I sent this response yesterday, but it never arrived for some unknown reason so here it is again.......Nev Gosling
Chappie, Jeff and list members: I find it strange that you would suggest a change to the forum format. Why? Because Byard introduced the forum format five or more years ago. It has been available since 2002 and no one on VFB uses it. See: http://www.virtualflybox.com/ then go to Participate and Forum! Personally, I strongly dislike the forum format and would lose interest quickly if that comes to pass. Flyangler.ca and Spey Pages both operate on the forum format but they get little input from me. I find that with Flyangler.ca I sometimes have to sign in twice to get to the section I want. i.e fly swaps & fly-tying as opposed to fly fishing. I much prefer the e-mail list and consider it more user friendly. It is the actual conversations and topics that drives a list such as this. Byard used to be more involved in the early days but we see little input from him now which is a pity. Neville (Nev) Gosling Greater Vancouver B. C. Canada -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Chapman, Chris Sent: November 13, 2007 08:57 To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [VFB] What do we need to get the list going like it used to be? Perhaps change the format from email to a forum format. I find that other forums are a lot easier to navigate different subjects. The use of emoticons makes creating messages relatively funny. I find that the VFB site is seldom updated like it was once I joined several years ago. I think online communities are transferring from pull to push - that is you go out and get involved where you want to - rather than receiving every post. I think without a format overhaul, it is difficult for new members to join. For example - if someone joins (who is familiar with forum layouts), then lets say they check their home email twice a week - as opposed to having perhaps 10 minutes a day of internet access. After participating in forums throughout the week, they then check their email and find 20 emails from VFB, perhaps covering 5-8 subjects. The freshness of these banters might be a day old. Or, if they have another 20-30 personal emails, well you know the VFB's get deleted!! Oh no!! For some of us, we are trained to the email list. I have a subfolder set up and organized with a rule that if VFB is contained in the subject - it gets moved to the FLYBOX subfolder. However, I can only get them when connected to my PC and not my Treo (not sure why). Anyway - my 2 cents. Also, I have gotten a ton of helpful information from the list. I would love to give it back. But noone is asking. We are not getting newbies on the list (perhaps the non-forum format perhaps??) I will continue to host swaps in the future.
