Suggestion

[WanderingBlues]

Sign me up for a membership fee if funds are needed. But if it goes to advertising you can probably color me G-O-N-E. I only populate ad-free zones these days, and I happily contribute to keep them that way.

I 100% agree.

[lucfish]

Sign me up for a membership fee if funds are needed. But if it goes to advertising you can probably color me G-O-N-E. I only populate ad-free zones these days, and I happily contribute to keep them that way.

I 100% agree.

I'm with Brown Bear. Although I frequent Facebook, this forum is different, I don't really want or see a need for a private Facebook forum for addicts. I'm more inclined to donate some funds to increase your bandwidth, whatever that means. How much money are we talking about?

[Wildman]

Let me do some checking. I see what the options are.

[Image2325]

I'm not trying to kill this forum. I was just giving a suggestion...the activity on the face book page will be 10 fold what it is here. I always tell my self Im going to do a post of my recent trip...but I never do because it takes so long to upload and post. With Facebook I can catch a fish take a picture and upload it in 1 min for all the members to see off my phone. No need to find a computer. Set the page to private...and invite only for members. Let's give it a shot what would it hurt?

[WanderingBlues]

Don't worry about it; it's a worthy discussion. And regardless, there will be an FFA site.

[Ants]

The quandary between Facebook and a forum continues. I learned a lot during my ten years of forum posts ( and reading books). Facebook has been a recent activity for the last 6-8 months.

Facebook has a tendency to be vanity oriented (see the big / special / small fish I caught). Any useful information that may be posted is lost in the clutter of comments and not searchable (from my experience). The FB posts are quick and easy and the information has little value.

Forum posts have a legacy associated with them that endures and can be referenced over time. Yes, a post takes more effort, but the information has value in the future. A larger number of posts with bigger / smaller fish has no useful value.

Many times, a forum post leads to a question that is answered by a private message. My knowledge base has been increased greatly by using PMs. I am not aware of a method to make a FB question and response private. So, information that is posted in a FB forum becomes quickly more suspect (and less informative)

So, even though I don't usually carry a camera for FB post, I appreciate the results and close proximity

Ants

[NorcalBob]

the activity on the face book page will be 10 fold what it is here.

Highly doubtful. I know I won't be posting to FB. And I personally could care less about a 10 fold increase in activity/readership. One of the reasons I still post here (unlike other FF forums) is because this is a small core group of enthusiastic fly flingers that I can trust without blabbing fishing info all over the interwebs.

[Image2325]

Yes and the facebook page will be private with invited members... anyone can sign up for this forum and see all post.. but the facebook page cannot be seen by people who are not members. I do enjoy this forum and I'm not trying to take anything from it.. just trying to expand its horizons.

[Papasequoia]

I read FB less and less these days, probably because of the elections and the fake news and all the idiots, but in general I just find it kind of boring. I logon, look for posts from family, click like on a couple of stupid memes I like, wish there was a dislike button for a couple of stupid memes I don't like, then logoff. I'm not against having a FB page, but imo nothing like FB will ever come close to a real trip report with pictures and lots of narrative description posted here. Personally I find much more pleasure in reading about a trip with some accompanying pictures rather than a buttload of pictures on FB with a few descriptive sentences. But maybe that's just me and because I am (getting) old and still like to read. I would rather read The Old Man and the Sea, even without pictures of the marlin (or what's left it) rather than see several pictures of a huge marlin. I would click on the FB page if it were there, but I wouldn't spend much time with it. Again though, that may just be me.

I need to have a Volcano Party in the spring where the focus is on loading pics to Photobucket - I don't really find it that hard. It's not as easy as uploading to FB of course, but it only takes a few minutes. I spend hours writing most of my reports in Word, then it's a simple copy /paste links operation from PB to place the pics where I want in the report. Then it's just copy/paste the Word doc into a post here.

Btw, it's cold and windy in Mammoth right now with rain and snow on the way tonight and tomorrow. The Michigan game just started and the fishing reports from local streams are hit or miss with (big surprise) low flows. I'm staying in and then going for a hike before dinner with the wife, then a bottle of wine and a fire. Should I feel guilty for not going fishing?

