when we had region section before it was pretty slow. maybe thats why they took it out? i dont know. even when we had it. people still post on the regular market place. reason, cuz i think the regular market forum had more traffic so people rather go there. even tho its the same amount of people buying and selling. but its the traffic that attracts people. for the longest time before i didnt even know we had regions. like for example, the vendor section, its pretty slow. you still see people on the regular market forum posting WTB fish that the vendors on here has but they dont even know about so they post on the regular marketplace. but this site had died down a lot now in general as far as activities.
MFK now has to compete with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.
It is up to each individual MFKer to make our favorite site more appealing by posting interesting and useful and user-friendly content. Don't count on others to do it.
If 90%+ of what you do (I don't mean you in particular) is post one-two liners unburdened by any usefulness to anyone else but with who you are having an SMS-type exchange, and even to them only for half a second, then we won't get new members that way. It's too much fluff.
People respect helpfulness and usefulness in the first and foremost place because our hobby is relatively very high tech, high knowledge, and demanding. That makes them want to join and stay and grow and be a part of something significant.
If you wanna be a part of a great texting community, join Twitter, or Yelper, or Whiner, or Crapper, whatever.
I am not for all work and no fun but work must be 90% and 10% is for fun or some such balance.
For many years I have been trying to put a suggestion in the box that I think we must have and enforce the forum rule that
no trivial content is welcome in most threads, where serious things are being discussed and which threads are likely to be used in the future for homework by countless peers. Like "Thank you" or "Oh, that's great!" or "What's wrong with you?", etc.
Moreover, I have been suggesting for years that we should have a user-friendly knowledge-and-experience-based database describing first hand experience of owning such and such fish. This is the foundation on which you can have all the bells and whistles you want but without it you have NOTHING.
The goal is, say, a new comer comes into MFK because they are googling what to expect when one keeps a SA redtail catfish. Boom! MFK has a section "SA RTC" where over years MFKers have accumulated a 100 or a 1000 threads about their personal experience of keeping the RTC and not just any threads! These threads are interesting, abound in visuals, and are to the point, not diluted by fluff, flamings, or arguing, and they are followed through from fish purchase to fish demise and everything in between, and all is analyzed and conclusions are drawn.
Everyone is vexed to spend 5-8 hours out of 10 homework hours looking for the right threads and then sifting through the threads for the nuggets of usefulness. No one want to do it! And who would blame them? Such homework is disheartening.
Imagine having such a collection for most fish most of us keep?! There'd be no value to it. Each of us today could benefit greatly from it. Everyone in the world who does any homework or even just a quick search will know it. That'd be an eternal temple built on solid foundation.
To it, one can fasten a MarketPlace, Lounge, etc. whatever they want, and whatever they hang on it will thrive. Why? Because of the foundation. Because of the interest and traffic it creates.
Without it, it has nothing to offer and is destined to slowly die off into oblivion like waterwolves etc.
EDIT: and this may not require much or any programming. A lot of this can be started to get accomplished today simply through our agreement, goodwill, and fair policing... self-policing in the first place - ask yourself if you care about MFK - am I about to bring a value to the MFK by typing what I am typing? Am I being helpful and useful? Remember the wisdom: GIGO.
Garbage in. Garbage out.
