Personally I like the simplicity of the VFB list as it exists now. I say that as I also frequent half a dozen forums every day and it gets hard to keep up with. Running a forum takes money, time and resources, and those three things are why a lot of web sites go the way of the Dodo. Just look at the now defunct VFB web site and forum. Being a web and database developer, I have stood up several forums and have seen the problems from both sides of the fence. My TU chapter had gone through two different forum platforms that were not backwards compatible. All data was lost each change. We finally had to move servers and for practical purposes had to upgrade to yet another forum software once again. That shook loose a lot of frequent forum members, and now it barely has a pulse. In fact, since I stood up that forum, the software had gone through a major version upgrade and discontinued all support for the legacy version. I had to jump through hoops and navigate through all the code to find what I needed to move all the old posts and user accounts intact. Anything short of that would have resulted in abandonment of the whole thing. In this case, I don't think changing the VFB list to a forum would constitute a change of keeping with the times. If that were the case, the television would have killed the radio, and the Internet killed both. As long as email is a viable tool for communication, people will keep using it.
The Google Groups is free. It is fairly easy to maintain. And most importantly it works. There are many excellent and high volume fly tying forums already in existence. I frequent Flytyingforum.com and its sister forums daily and quite frankly I think it would be hard to compete with that. Scott Bearden On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 7:21 PM, Neville Gosling <nev.gosl...@shaw.ca>wrote: > Hi Tony: > > This was David Colyn's response to my original "Then & Now" > > Well said Nev. > > Have any solution to the well defined problem?? > > I sure dont............. > > .........and so I anwered him by saying what I believe and that is that > forums (or bulletin boards if you like the word better) seem to have greater > following than e-mail lists. I suggested TRYING forum style. > > I expected resistance, because people resist change because it is not > comfortable. I doubt that many VFB members have *really* looked at the > forum pages that I listed previously. > > If you go to this forum http://forum.flybc.ca/ you will come to a page of > subjects or topics - > > In this case, fly tying is fourth from the top. If one clicks on that, your > come to a page with a huge variety of more specific topics and just choose > what takes your interest. > > http://forum.flybc.ca/index.php?showforum=13 > > another good example can be found below > ** > *http://speypages.com/speyclave/showthread.php?t=38433* > > now scroll down just a little and you will com to a black screen entitled > SPTV (Spey Pages TV) > > click on the arrow in the middle of the screen, turn on your speakers and > watch a *superb video* on wader safety from Simms. > > The point I am trying (not very successfully) to make is that these modern > forums are what today's younger anglers look for because the are far more > versatile than an e-mail list and can show videos and photos with no > problem. > > Tony, you and I are friends athough we have never met in person. I have a > great deal of respect for you and for some of the other long time members. > However, to quote your words.......... > > "Like you, I just don't think a forum will be a good thing. I for one just > can't handle it." > > I believe that you could handle a forum if you wanted to, but the key is > wanting to. I like the e-mail list format but it is outdated and not as > versatile as other methods. The forum is not as intimate as an e-mail list. > Perhaps Google Wave or something like it will eventually replace e-mail. > > Just my 2 cent worth. > > Neville (Nev) Gosling > Greater Vancouver, > B.C. Canada > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VFB Mail" > group. > > To post to this group, send email to vfb-mail@googlegroups.com > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > vfb-mail-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/vfb-mail?hl=en > > VFB Mail is sponsored by Line's End Inc at http://www.linesend.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VFB Mail" group. To post to this group, send email to vfb-mail@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to vfb-mail-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/vfb-mail?hl=en VFB Mail is sponsored by Line's End Inc at http://www.linesend.com
