Facebook is where most of our users are

[rouble]

Facebook and other centralized social platforms such as Discord have dried up the user base of most independent forums like this one.

If you'd like to engage with other club members you're encouraged to join our Facebook group found here: https://facebook.com/groups/ArkansasCanoeClub

[224]

I remember the days when this forum was filled with paddling trip reports during the wet season locally and with reports for western and eastern rivers during the drier times here. On weekends that the Mulberry was up, "Ten At The Bend" was a thing where anybody interested in paddling would just show up at Turner Bend around 10 AM and everyone would work out a plan. In the off-season, there were funny posts and stories, observations, and witty banter from the likes of Kenny Peerson (RIP), Davidbob, and many others plus the antics of the Red Boat Fleet and Team Stupid.

I never see any of that on Facebook, I don't think the Facebook format is conducive to it but I also think that the social inclinations of younger paddlers is different. It seems that Whitewater School is well-attended every year but I have no idea how new paddlers continue after that. I imagine that everyone now just has a private circle of friends they paddle with but I don't know how (or if) new paddlers break into those groups.

There's a Japanese phrase, "mono no aware" that roughly translates into melancholy about the impermanence of things and that's often what I feel thinking about the ACC message board of the past and the ACC in general, sadness that things aren't like they used to be. Nonetheless, I'm happy that I got to experience some of the "good old days".

People change, times change, technology changes but the rivers just keep rollin' along...

[okieboater]

I agree.

Where is every one.?

I remember also that this board used to be the place where trips were setup, gear was sold and trip reports were made.

Not any more. I looked today and only bots were signed on.

For a lot of reasons I am not and doubt if I ever will be a facebook regular member.

Sad to see this message board go away but looks to me like it is no more.

Appreciate keeping it open, who knows it might get used one of these days.

dave

[joneyjerrs]

It's very ironic that I'm seeing this topic, as I was going to this board to speak about this very thing. If I'm being frank about the situation, I believe that the issue lies in the ACC site itself. It can be very difficult for users to do simple things. Here are some things that I have noticed over my time in the club in terms of the ACC website. Maybe I'm wrong about some things, but to me if its not very easy to find things and do some of the things I'm mentioning below, perhaps that can be a contributor to the issue of it being "quiet" on the site.

1) The forum is not easily found on the site, and requires a totally separate login from the main site. The site itself can be a bit confusing in this regard. New users who might be interested in joining the club could totally decide not to because they can't even understand simple things like where to go to sign in to the site.
2) The calendar is empty, typically containing very little to no information on upcoming cleanups, floats and the like. Perhaps if individuals were given a way to publish their upcoming events on the site by emailing a specific member with privileges to add such things, the calendar might suddenly start showing things that people can attend. This would grow the club's participation and increase excitement about being a member.
3) The club feels "separated". We are one club. Operating each chapter individually online creates a disconnect. For example: I live in DFW, but I have lived in Southwest Arkansas, Central Arkansas, and Northwest Arkansas. I have friends in each region. Thus, there should be an easier way to consolidate conversations so that users aren't having to go to multiple sites and multiple sub sites in order to "maybe" find people that they want to chat with. Right now, the club is using Facebook, Meetup, and the ACC sites. Can't this be consolidated, and have Facebook and Meetup reference the ACC site for communications of events, and discussions between club members? I dont think Meetup is an appropriate place to have to go to find out things that should be posted here.
4) Friendships are an important part of any club. Thus, there should be a way to communicate with members individually via an IM on the site or something.

I think that if some of these issues are addressed, there will be a great increase in this site's usage! I love this club, and want it to prosper, so please dont take this as a hateful post, but as a post with some constructive criticism.

[rouble]

The forum is not easily found on the site

That's a fair point and I'll get that fixed, however even when the forum link was front and center on the home page we were only getting posts every couple months. Often it would be new users posting questions or looking to meet people and getting no replies. It had been like that for years before the site redesign.

requires a totally separate login from the main site

While not impossible to do, it would require significant time and/or money to implement the ability to sign into the forum using the membership account system. Either a plugin would need to be developed for the current forum software, or we'd need to migrate the forum to different software where a plugin already exists.

The calendar is empty, typically containing very little to no information on upcoming cleanups, floats and the like

A solution to this has been on my todo list for a while, I just haven't had the time to do it yet and will need chapter leadership to participate.

Right now, the club is using Facebook, Meetup, and the ACC sites

I wasn't aware Meetup was being used in any official capacity. The overall club does not have an official account as far as I'm aware but individual chapters may be using it. Chapter leaders have a lot of freedom to choose how to engage with their members. I would hope they'd be using whichever method reaches most of their active members. What works best for the overall club may not be the best option at the chapter level.


Centralized social media platforms are destroying hobby forums the same way Walmart destroyed mom and pop businesses. It's much less effort for a user to just log into Facebook and have access to all their interests instead of visiting a dozen different dedicated forum websites each with separate logins (not to mention Facebook is designed to be addictive). This isn't an issue unique to us and I don't know if anything we can do would result in more than a couple posts a month. When I first took over the webmaster role we were still trying to cross post events from Facebook to the forum. We did this for a few years but didn't get any engagement with the forum posts, and eventually leadership quit trying.

If anyone wants to float the idea of attempting to modernize the forum during the whitewater school board meeting I'd be happy to support it if there's interest from the club as a whole. From my perspective we had maybe 5-10 active forum users for the last 10 years so it hasn't made much sense to spend a ton of time on anything other than maintenance.