Influx of New Members Lately

[BLUEWATER]

Count me in.  I'm a master lurker but I do find solace

and friendship in this forum.

[ColdWaterFshr]

I'm a master lurker, and occasional poster, and  . . . . . a long-time trouble maker.  Love this site (thanks, Phil), . . .but I would not go to the hassle to sign up and pay.  Sorry.  Its a forum.  Post up your adventures, reveal your fishing spots and techniques as much as you want and feel comfortable doing.  Be discreet, be friendly, make friends, share privately.  Whats the problem??

 

[trythisonemv]

Id be sad to see an open forum such as this become a boys club where in this day and age any place welcoming of new folks with out monetary gain are few and far between. Maybe make some of the forums for members who post as much as they lurk and view... I'm cheap 😆

[Phil Lilley]

I would point out that alot of you have said they won't post here because ANYONE and EVERYONE can be in the background "lurking" and take that valuable info and take advantage of it. 

That's basically what Facebook is... free and open to anyone.  There's no difference between a group on FB and OAF.

[tjm]

Phil, several forums that I've been on have a semi-private (sub?) forum such as "the lodge" or "the underground" or "back room"  that is only visible to logged in  members and  a few require that posts on certain subjects only be posted in those "private" areas. This seems to keep certain items out of "public" view. Other forums have gone even farther by requiring a pass word and log in, similar to your political experiment. I really don't believe there is any expectation of privacy anywhere on the internet or if you carry a cell phone. 

One forum several years ago did try the "members only" to see everything and it died from it. In a short time the only people that logged in were the same 6-7.  When a forum is set to only allow logged in members to view,  it means the members that might log in to post but might not log in to skim others posts to see if anything is of interest, simply stopped browsing the forum.

Doesn't ad revenue work on total traffic/number of clicks rather than number of posts? I think it's pretty obvious that an "invisible" forum that  one must join to see what he has joined won't attract much traffic. There are a great many FB "groups" that might be of interest to me that I never tried to join just because until you join you have no idea who or what it's all about.

I thought getting new members was a good thing?

[Phil Lilley]

7 minutes ago, tjm said:

Phil, several forums that I've been on have a semi-private (sub?) forum such as "the lodge" or "the underground" or "back room"  that is only visible to logged in  members and  a few require that posts on certain subjects only be posted in those "private" areas. This seems to keep certain items out of "public" view. Other forums have gone even farther by requiring a pass word and log in, similar to your political experiment. I really don't believe there is any expectation of privacy anywhere on the internet or if you carry a cell phone. 

One forum several years ago did try the "members only" to see everything and it died from it. In a short time the only people that logged in were the same 6-7.  When a forum is set to only allow logged in members to view,  it means the members that might log in to post but might not log in to skim others posts to see if anything is of interest, simply stopped browsing the forum.

Doesn't ad revenue work on total traffic/number of clicks rather than number of posts? I think it's pretty obvious that an "invisible" forum that  one must join to see what he has joined won't attract much traffic. There are a great many FB "groups" that might be of interest to me that I never tried to join just because until you join you have no idea who or what it's all about.

I thought getting new members was a good thing?

I'm just throwing this out there for discussion.  I'm certainly not going to change anything without knowing for certain the outcome.  I feel the same way about closing it to members only... it will die.

I found the way to choke down the ads, restrict them so that hopefully no undesirable ads appear.  But it's cut my revenue by 85%.

[Phil Lilley]

We've had 19 new members register so far this month.

[tjm]

 Does summer usually bring out new members? 

Are some/most of the new members posting? maybe they joined just to see if members have a private den that they can harvest info from, I saw a post on another forum recently questioning if we could detect and identify AI posts on fly fishing, makes one think I  guess. 

[Al Agnew]

I have no idea what the answer is.  Anything that makes it more inconvenient to visit and post will run off potential members, whether it be paying a few dollars a year or having to sign in every time.  I'm active in a bunch of Facebook groups but only because the forums I belong to are just not active enough to make me spend the whole evening on them; I hate the Facebook format.  But I don't understand the lack of participation in the forums anymore.  On River Smallies when it was still forums and not a Facebook group, people were saying that there just wasn't much new to talk about anymore, that it had all been covered dozens of times.  I always said that I didn't care; that there were always supposed to be new people who hadn't seen it covered, and not only that but my opinions and outlooks changed over the years, so the post I would put up now on a given question might be different from what I put up on it five years ago.  And besides, I just love talking (or typing) about fishing!  But apparently a lot of people aren't the same as I am.

[Phil Lilley]

1 hour ago, Al Agnew said:

I have no idea what the answer is.  Anything that makes it more inconvenient to visit and post will run off potential members, whether it be paying a few dollars a year or having to sign in every time.  I'm active in a bunch of Facebook groups but only because the forums I belong to are just not active enough to make me spend the whole evening on them; I hate the Facebook format.  But I don't understand the lack of participation in the forums anymore.  On River Smallies when it was still forums and not a Facebook group, people were saying that there just wasn't much new to talk about anymore, that it had all been covered dozens of times.  I always said that I didn't care; that there were always supposed to be new people who hadn't seen it covered, and not only that but my opinions and outlooks changed over the years, so the post I would put up now on a given question might be different from what I put up on it five years ago.  And besides, I just love talking (or typing) about fishing!  But apparently a lot of people aren't the same as I am.

That reminds me, Al.  We still need to get together sometime... on the court!  Need to make that happen.