[midger]

Like most posting here, I find FB boring and too much crap about things I care little about. I also don't find photobucket that difficult to use, but then, I'm not posting much these days and I am rarely taking pictures of any fish caught. I haven't even taken a camera out the past couple of trips.

I do enjoy the reports from Luc, Papa, Ants, and others who take the time to put together nice write-ups. Their fish pictures are nice, but I enjoy the text more and that helps me live vicariously through their words.

I don't know if a FB page would be a good or bad thing, but either way, I probably wouldn't use it.

BTW, Papa, you should've went fishing................

[WanderingBlues]

There's now a private FB group that can only be seen or accessed by those who are currently on FFA. I sent invites to those FFA members on my FB friend list. Anyone who accepted can, in turn, invite folks from their friend list who are FFA members. So, for instance, I invited Ryan, but he'd have to invite Ray as he's not on my friend list.

Is it for everyone? Clearly not, and I doubt it will impact the site at all. Again, it's for current FFA members only, so the group shall follow the site's rules of decorum as originally set up by Craig, and continued by Jim, myself, Jon, Stanbery, Ray, and Darrin as owners/moderators.

As to photobucket, as an on-the-road poster who rarely gets wifi, it becomes difficult to upload and subsequently copy from the site. As Mrs Blues will attest, I've ignored her for as long as an hour to post a few photos and descriptive lines. It doesn't mean I'm abandoning the site. I've got over 4000 posts of investment here, and more so, life long friendships I'll never leave.

So, if you'd like, the private group is Fly Fishing Addicts Facebook Group. You'll need to friend me, or one of the existing members to join. And for those that don't know, my real name is Curtis Bayer.

If you're not behind it, THAT'S OK! This isn't the presidential election and there's no winners or losers in this.

[rayfound]

Facebook is absolutely garbage for meaningful conversation. HST uses Facebook to surface interesting forum posts, and outreach, but not to replace the discussion. That seems to work OK.

[Ants]

Hi Wanderingblues,

I re-read your details on a private FB page for FFA members. That seems to have a lot of appeal, but I am concerned about the actions that Facebook will automatically implement.

If I become a friend, I am tied into your other 622 friends. Facebook will gladly refer all their posts to my computer. If there is a way to stop some of that action, I don't know how to set those settings.

While I would welcome another option for the FFA members, I am cautious until I figure out if I can control.

As a background, I have used FB for a small group of family and other limited activities. For all the posts I enjoy, there are at least 2-3 times as much stuff that I have to scroll past. I don't want to spend a lot of time on the computer, but I enjoy computer time that meets my desires.

Still thinking about it......

Ants

[NorcalBob]

<<<If I become a friend, I am tied into your other 622 friends. Facebook will gladly refer all their posts to my computer. If there is a way to stop some of that action, I don't know how to set those settings.>>>
I have the same concern. I've joined up on the FFA FB page, but I'm getting FB bombed by all the "Friends" and "Friends of Friends". Not really interested in scrolling through tons of "Friends" just to see FFA members posts. FB sounds like it might be a good idea, but in actual workings...........

[WanderingBlues]

<<<If I become a friend, I am tied into your other 622 friends. Facebook will gladly refer all their posts to my computer. If there is a way to stop some of that action, I don't know how to set those settings.>>>
I have the same concern. I've joined up on the FFA FB page, but I'm getting FB bombed by all the "Friends" and "Friends of Friends". Not really interested in scrolling through tons of "Friends" just to see FFA members posts. FB sounds like it might be a good idea, but in actual workings...........

There are mechanisms in the privacy settings to prevent all that. Additionally, if you friend me and don't want to see my posts, you don't even have to. Just click the 'unfollow' button.

Thus far, the private page is good. For lack of a better term, it's FFA-Light. You can throw up a bit of content that you might not feel would be full post worthy on FFA, put up a good beer/food shot, or whatever.

BTW, that Imgur site for photo hosting is sweet. And, we (the moderators and Jim) are actively exploring direct photo load to FFA as a means to streamline the process. That being said, there's a communal obligation, IMHO, that when someone puts up some content, take the time to leave a comment. After all, it's a forum. And with no discourse, it's nothing.