Did Facebook kill the Maast website?

[leliataylor]

I agree with Zack.

One thing I have noticed on a different website, that I am a administrator and moderator for, is many people will register and read posts, however they are reluctant to post new topics or reply to existing posts. I have seen people that register and make their first post 2-3 years later. Often times their first post is in Emergency or Disease & Treatment. Once they find out the moderator team is here to help they loose their inhibitions and begin posting new topics. External factors that we have no control over also impact posting. We saw a significant reduction in posts in 2008 when the US economy deteriorated and a reduction in posts when a Cat 5 typhoon decimated the seahorse propagation facilities in Southeast Asia (no more cheap seahorses). Another factor is the amount of time it takes to put a post together, especially if you have other obligations.

I will say one of the things I love about our meetings is being able to talk with other people in the hobby, learn new things and bounce ideas around. Nobody has exactly the same tank setup and it is fun to see their tanks and learn what they do to be successful.

[Justin]

The issue I see is that the digital landscape has changed quite a bit over the past couple of years. Where before, the only way to get information on the hobby was from either books, fellow local reefers and local fish stores. This was the high times for forum groups as it was a place to archive everyone's thoughts and processes from all over the country or world into one easy to find location, a forum. With the rise of Facebook and other instant media outlets, folks just seem to find it easier to quickly put a blast out there and get a response fairly quickly.

The problem I have found with Facebook is what someone already mentioned, its difficult to watch/read the journey of a particular reef or a solution to a problem. Once a post is up on FB, it is quickly buried under the multitude of other posts, whether they be helpful and impactful or not. I think this is where the concept of the forum can really excel and what I strive to do in my own personal thread. I try to document my "journey" in this hobby by showing folks where my research leads me and my own test/ implementation of my findings. Unfortunately, it takes time to jot down your thoughts and record this journey and that is something a lot of folks just don't have the time or inclination to do.

The solution I think is a rather simple one, we just need to draw the attention of our users to create more posts or at least respond to threads that are active on the site. I have seen Reef2Reef do this with some overall success. ReefCentral is just way too large but there are always folks willing to create a thread and others willing to add their thoughts to the threads. If everyone can make it a point to just create a quick posts asking for input or thoughts on a particular topic, it will do a lot toward drawing our members to want to post.