experience with, then arguing with experienced members when they are corrected.
This is where the problem arises. Our longer term, experienced members are growing frustrated and leaving the community en masse, which will kill this website. When our expertise leaves, we cease to be relevant, traffic will drop, and boom; bye bye MFK.
Several members keep being mentioned to me in the deluge of PMs I have received since starting to attempt to handle these issues recently:
Deadliestviper7
,
fishhead0103666
,
white specter crayfish
. I have spoken at length to all three of these members. Viper and fishhead seem to hear what I'm saying, and have affirmed that they'll get with the program. I believe them.
WSC I'm not so sure about, and has been placed on probation status until he can demonstrate the ability to play well with others.
If there are issues, report them to me. I will moderate as needed. Tonight or tomorrow, I'm going to go through in order to attempt to clean up some of the more irrational and strange threads to have popped up recently.
We as a community need to get back to our roots: keeping ]\/[onster fish, being hyper dedicated ]\/[onster keepers and helping one another learn. If one wants to present themselves as an expert without having to do any of the work required to earn that right, then run off to Tetra Forums or Facebook or something, that nonsense isn't needed here.
Time to focus MFK. It's ok to get things wrong, everyone does; but the continued intentional spread of false information on this website will not be tolerated.
MFK has survived as long as it has because it had earned a reputation as a repository of extremely high quality, reliable information. We are supposed to be the elite of the freshwater fish keeping hobby, the absolute top tier of both performance and knowledge. It has been brought to my attention that MFK has lost this reputation, and is now considered something of a joke in the greater aquarium community. I will not allow this slide into obsolescence to continue.
The main problem on this forum is now what I call "facebooking". In my eyes, this is the rapid influx of new members over the past 18 months or so as a result of our very successful social media campaign to refresh the member base. It has worked more or less; there are a ton of new and active members, the majority of whom fit right in. I love all of these rookies, y'all are wonderful.
But then there's the very small, extraordinarily vocal group who does not. These are mostly younger males who are all enthusiasm with very little knowledge to back it up. There's a common complaint being brought up to me that these new kids are giving bad info, presenting themselves as experts when they clearly are not, and generally harming the quality of content on the forum by giving advice on things they have no experience with, then arguing with experienced members when they are corrected.
This is where the problem arises. Our longer term, experienced members are growing frustrated and leaving the community en masse, which will kill this website. When our expertise leaves, we cease to be relevant, traffic will drop, and boom; bye bye MFK.
Several members keep being mentioned to me in the deluge of PMs I have received since starting to attempt to handle these issues recently:
Deadliestviper7
,
fishhead0103666
,
white specter crayfish
. I have spoken at length to all three of these members. Viper and fishhead seem to hear what I'm saying, and have affirmed that they'll get with the program. I believe them.WSC I'm not so sure about, and has been placed on probation status until he can demonstrate the ability to play well with others.
If there are issues, report them to me. I will moderate as needed. Tonight or tomorrow, I'm going to go through in order to attempt to clean up some of the more irrational and strange threads to have popped up recently.
We as a community need to get back to our roots: keeping ]\/[onster fish, being hyper dedicated ]\/[onster keepers and helping one another learn. If one wants to present themselves as an expert without having to do any of the work required to earn that right, then run off to Tetra Forums or Facebook or something, that nonsense isn't needed here.
Time to focus MFK. It's ok to get things wrong, everyone does; but the continued intentional spread of false information on this website will not be tolerated.
