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    Google Adsense ad revenue for December, 2025 was just $30 over the cost of the lease for the server running this site. So, in effect, the money providing the incentive for me to continue running this site is coming SOLELY from the paid memberships and sponsorships here. Which honestly ain't much....

The direction of this forum.

I think thats too many sub forums, if you are looking for snows for example, just hit ctrl + F, to open the find and type in snow, the will lead you to the right posts. but then again i am from the old philosophy KISS

it would like to see them all in 1 forum, otherwise i will have too many windows open at once.
 
Chad, I had to look that word up to figure out what the @#%% You were talking about! LOL
(I may not be to bright, but I too can carry heavy things)
(up to 15lbs)

Hey Rich I really like the layout & subjects of that cornsnake site.
I think with some tweeking, and some of Chads catagories, they may just close down the K.S. form and all come over here!......................ugh...on second thought?
Just kidding!
LETS DO IT!!!
 
if your a singer the last thing you want to do is follow a better singer in a gig.

if your a nice looking Normal the last thing you want is for your picture to follow a tangerine super hypo carrot tail baldy.

catergories would allow people who want to view a specific morph the oppurtunity to with out having to shuffle through all the others...but than again...i see your point too.

either way i agree that the pictures where someone is simply showing a new animal/ proj should be divided into a subforum. and like cornsnakes.com the sub forum should challenge posters to show off what they got...not just post up the gecko that looks cutest to them when it licks its face... thats part of the reason i stopped visitng KS's gecko forum... coupled with the constent substrate and cricket questions was a barrage of poor quality pictures of NORMAL leopard geckos. sure a normal is nice (i guess) but if you've seen one...well you know the rest.
 
Let's keep this slow and easy. Let traffic warrant what we do here. I think the first step would be to mimic what I have on CornSnakes.com. If the photo section gets flooded with too many photos, then I can certainly put subcategories in there as needs dictate. But I'm afraid of going overboard and having too many forums and blowing people's minds in the process. This software has nearly unlimited capability for subforums, but there reaches a point where people are not willing to dig down to get to the forum they really should be posting in.

So I would be creating more work for myself by having to continually move incorrectly posted threads into the proper forum.

Let's wait to get more feedback first. Apparently there are still a lot of new people coming in here.

What the heck happened over at KS? I don't go over there any longer, so I don't know what goes on in that site. I feel I am distinctly unwelcomed there, but that suits me just fine. I have heard the same thing coming from people on my cornsnakes.com forums as well, so something must be up.
 
This is what I have seen at ks recently....

There seems to have been a flood of new people over kingsnake. I found that on the leo forum, there really wasn't as much talk about the animals as much as about the people's personal lives. Also, it seems that there has been an increased amount of arguing over there recently. It just got tiring. It is so much more relaxed here...:beer: :2hammers: Plus the smilies here are so much cooler....:rofl:

-Josh Zalabak
 
Like some of the others...

I don't post a whole lot, mainly just the reading and listening type.

I took one look at the KS forum quite a few months ago, actually probably about a year ago, but even then I hated it. The vbulletin setup you have here works great. Although I am a fan of PHP anyway :)

As for what I like to see.....hmm, well, the others have stated it for the most part. It would definatly be nice to sticky a care sheet up when one is available, to save a lot on questions. It will be gauranteed you will still have newbs ask questions before looking at the sheet, but nothing you can do about that really.

For a future sub catagory, one for gecko genetics would be nice. It is a bit of a pain to really find any quality info on the gecko genetics. I know there is a lot we can learn about them, especially if we post up our findings.

Keep up the great work Rich!
 
Maybe I'll set up a poll about the subforums idea later on tonight. I don't want to do something like that unless it has the support of the people who will have to look at it.

Thanks.
 
Rich,
I can go for just about anything that you would like to do. My worry is that you will get to loaded down with the moderation duties. I have been on the BOI since almost the beginning. I enjoy what you have done and think unless you want to get people to moderate specific forums then getting to many might be a problem. I think it is great you want the people here to have a say in what is done just do not overwork yourself. These are just my opinions.
 
