What's missing from the forum??

[muffin57]

Happy you made me think of a site I use to belong to and they would send me a birthday wish via email every year. It's a good idea to keep in touch with members, as it really made me feel valued, or have a sense of belonging. It's like your being missed or not forgotten.

I believe the slow down is related to the time of year in addition to FB or other forums. This is the only forum I am on and try to check it out frequently, but I do get busy with other projects or housework. People go on vacation in the winter or go away for all of winter. It is also the time that people get sick with colds, flu etc. I think the forum will pick up soon, as people start getting into or looking to order poultry. PTO is a great and informative forum. Thank for asking us for input WLLady.

[WLLady]

so we do try to send out the happy birthdays, but with the system we are using it's manual-as in I have to come here and physically check every day if there's a birthday....i'll have to see (aka get poultry_admin to see) if there's a way to automate that. We also haven't been sending them out if the person hasn't been on for over a year....so maybe we should. great idea.....
Everyone can actually see what is on the forum, even if not logged in....so they should be able to see this topic. at least when i log out i can still read lots of the forum. we do restrict some areas, and some areas are just for admin so even registered users can't see those....but those are for forum maintenance and stuff.

and yes, there are lots of genetics primers out there, but some are just way too detailed and not layman enough i think....lol. (plus its the only thing i know anything about....i'd be useless for the rest of the topics unless they're how to build a coop without a square corner in it....ha ha)

keep the ideas and comments coming! thank you everyone this is really helpful!!!!!

[baronrenfrew]

the first fact sheets (fact sheets for dummies; sometimes we're all dummies): I find that the same questions get asked by newbies: 1. what is a good incubator, or how to buy one and what to look for 2. how to run a bator with tips and tricks (OC's power backup system comes to mind) 3. good breeds to start with 4. the basic difference between production bred breeds (hatchery stock) and "pure" show quality breeds: egg production, colour differences, body size and weight, fertility etc. 5. housing needs especially winter needs; heat, providing water, other tips including pen design ideas and pics 6. how to find good birds and what to expect from kijiji 7. dealing with vermin and predators 8. common diseases/health issues and how to prevent/manage them 9. gov't rules and municipalities 10. sources and hatcheries 11. housing chickens with other species (ducks, geese, quail) etc. as chicks and adults 12. dealing with feed, table and garden scraps, moldy food

all these are covered somewhere, but its nice to edit and put them together as a guide (my best piece (if I may toot my horn) is my thread on incubators)

[baronrenfrew]

one fact sheet should be on "coloured" eggs and what is an ameraucana vs an easter egger

the dummies title is appropriate: I've kept birds 30 years and I've done so many dumb things that i'm the poster child for an intelligent dummy

fact sheet: types of poultry keepers: 1. the collector (subgroup: the exotic collector example Jim) 2. the addict 3. the professor 4. the "purist" (breeder) 5. the chef 6. the "foodie mom" (my children are eating the best and not the store bought crap) 7. the real redneck 8. the pet keeper (and all these folks should feel welcome here in our big tent)
the truth is we are all various mixes of the above "types" (and you know where you fit in above)

[Skinny rooster]

I'm having trouble connecting but that is something going on at my end. I miss the feature you used to have, something like the top five things being discussed. Other than that I will have to think about it.

[TomK]

Hi Kathy et al ....may as well weigh in on this...minimal stuff...and this is just a thought...whenever i open the page (as i rarely log off) what i see is a rather tight group of online friends more often than not talking about non poultry stuff...now, I get it, but if you are a newbie and looking for a poultry forum website and you see this it may be off putting...I don't think there's much missing if you really think about it but a lot of folks have an incredibly short attention span and never really want to read a lot at the beginning...so if thats what they see maybe they look elsewhere because it 'appears' not at all what they are seeking...aside from that, my word, but you folks do an awesome job running this thing...I don't pipe up too much but have always felt welcome ....cheers... :running-chicken:

[baronrenfrew]

well Tom, we are a small group of regulars who chat about whatever, so how do we make it easy for new folk to join in? maybe a top 15 list of threads for new folk? list of top issues for new poultry folk and the threads the answers are in?

[poultry_admin]

Thanks all for your input!
I started this in our admin discussion with sharing these two stats with the team.

This graph shows the pageviews per day from the beginning of of Dec 2015 to now. Yellow highlights are the days when we released the show results.
So although there is a seasonal effect, I am more interested in the larger underlying trend. And yes, there are TONS of forums seeing the same trend, so it's not just us. This is big question, that's why we are fishing for ideas.

This shows the time it takes to add 100 posts. So a higher number is slower action on the forum. Again, it shows the data since beginning of

The stat I don't have yet is social vs. fact posting.

