Cichlids Forums

[tim_s]

Hi,

We should consider how we present the cichlid forums.

I realise we have just grouped SA, Central ciclids with fresh water but the African cichlids go far beyond high PH infact some African Cichlids I beleive prefer soft acidic waters depending if they are Rift Lake or Riverine.

So more or less.

I was suggesting either make a group called 'Cichlids' highly vage for the volume of users.  Or use more defined definitions like African Lake Rift, Central American and South American, African Riverine etc etc.

Just thought it would help users as Cichlids have a lot of love these days.

[dan2x38]

If that is done then in the FW should it not be: Life bearers, Tetras, Temperate, Bottom Feeders, etc. & Plants: Low Light, High Light, ground Cover, Mosses, etc... See where I am going with this? Have to start drilling down to much to get to what you wanted. Then some one would say you missed there nitch...

[mseguin]

Keep in mind we created sub forums that had a very high of volume of posts on the subject, and a subject that was fairly distinct from others. We are actually trying to keep down the number of sib forums, but African Cichlids are a distinct enough area of the hobby with lots of interest in the Ottawa area. Grouping them with other cichlids makes the whole forum a bit vague.

[CrazyFish]

One thing that might help is more appropriate icons/tags that could help catergorize within a forum.  A simple example would be 3 fish icons(red/yellow/green).  Taken further you could develop icons for a large number of subgroups without making new forums.

One site that does this well is redflagdeals.  You can browse their hot deals section and then restrict topics based on what category the poster chose when they started the thread.

[mseguin]

See, I personally find all those icons irritating and confusing, but maybe that's just me.

[beowulf]

See, I personally find all those icons irritating and confusing, but maybe that's just me.

I would tend to agree.  I think we are at a good level of forums at the moment.  I mean what next, a loach forum for people like me who like loaches?  Pleco forum?  inverts (fresh and marine)? The list goes on and on I say keep it the way it is right now.

[CrazyFish]

I would tend to agree.  I think we are at a good level of forums at the moment.  I mean what next, a loach forum for people like me who like loaches?  Pleco forum?  inverts (fresh and marine)? The list goes on and on I say keep it the way it is right now.

My idea wasn't for more forums but a filter for the forums and having some new icons to help with forums that mix posts from different areas.

[gonzobluefuzz]

My idea wasn't for more forums but a filter for the forums and having some new icons to help with forums that mix posts from different areas.

Sounds like a moderators nightmare to me...... fixing all the OOPSes that abound w/ peeps not reading the FAQ/ BEFORE YOU POST sections.
Sounds excessively complicated. To the best of my knowledge the mods here are club members that are looking to learn about aquaria, interact with other members, and occasionally screen a few of the nasties (y'all know what I mean).
Mods spending their time correcting peoples tags/icons to support this proposed or a similar system would eat up alot of their free time.
please don't turn their avocation into a vocation.

just my 2 pennies

Gord

[tim_s]

Like what I was trying to do was focus on water types.  Not so much about Cichlids.

Like you have

Freshwater
Brackish
Saltwater

but then we have African Cichlids. But african cichlids they could be considered fresh but they have different requirements i.e harder 8.4PH to the lower softer waters.

We could talk about riverine and rift lakes species not just cichlids all fish from those areas and give examples of common fish from these areas.  meaning we aren't focusing on cichlids as much as fish from different types of the world.

Grouping africans can be very confusing to those who don't know this grouping can have drastically different water types.

But I am happy with the forums I was just making a suggestion at making it easy as easy is always better and I am not always right.