When the time comes to add more moderators, I will do so. But I will necessarily be very picky about who I ask to do this. I have seen far too many sites completely destroyed by bad choices in moderators, and I am not about to allow that to happen here.

I want people who are genuinely interested in helping this site to grow and be something to be proud of. And I ask for everyone's help in the correct direction to go in order to accomplish that goal.

I have absolutely no illusions about being right all of the time about my own decisions.

Anyway, thanks for the kind words.
 
I think this will be my first post here :) but like many others I have said I enjoy coming here to read. I really like the "higher level" discussions. I think a few sub forums would definately be nice. The photo forum is a great addition, and the idea of a sub forum on genetics is really appealing too.
As this site grows some kind of forum for beginners would be great too. This would prevent those "higher level" discussions from getting lost it the endless questions about basic care which dominate KS.
-Alice Abela
 
First of all, I deeply give thanks to Rich for this website and forum, he is a great guy that is always looking out in our best interests.

Second, let me get back on the subject. I personally am not to fond of the idea of a whole bunch of sub-forums. Like Rich has expressed, I don't think we get enough traffic for tons of subforums, maybe the photo sub-forum, but I did like the old way of everything together in one forum a lot more. My orginal intent was for us to look at why we have come over to this forum and not get off track on what the purpose of this forum is for. My personal thoughts on this subject matter is to have this forum be catered to present subject matter that is relevant to both the newbie and the advanced hobbyist. I do not mean the same subject matter over and over, like the dang "sand vs. whatever substrate" issue. I'm tired of common sense questions, I mean, come on, read a book!!! The least you could do is search the forums, it's easy enough.
 
I was thinking about this last night before going to bed. As I said in a post above, a couple subforums might be nice, if used correctly. At the most I could only think of 4 subs that would be of use. This current one (general forum), one for the pics like you have, one for their care, and one for the scientific / biology / genetic research of the leos.

Really you could simple do as the others stated by stickying a good care sheet to the top of the general forum and eliminate the care sub forum completly, just leaving a general one, one for pics, and one for the biology aspect.

Any more than that will make things look way to cluttered, and stress and scare new people off. I have went into many forums before that just had to many sub catagories and simply passed it buy. It gives an overwhelming sense. It might be good for organizing or finding things, but that is what the search is for.
 
I am not in favor of more sub-topics . . .

. . . but I do like the picture section. That seems pretty cool. Personally I don't like the cornsnake layout - too many sub-divided sections - I guess I'm not that smart or have a short attention span.

If you were to put just one more sub-topic - I think it should be called "the Basics" - in it we should have caresheets for leos - raising mealies/caring for feeder insects - housing - rack building - basic stuff like that. Sort of a FAQ page, maybe.

Thanks for bringing this up Justyn - it's a good topic to discuss. This whole Fauna site is maturing so nicely - I am very excited for the future.

Thanks Rich!
 
direction of this forum...

Although I patronize both forums, I think that this forum has appealed to me more than KS because of the "higher level" discussions. It is refreshing and stimulating for me as a professional breeder to have a place where I can come and share more advanced ideas and information with others that are more experienced in breeding/keeping leos. I feel it is important for me to continue learning, and not just give information all the time!

I am a sponsor for the KS Leopard Gecko Forum, because I truly feel that newbies need a place where they can openly ask beginner questions and discuss the more basic topics of their leopard gecko's care, feeding, husbandry, and first-time breeding projects. I do get frustrated over there at times because I am weary of substrate arguments and crickets vs. mealworm questions. Many of these newbies would rather have the interaction of forum conversations than to read a care sheet, but even if they do read them, there is so much conflicting information that they need a forum that will let them address and debate those conflicts.

