I have been posting on FM since back in 1999 or thereabouts. I had to change i.d a few times in various site upgrades and shakeups and took a break around the Barbel wars time when it went through lets say, a dark period. However like allot of people I think the best moment for the site was early on under Graham Marsden. The forum was vibrant and fresh and there was a sense of community to things.
Graham put allot of emphasis on people contributing articles and –importantly- he nearly always put those articles as the front headline piece when people visited the site, at least for a day or two. I think that made a huge difference. People saw their name “up in lights” on the front page so to speak rather than buried somewhere in a sub link down a page...I think it made people feel special, even just for a few hours. There was also always a link at the bottom of any article for people to discuss on the forum as well. That takes zero effort and I think should be automatically done for anything published on the site.
Graham also used to give a small incentive for anyone writing…a spool of line, a baseball cap etc. I still have -and covert- one of the very early FM caps, the Emerald green (not olive green) one, I wonder how many people remember it ! I think even a small reward as a thank you can drum up interest and costs very little. Alternatively, what about something like a bit of tackle for “article of the month?” …it could be voted for on the forum…just another way to perhaps encouragh people to contribute. I recall an amazing post by Rob the Artist about catching from 100 different rivers …that was an article to be published if I ever saw one. You could offer the man an incentive to update and resubmit it…
Another possibility could be a thread of the month prize or extending some of the good ideas already out there for example Peter Crabtrees Big Perch challenge to cover more species and so on.
Tackle reviews are always popular and I agree with allot of what has already been said and I put allot of faith into the opinions of the people on the forum when I am looking for a new item of tackle to the extent that I literally don’t even look at reviews by sponsored anglers nowadays. Perhaps we could have more in-depth reviews by forum members submitted as articles…hands up who would like to see a an in-depth comparative review of some popular rods by Sam Vimes for example? I am sure the same could be repeated by forum members for center pins, fixed spool reels, tackle bits and bobs, scales, cameras, and so on…there are some really really good anglers on the site with no commercial ties and who could perhaps be encouraged to contribute unbiased reviews for a small incentive.
Maybe the same could be done for some venue reviews ….could be tricky as no ones going to give their best fishing spot with a GPS reference but perhaps some general information on some popular rivers for example by member who know them well.
Another thing Graham put allot of emphasis on was fish ins and I think that really had a huge amount of interest from people with talk and banter for weeks before and weeks after any get together on the forum. I think that helped the community spirit too.
As for the forum itself that will always be the heartbeat of the site for me. However, it is a little unfair to try to imagine it can recapture how it was in the early days. The reason is because back then fishing forums were a new thing and when a subject was raised, it was the first time and so all these “new” ideas were coming in from different people. The trouble today is that we are 20 years on & literally, everything has been discussed. Pick a subject and there is doubtless already dozens of threads about it on forums everywhere so it becomes a little stale. That said a few things however that might help..
First I think you need to DRASTICALLY reduce the number of sub forums…there are far too many and I imagine there are some interesting discussions being missed simply because it is in a forum hardly anyone clicks on.
Second, Graham was obviously well known and was very active on the forum. I think that made a big difference to people contributing. He also used to encourage his fishing mates to contribute from time to time and we had some amazing “names” visit the site ….Gibbinson, Ball, Knowles, Miles to name just a few off the top of my head…that can’t do any harm for the sites popularity.
Anyway, that’s a few thoughts and ideas. I’ll finish by saying that I think you have made the a very good first step to all this by signing up John Bailey. I really do think his profile is absolutely spot on for a site like Fishing magic and on paper it sounds an ideal match to me. He will need a thick skin from time to time to deal with the more direct interaction that a public forum brings but hopefully both he, the site and all its members will all benefit as a result.
