So what do I need to do....

Shaggy · Mar 26, 2020

To get most of you back posting here again? I took over the site about a year ago and what to get this site up and active again. I plan on sending out emails trying to let everyone know that we are still here, and that I hope to get this forum active again. I know it won't be as active as it was in the past, due to life changes, FB, IG, and other social media sites, but I know we can get some activity back!

So let me know what you think I need to do to get this place active again. Would love to hear your ideas!

jordanr · Mar 26, 2020

Facebook seems like tough competition. What can we get here that we cannot on Facebook is an important question. A better sense of community.? A place where we trust the responses come from more knowledgeable respondents? These would be nice.

Shaggy · Mar 26, 2020

jordanr said:

I don't know how Facebook groups go in the dog world, but most I have ever been on have been nothing but political bs, crappy answers, or just so offtopic that good posts get lost.

So yes, more of a community type feel is what forums do and I'd like to hopefully get this site back to that community feel. Just need members to posts and be active again. Members are what make the forums.

ACooper · Mar 26, 2020

I wish I had anything to offer, but I'm fairly sure this ship has sailed

RosanaHart · Mar 26, 2020

I really don't know but with people home more now, it seems like a good time to explore forms of community.

Shaggy · Mar 26, 2020

ACooper said:

You still have dogs? If so what do you have?

So why did you stop coming? The only way forums die out are that members decide not to come and post anymore. Why did that stop here? What's to stop you to keep coming back and posting here now? If there was some activity, some reason to post, would you?

Shaggy · Mar 26, 2020

RosanaHart said:

So what type of animals are you hanging out with in quarantine.

yellowdog5 · Mar 26, 2020

It used to be wonderful, I was really disappointed after being gone for a couple of years that no one is here anymore. Maybe look on Facebook for some of the old people, and others who look like they would contribute, and invite them to the forum?

Brattina88 · Mar 26, 2020

I agree with Coop, I think this ship has sailed. We had a similar thread 4 years ago https://www.chazhound.com/index.php?threads/what-happened.281439/
FB is much easier to navigate and I’m in some pretty awesome groups that are nicely moderated by members who I actually met on here. Great community feel and more personal. I think a majority of OG members have “outgrown” this place, for lack of a better word.
The ads on the forum are very cumbersome. It makes it difficult to load fully and then navigate on my phone and I don’t even have a laptop anymore.

Shaggy · Mar 26, 2020

Brattina88 said:

Totally understand and I know it will be hard to compete with FB if you are in good groups, but with all your activity you had on here, almost 13k posts, what made you stop posting and being active? Old owners, convenience of FB, everyone else leaving? What caused you to jump ship in the first place. I am always curious on how things develop for members when the forum they were on was so active at one point, then then to stop coming all together.

BTW, thanks for coming back and posting such a great response!

Shaggy · Mar 26, 2020

yellowdog5 said:

Seeing all the great activity that was once on here is cool to see. What caused you to stop coming? Just not enough activity to stay?

RosanaHart · Mar 26, 2020

Shaggy said:

An 8 year old dog, a 3 three year old dog, a bossy 15 year old cat, and a marvelous husband of 48 years married.

Brattina88 · Mar 26, 2020

Shaggy said:

I think it was gradual. A couple owner changes. Tech issues. Chaz was down or wouldn’t load a lot and I think that’s when a lot of us connected on FB. We also had spam issues and I think that’s when that owner was unresponsive. Then we lost the quick reply option for a while and had to type in codes to post (To prove we’re not spam/bots) and it reeeeeally slowed everything down almost to a screeching halt.
And believe it or not I was more of a lurker than a poster hahaha

Shaggy · Mar 27, 2020

RosanaHart said:

Ha ha awesome. If you like, post upna new thread with pics of all of them. What kind of dogs are they?

Shaggy · Mar 27, 2020

Brattina88 said:

Totally understand why that would move members off the site. If this place was active, would it get you to view the site more and also possibly post occasionally or is FB just to convenient and there would be no need to visit here. Thanks for giving me insight on everything. Really helps me figure things out.

Jason W · Mar 27, 2020

I like forums because they are more organised than social media. The structure of the threads and being able to search for things is great. How about some competitions?

straw · Mar 27, 2020

Even if the forum was active, I wouldn't be back. FB groups are just so much easier and faster to navigate, easier to share photos and videos, quicker to have conversations. Not to mention the Chaz community let me down bigtime and I realized that with a few exceptions, these were not my people.

Forums were fantastic in the 2000s, even into the 2010s. I think technology has just moved on and made different platforms more attractive and more accessible.

emc · Mar 27, 2020

I think a lot of the old members just "outgrew" the forum. In my opinion what would help is better search engine placement to get new members. When doing a search for "dog forums" Chaz does not show up, if it could move up in the search results I think that might get things going at least a little.

Shaggy · Mar 27, 2020

Jason W said:

What type of competitions you thinking?

Shaggy · Mar 27, 2020

emc said:

I'm working on that. Thanks for coming back and posting up.

So what do I need to do....

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