• Posted 12/19/2024.
    =====================

    I am still waiting on my developer to finish up on the Classifieds Control Panel so I can use it to encourage members into becoming paying members. Google Adsense has become a real burden on the viewing of this site, but honestly it is the ONLY source of income now that keeps it afloat. I tried offering disabling the ads being viewed by paying members, but apparently that is not enough incentive. Quite frankly, Google Adsense has dropped down to where it barely brings in enough daily to match even a single paid member per day. But it still gets the bills paid. But at what cost?

    So even without the classifieds control panel being complete, I believe I am going to have to disable those Google ads completely and likely disable some options here that have been free since going to the new platform. Like classified ad bumping, member name changes, and anything else I can use to encourage this site to be supported by the members instead of the Google Adsense ads.

    But there is risk involved. I will not pay out of pocket for very long during this last ditch experimental effort. If I find that the membership does not want to support this site with memberships, then I cannot support your being able to post your classified ads here for free. No, I am not intending to start charging for your posting ads here. I will just shut the site down and that will be it. I will be done with FaunaClassifieds. I certainly don't need this, and can live the rest of my life just fine without it. If I see that no one else really wants it to survive neither, then so be it. It goes away and you all can just go elsewhere to advertise your animals and merchandise.

    Not sure when this will take place, and I don't intend to give any further warning concerning the disabling of the Google Adsense. Just as there probably won't be any warning if I decide to close down this site. You will just come here and there will be some sort of message that the site is gone, and you have a nice day.

    I have been trying to make a go of this site for a very long time. And quite frankly, I am just tired of trying. I had hoped that enough people would be willing to help me help you all have a free outlet to offer your stuff for sale. But every year I see less and less people coming to this site, much less supporting it financially. That is fine. I tried. I retired the SerpenCo business about 14 years ago, so retiring out of this business completely is not that big if a step for me, nor will it be especially painful to do. When I was in Thailand, I did not check in here for three weeks. I didn't miss it even a little bit. So if you all want it to remain, it will be in your hands. I really don't care either way.

    =====================
    Some people have indicated that finding the method to contribute is rather difficult. And I have to admit, that it is not all that obvious. So to help, here is a thread to help as a quide. How to become a contributing member of FaunaClassifieds.

    And for the record, I will be shutting down the Google Adsense ads on January 1, 2025.
  • Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

New posts in Discussion Forums

S

Socratic Monologue

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 15, 2014
Messages
1,273
Reaction score
134
Points
63
Location
Oxford, WI
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.
 
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.
 
Randall Turner said:
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.
Click to expand...
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.
 
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).
 
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?
 
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. :shrug01: 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.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top