Thanks for all the suggestions! I am very interested in reading what you guys have to suggest!!
If someone wants to volunteer to post some ads on kijiji, I'd be happy to share what I put up last year.

[Happy]

@poultry_admin I can pop ads up if nobody else has volunteered. Just tell me what to include.
I also want to say that I think @TomK has a very valid point. I've found it a bit intimidating myself at times. However, I have no answer for it. I really do believe though that rather than guessing why people aren't more active you really need to ask the "less" active members. I understand that the thread is visible whether logged in or not but you still need to go to the site to see it. If there is a way to ask them directly I would. One of the first things I used to do as a sales manager was quick hit exit interviews with customers. I never spoke with the folks that bought. I spoke to the ones that didn't. And my question wasn't "did you find everything ok" it was ”what didn't you find" or "what didn't we provide"

[windwalkingwolf]

I think Martin uses a program to log month by month statistics like new registrants, new posts/user participation, etc.? If so, and if it's been gathering information for at least two years it might be informative to see when slowdowns (and speed ups) occur to see if there's a pattern.
I believe that one of this board's strengths are the people in it. I do Facebook occasionally (I can't speak to other social media sites... Twitter seems geared to twits and I have no idea what Instagram is) but I much prefer checking in here. No ads and no idiots. Facebook is a business model that sells Attention Deficit Disorder to people who don't know the difference between 'their', 'there' and 'they're', and don't care, as long as they can play bubble witch and avoid any sort of real meaningful interaction with another person.
Here there is a sense of community and camaraderie, even though we are people of varying ages, very different backgrounds, skill sets, philosophies and poultry keeping goals and practices. I never feel like spending a relaxing hour (or three lol) here is a waste of time, whereas 15 minutes on Facebook often leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth and a case of insomnia. Forums there are full of people who want instant answers to everything, and aren't happy with the answers they get, and full of people who are convinced that their way is the only way. For board owners and administrators on FB, it can literally be a full-time job to just keep things civil--there are a hundred people waiting at any given second to jump down the throat of anyone with a different opinion, just for fun. Here, we generally start off from a foundation of respect, learn from our mistakes, fix it and move forward...even the disturbers that we have don't act out of malice, more like bored siblings. We try to make new members feel welcome and answer their questions, even when we've answered the questions a thousand times before.
I think passion for poultry and distaste for willful ignorance (I'm trying to be diplomatic and not say people who like their birds more than most people lol) are common denominators of everyone active here, and the questions shouldn't be "what are we doing wrong" or "how can we make the board better", but "how do we reach more people like us". We need to find ways to reach the people who are disenchanted with internet "culture", and the people who haven't yet experienced the cluster***k dopamine-orgy timesuck that social media is, or don't want to...but don't want to stay static either.
Search engines are great, but if I type in something like "what does a cross between a Silkie and a sexlink look like", 20 results will be links to BYC threads. People aren't searching for Ontario poultry forums to join and participate in, they want to know why their chicken is sneezing or how much money eggs sell for; and only a very few will stick around to contribute to conversations. The fact that this is a board that covers everything from quilting to construction, and bird lovers ranging from people just looking for somewhere to start to master breeders with thousands of birds, doesn't matter to the crowd that demands their answers in 0.3 seconds so they don't lose time away from funny cat videos, useless, feel good, special snowflake "inspirational quotes", and the never-ending, seizure-inducing barrage of flashy advertising, high-speed GIFs, and misleading clickbait.
That is not an atmosphere I would want PTO to attempt to emulate simply because it's popular and successful. I like it the way it is, we just need to find ways to reach the many that don't know we exist, and hopefully glean a few active participants along the way.
So...what can we do to encourage people to register? Really, I don't know...my best idea is to distribute flyers. Keep some in the car. How many times have I been driving, seen a backyard coop or an Eggs For Sale sign, said "Ooh, chickens!" and slowed down to see if I could get a peek at what they had? Would have been a perfect opportunity to stuff a flyer in their mailbox. That is, if Facebook hadn't ruined my powers of retention, and I could remember to print flyers. And then remember to put them in the car
Another good spot is community bulletin boards in grocery stores an corner stores.
Other than that, I think we need to increase exposure on search engines. If I type in "where to buy cochins" or "pigeon health help" or "homesteading information" (along with Ontario) or a thousand other things we discuss, PTO doesn't pop up in results at all. I have no idea if you can specify keywords so Google can find us, or if it's all automatic, but I'm sure there must be some way to get us front page without handing Goggle a wad of cash.
I apologize if I'm repeating things people have already said... it's a busy day and I started this post twelve hours ago
What about a poll with a comment box...a "how can we serve you better/what would you like to see/what do you dislike" sort of thing.. something you could e-mail a link to, or could be replied to in confidence, even by people who can't logon, or don't want to.