Andreas Wistuba Posted March 23, 2014 Report Share Posted March 23, 2014 Hello all, While I am happy that the forum has established nicely and you already can find information and pictures of plants you can find nowhere else in the whole web, statistics also show that all postings except for personal introductions come from roughly 10 members. Please don't be shy Many of you grow ant plants. Please share your knowledge, experience and pictures of your plants. It's not only pictures of plants in habitat that make this forum a valuable institution. In order to make this a place that will thrive for a long time we really need more active contributors. Also, the membership count stays fairly stable. Most of the new members that appeared over the last 2 weeks or so were removed again after showing their "real face" being spam robots... Please advertise among your plant-friends and tell them about this forum. We need more "real members". All the best Andreas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derrick Posted March 30, 2014 Report Share Posted March 30, 2014 There are pluses and minuses for both groups. Time will tell if this group can outlast Facebook. I do wonder how soon it will be when members become far more demanding of what they want from images and Facebook goes the way of Yahoo. The Facebook myrmecophyte group is still growing rapidly having 219 members as I write but many are members of so many other groups they tend not to become truly part of our (or any?) Internet community. Furthermore, they are perhaps far too generalist in their interests and seem insufficiently specialized to be able to add much to our 'conversations' yet those that are also members of other groups (such as epiphytes in general, hoyas, ferns, orchids, gesneriads, cactaceae and many other possibles) can use Facebook's SHARE facility to bring to our groups attention, images of myrmecophyte interest, but it is a battle getting them to do so. Facebook provides a truly vast worldwide audience with enormously more myrmecophyte images than I would ever be able to photograph. Members most certainly can benefit from better networking. Of course having degrees of specialization does not mean one cannot also have an interest of other subjects. I certainly do. Dischidia Guy epitomizes the usefulness of specialization to our groups. We most certainly need more like him. For both groups, getting more participation will probably always be a problem. In a bid to provide a possible incentive and also to learn where members interests truly reside, my strategy from now on is to primarily respond only to members initiatives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andreas Wistuba Posted April 9, 2014 Author Report Share Posted April 9, 2014 The Facebook myrmecophyte group is still growing rapidly having 219 members as I write but many are members of so many other groups they tend not to become truly part of our (or any?) Internet community. Furthermore, they are perhaps far too generalist in their interests and seem insufficiently specialized to be able to add much to our 'conversations' yet those that are also members of other groups (such as epiphytes in general, hoyas, ferns, orchids, gesneriads, cactaceae and many other possibles) can use Facebook's SHARE facility to bring to our groups attention, images of myrmecophyte interest, but it is a battle getting them to do. Facebook provides a truly vast worldwide audience with enormously more myrmecophyte images than I would ever be able to photograph. Facebook IMHO fuels a kind of modern "Fast Food" mentality. Snipplets of information are quickly written or consumed. Browsing a few of the carnivorous plant groups on Facebook from time to time I see many people who do not even take their time to write a few words on WHAT they actually photographed or use silly abbreviations for the plants they pictured which not even insiders understand because these abbreviations were created "on the fly". Communication in some kind of "chat slang" is not my style either. A Facebook group might be a valid tool to attract people to a topic but dumping a lot of valuable data into this huge black box is a waste in my opinion. All the best Andreas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acro Posted May 3, 2014 Report Share Posted May 3, 2014 Facebook IMHO fuels a kind of modern "Fast Food" mentality. Snipplets of information are quickly written or consumed. Browsing a few of the carnivorous plant groups on Facebook from time to time I see many people who do not even take their time to write a few words on WHAT they actually photographed or use silly abbreviations for the plants they pictured which not even insiders understand because these abbreviations were created "on the fly". Communication in some kind of "chat slang" is not my style either. A Facebook group might be a valid tool to attract people to a topic but dumping a lot of valuable data into this huge black box is a waste in my opinion. All the best Andreas Agree ^ There area many reasons to avoid facebook. Also, I've noticed more and more people seem to be leaving facebook or avoid it all together (several of these are college students!). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derrick Posted May 3, 2014 Report Share Posted May 3, 2014 I must agree that there is an awful lot of lightweight trivia in Facebook plant groups (the ones I am most familiar with) but the same applies to plant forums on most other platforms which incidentally, I usually find extremely boring. Yet already we are seeing hints of the "Fast Food mentality" in this group which is an inevitable problem of ANY wide open group. However, the Facebook ant-plant group, has discouraged lazy inputs and HAS set a higher standard; something that Andreas wishes to emulate in this group, for which I wish him well. https://www.facebook.com/groups/myrmecophytes/ now has 236 members as I write and recently we have been getting an influx of Southeast Asian members which is enabling access to somewhat novel informations from an important habitat region. Most members herein are hidden behind ACROnyms, so one cannot be sure which members of the original group have also joined here; however, there have been no indications that a number of myrmecophyte experienced members have done so, certainly there have been no recognizable posts from them. Because of this and their other pluses or minuses, both platforms are offering information not available in the other. It has been claimed that forums are dependent on their members which may be true of those groups that consist largely of the blind trying to lead the blind but truly educational groups are highly dependent upon their core group of experienced members; those willing to share their time and knowledge at zero cost to learners. These are the persons that follow that famous quote "Ask not what your Forum can do for you, ask what you can do for your Forum." In summation those that truly wish to learn, need to be in both groups. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derrick Posted June 9, 2015 Report Share Posted June 9, 2015 Over the last few days we seem to have lost perhaps a dozen 'new' members that never complete validation. Are they spammers are do they not wish to supply an email address, if so, perhaps Invision should introduce a visitor only membership status. Most of our visitors are non members anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andreas Wistuba Posted June 9, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 9, 2015 Over the last few days we seem to have lost perhaps a dozen 'new' members that never complete validation. Are they spammers are do they not wish to supply an email address, if so, perhaps Invision should introduce a visitor only membership status. Most of our visitors are non members anyway. Hi Derrick, I delete such "members" from time to time. A non-validated membership is of no use anyway, since you can't log on as long as it has not been completed. I guess, most of these are spambots. All the best Andreas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcel Posted June 10, 2015 Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 People disapear allright...of the two new members I send a message about how they found us one is already gone...no reply yet from the other and no reply to Derrick's first question either by the way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derrick Posted June 14, 2015 Report Share Posted June 14, 2015 Invision obviously have little control of potential spammers. Currently there are nine of them so we are being hit far too regularly. The spammers are easy to spot; just click on the members tab followed by the new content tab. Furthermore, it seems that potential true members have blue font, while spammers have black fonts when viewed in the members/new content tabs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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