×
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

Beginners haven note

More
15 Jan 2008 09:25 #1 by dclifford (Derek Clifford)
I think it might be worth adding a little note on the title of the beginners haven section that it might take some time for your message and replies to appear. I understand that this section needs to be monitored to stop duff information from being given to probably beginner, uninformed or even experienced people. But if somebody needs a really quick answer to an emergency then they should be aware that the beginners section might not be that quick.

Please Log in to join the conversation.

More
15 Jan 2008 12:06 #2 by JohnH (John)
Point taken, but in the defence of the Beginner's Haven section moderator, he isn't always able to access his section...however, you're right I do feel that responses should be a little more forthcoming.
to be brutally fair there are often questions asked which have been dealt with already and a bit of 'revising' on previously covered topics might well find the questioner the very answer he was looking for.
Fr Jack makes a salient point when he slates the constant 'Tank Cycling' questions...that being a perfect example.

Yet another is yesterday's question regarding Frozen Bloodworms and the feeding of same.
This issue was quite comprehensively covered last week - a small scroll around by the questioner in the Beginner's Haven section would have given him an open topic to both read and further contribute to.
It could be that some of our new members are not too familiar with computers...we all were once...but a little checking would go a long way.
Now, I realise this isn't a complete answer to your 'criticsm' but I hope it helps to put some people's reluctance to reply to already answered topics into perspective.
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.

Please Log in to join the conversation.

More
15 Jan 2008 12:57 #3 by Cardnim (Andrew Hanley)
In defense of new users not browsing around, the search function doesnt flipping work :)
And its a bit of a tall order to trawl through every other post in order to find old information (which may be out of date and replaced by some new knowledge?).

And about the Beginners Haven \"moderator\" delay thingy - that is news to me and explains why when I first joined I was frustrated at my posts not working (actually they were only delayed, but back then I thought it musnt be working so gave up)

I definately dont mean to annoy anyone, and I am not out to offend - I have only been on this site for about 5 days, and in that time I have already got some fantastic advice and loads of enjoyable reading. I also got frustration and confusion though, and surely if that can be minimised then that can only be good?

Cheers guys :lol:

Please Log in to join the conversation.

More
15 Jan 2008 13:00 #4 by dclifford (Derek Clifford)
John, I completely understand the logistics and reasons why this section might be slow. We can't expect it to be manned/womanned :laugh: 24/7.
But just a little note when the message is posted would be handy.
As I said I am only thinking about emergency situations not really for stuff like \"what fish should I buy?\".

Please Log in to join the conversation.

Time to create page: 0.049 seconds
Powered by Kunena Forum