Retirement and forum shutdown (17 Jan 2022)
Hi,
John Howell who has managed the forum for years is getting on and wishes to retire from the role of managing it.
Over the years, he has managed the forum through good days and bad days and he has always been fair.
He has managed to bring his passion for fish keeping to the forum and keep it going for so long.
I wish to thank John for his hard work in keeping the forum going.
With John wishing to "retire" from the role of managing the forum and the forum receiving very little traffic, I think we must agree that forum has come to a natural conclusion and it's time to put it to rest.
I am proposing that the forum be made read-only from March 2022 onwards and that no new users or content be created. The website is still registered for several more years, so the content will still be accessible but no new topics or replies will be allowed.
If there is interest from the ITFS or other fish keeping clubs, we may redirect traffic to them or to a Facebook group but will not actively manage it.
I'd like to thank everyone over the years who helped with forum, posted a reply, started a new topic, ask a question and helped a newbie in fish keeping. And thank you to the sponsors who helped us along the away. Hopefully it made the hobby stronger.
I'd especially like to thank John Howell and Valerie Rousseau for all of their contributions, without them the forum would have never been has successful.
Thank you
Darragh Sherwin
splitrting the for sale section
- john gannon (john gannon)
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john
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- derek (Derek Doyle)
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just wondering if the for sale section was split into dry goods and fish
john
crikey john, double them, we'ed have nothing else at all if that was to happen.
30 tanks specialise in african cichlids, angelfish and various catfish
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- JohnH (John)
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John

Location:
N. Tipp
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl - year after year.
ITFS member.
It's a long way to Tipperary.
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- Valerie (Valerie)
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What do the users say ?
Thanks - Valerie
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- john gannon (john gannon)
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- Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
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As for moving the dry goods to the social and rubbish,while in theory its sounds ok, I just think very few people ever visit the social and rubbish..I know I certainly dont. What do others think?
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- DJK (David Kinsella)
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I've noticed with 1 or 2 of the vendors here that they state that they're not really on the forum that much and request that replies should be sent by PM or phone only. This is a great idea in my opinion for it cuts out the likes of:
1. PM Sent
2. PM back at ya!
3. Is this still for sale?
4. I'll take the external if you're willing to split
5. What are the dimensions?
6. T5s or T8s?
7. Any pics?
and loads more..
If vendors are encouraged to state (please contact by PM and/or phone only) in their original post it will cut out most of this crappy traffic. The onus will be then on the vendor to either edit their original post or bump it by adding more information eg 'everything gone apart from filter'
My reasoning is that more vendors check their e-mails everyday as opposed to checking their for sale thread on the Forum itself considering they probably have the items(s) up for sale on numerous sites!!
Dave
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- derek (Derek Doyle)
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my bugbear is the trolls who never post info or contribute to fishkeeping topics, but hang about ready to pounce on any possibility of a quick bargain or who just appear now and again to sell some crappy stuff.
i probably produce more fish than most but rarely if ever, (because i only like my precious babies to go to good homes

one of the lads told me he posted a for sale ad and got no response till he added the word "free" to his heading and then was inundated with pms.

anyway look forward to hearing more viewpoints.
30 tanks specialise in african cichlids, angelfish and various catfish
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- john gannon (john gannon)
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- Valerie (Valerie)
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Both this particular section on the front page and the category in the forum are only visible to registered users and logged on the forum.
I have no objection to changing things further. This was what appeared to be the best solution at the time.
Valerie

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- Jim (Jim Lawlor)
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The solution is a bit of a double edged sword - if you take the "For sale" posts off the top page, then it disadvatages the sellers (and maybe the buyers). If you leave them on, its look a bit more like Buy and Sell than a fish forum.
But either way, I don't think there's any benefit to splitting dry goods / livestock.
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