New posts in Discussion Forums

[Socratic Monologue]

Is there any page on the site, or area on the home page, that provides a list of the recent discussion forum posts? I like the provision on the landing/home page of the 'recent classified ads' and 'recently active BOI threads'. Is there any similar way to get a summary of the recent action on the discussion forums? I don't really contribute there since by the time I stumble on a thread that I might usefully contribute to, it has been fully discussed or enough time has passed that a reply would be less than useful.

 

[Randall Turner]

Along the top row you will find a new posts button you can click to pull up all new posts. Of course it pulls up all new posts, classifieds/boi/discussion forums so you'll have to scan through for the discussion posts.

 

[Robert Walker]

Along the top row you will find a new posts button you can click to pull up all new posts. Of course it pulls up all new posts, classifieds/boi/discussion forums so you'll have to scan through for the discussion posts.

This is the only way that I'm aware of also. If there is a more specific/direct way, I haven't found it yet.

 

[WebSlave]

I'll be quite frank about it. The discussion forums here have ALWAYS been a flop. I've tried a lot of different strategies over the years to try to get members to participate within them, none of which, obviously, have been successful. And this is WAY before the FaceBook era, so I can't blame that on this failure. The general discussion forums have just never caught on with the membership here.

So I have honestly just given up on them. Certainly not worth the effort (and cost) of putting custom programming in to specifically note new posts in each and every one of those forums. One of these days, when I feel like making the effort, I will likely even condense them greatly by combining many of the forums into a larger conglomeration, to reduce screen real estate and de-clutter the site of those basically unused discussion forums. For instance, just combine all snake related forums into a singe Snake General Discussion Forum, and lizards into a Lizard General Discussion Forum. Etc.

If, by some miracle, the general discussion forums get a lot more traffic to them, and actually start earning their keep, THEN I would consider efforts to more heavily promote them. Not before, as it gets tiresome wasting my time on fruitless efforts.

In the meantime, you can simply glance down the left hand column of the forum list, and any forums that do have new posts within them will be displayed with a suitable icon (orange colored, I believe) to alert you of the new post(s).

 

[Helenthereef]

I thought, as someone who pretty much exclusively uses the discussion forums, that I'd weigh in on this one.

While I do spend an inordinate amount of time looking at the pretty pictures of the "for sale" animals, I'm not a buyer (sorry sellers), but I do "discuss" my animals, and I think that the discussion forums have several main points of value:
1) Getting advice on health problems someone has no experience with
2) "Newbies" asking for information on appropriate animals, housing etc
3) Displaying photos of the animals the owners are most proud of (and "oohing and aahing" at them)
4) Genetics discussions, particularly at Ball Python hatching time

However, I can see that the individual forums are getting less and less active. Whether this is a shift to other social media, or the result of a crackdown on bad behaviour from some of the more vociferous (and contentious) past members I can't say.

Whatever it is, if there is a need to reduce the real estate I do think that many of the discussion forums could be consolidated, as you say, into more general topics. I have no problem discussing boas in front of cornsnake people!

To me, the essentials would be ball pythons / other snakes, geckos /other lizards, tortoises/turtles, amphibians, etc, plus veterinary, general interest, and, of course, Hell.

Maybe a poll on the forums users value most would assist?

 

[WebSlave]

I think that poll thing would not be necessary. Members are already voting by how much they participate in the discussion forums. Even the ball python discussion forum. Open up the forum and scroll down to the bottom of the page. What is the oldest thread there on the first page? That tells me all I need to know.

Honestly, I could probably just consolidate all the reptile discussion forums into one single General Reptile Discussions and be done with it.

I actually had unrealistically high hopes for the discussion forums when I started up this site. I had LOTS of reptile groups presented in their own subcategories, and within each of those subcategories even deeper subcategories, such as "Genetics", "Husbandry", Breeding Issues", etc., etc. It was an extremely complex structure I had set up, but like I said, I had very high hopes. Didn't take long for me to have those hopes dashed to the rocks, and I made severe reductions in the structure. And over the years, even further reductions and forum eliminations have taken place.

Just the way it goes, I suppose.

Hopefully things won't get to the point where there is only ONE forum on this entire site entitled simply POST HERE. I know there are some classified forums I could easily eliminate too. It's pretty easy just glancing at the LAST POST column to see which ones are stagnant and the world will not suffer their demise.