This takes me to the topic of a care sheet on this forum... which I think is a great idea. The problems that might arise might be agreeing on the content of the care sheet, who will author it, and especially... getting people to utilize it! I have found this to be a problem on my own website, where I get bombed with email and phone calls from people with basic care questions which are all answered in my caresheet. Of course, I kindly 'suggest' they find that information there, but sometimes I feel like saying, "If the answer can be found in my caresheet, or the obvious answer is 'take it to a vet', then why are you asking me the questions?"

In regard to the sub-forums, I am not too big on the idea of a whole bunch of sub-forums, either. I think that would over-complicate the purpose and may even discourage people from posting because of the "gee, where am I supposed to post this" or "this is way too much trouble to navigate through" or 'where in the heck am I?' issues.

I really like the idea of the photo forum and sharing pictures of our sweeties, though! I personally have no problem at all looking at QUOTE "a barrage of poor quality pictures of NORMAL leopard geckos. sure a normal is nice (i guess) but if you've seen one...well you know the rest." People LOVE their geckos, and like showing off pictures of them... kind of like a parent's 'brag-book!' I enjoy seeing them, too.

In summary, I would like to see this forum provide subject matter that is relevant to both the newbie and the advanced hobbyist, too... without having to deal with FAQ's, popularity contests, and trying to decipher coded 'computer ebonics'.
 
On the topic of subforums, I would like to note here that I have had the subforum structure on cornsnakes.com for quite a long time, and it is a truly rare event to have someone post a message in an inappropriate subforum. There are times when a post might be appropriate in multiple subforums, however, so yes, there is sometimes a decision to make as to which one would be MOST appropriate. But generally there is no harm done when this happens.

My opinion is that the easier you make it for people to find the answer to their particular question, the more likely they are to seek out that info before just posting the same question anew that has been asked over and over again. While this sort of thing is certainly beneficial to get the traffic stats up on a website, it can be extremely frustrating for the readers to have to put up with this over and over again.

Let's face it, if a person has to wade through one large forum and ALL of the posts in it to try to find quick answers about the gecko eggs that just got laid, they probably are not going to do it and will just post their question with a token preliminary stab at finding the answer. However, if there is a subforum exclusively for breeding and egg-laying issues, there is a real good chance that this person will even READ most of the posts in there, since it will be at least close to the topic at hand, and certainly of interest one way or the other.

From the start, I wanted this site to be a repository of information and a source of answers to questions being asked. Not just a place where people hang out and chat. There can certainly be a general purpose subforum for that freeform talk, but I really think that better use of this site is served if people find value in the information being presented. But the best information in the world is useless unless you can find it when you need it.

Personally, I do not believe that the level of web savy and intelligence in this forum is less than the people who frequent the cornsnakes.com forums, so I do believe that once traffic has reached the level where new postings just NEED to be segregated, the subforum structure will ultimately prove beneficial in this respect.

But I do not believe we are quite there yet. In time, maybe we will get there, so there is no rush on my part to go that route at this time.
 
Well, I guess it's due time, might need to add a sub-forum or two. Maybe one for off-topic posts (I have a gut feeling we might need this, as much as I don't want to), another for morphs/genetics, and another for husbandry issues? What does everyone else think?
 
I think it's good the way it is.
We can go to the Leopard forum or the picture forum.
Very hard to get lost within all the sub-forums.
 
I agree with Justyn...I think it's a good idea to have subforums within the leopard gecko forum...especially an off topic subforum...many users may want to share personal information (birthdays, new pets that aren't leos, deaths, etc.), and I know that off-topic posts are a source of argument on KS...and people don't use the general discussion forum because they want to share info with the people they know...and not people that they've never spoken to before. I think an OT subforum is an excellent idea. I also think the other two topics Justyn suggested are good...as well as perhaps a breeding subforum, new owners subforum, and health problem subforum?
 
originally i thought the idea of sub forums was a great idea.

than i would be able to basically go to a sub forum by catergory and read the threads that were about what intrests me most (like genetics and morphs).

but than i figure we might be spreading everyone out to much. the subforums would seem lonely with only a few posts in each sub forum.

i no longer feel its a good idea.
 
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