Steve Bullman

I don’t think forums are ever going to disappear, there are just so many other mediums now. In 10 years time Facebook will likely look altogether different. Already the younger age groups aren’t using it. Instead opting for snapchat, Instagram.....there will be something else round the corner to take over from their popularity, and so on

By the way, I do spend my time and money creating useful features such as this....just saying

Oh, and nice bears @wisewood

It is in many ways, but more posts would always be nice!

Thanks for the post. Yes the carving forum inparticular has been impacted more than some other threads, thats for sure. You pretty much answered your own question though.....post more! Some interesting facts. Forum traffic is actually higher now that what it was at its peak back in 2013-14. The site is performing better in Google now, thanks to the change of software 2 years ago. I know this upset a lot of people at the time and stopped a lot of people visiting literally overnight, my stats clearly show that. I guess it was too hard to spend 10 minutes here and there learning the new software. I guess I can understand that, as apart from a few cosmetic changes, the core forum software and how it worked hadn't really changed for 10 years and then all of a sudden it was completely different. As I had been developing the new site for over 12 months, this shock wasn't evident to me personally as I had spent so much time accustomising myself to the new features. Ultimately though, it was a change that HAD to be made, any choice was basically removed. As well as losing a lot of members, it was also hugely damaging for the google ranking which plummeted overnight. I knew this part was going to happen, although I didn't really the drop would be so severe. Fast forward 2 years and the site is showing up in google more than it was at its peak, in fact its breaking records on an almost weekly basis. Chart below shows how much google impressions have improved over a 16 month period. Just last week we had more than 60,000 impressions in google in a single day. In addition to that, new member registrations are also higher than what they were at its peak, not substantially, but they are higher. In fact the only statistic thats down is the amount of posts people make, to which I don't really think there is only 1 answer. Someone mentioned previously that all they see is brexit talk and off topic conversation. I've just looked at the past 40 threads in the todays post section, and can only see 3 that are off topic. If this small figure is putting people off posting then i'm not really sure how to answer that? I know some forums have a no politics rule, and I can understand that. However like it or not politics are relevant to all of us and our businesses, never more so than in the case of brexit. And yes of course thats hugely differing views within these threads. Thats to be expected. I can't say I have seen any amount of blatantly racist comments, although to some people the suggestion that immigration is putting a strain on the countries resources is enough alone for the racism card to be deployed. So putting the brexit thread aside, what else contributes to the lack of posting? heres a couple of observations: One thing I believe is that one thing Facebook has been very good at is effectively dumbing down the population. Most people would rather watch and giggle at a 3 second video, or make an outlandish comment on something, than sit down and respond to a forum thread with any sort of in depth reply. Probably even few people will even bother to read a reply longer than a couple of sentences. Even this very reply i'm spending my time to make will at best be skimmed over by the majority of people, at worse not read at all. People on the whole want to take only, and give nothing back. Its always been this way, with hundreds of people browsing the forum whilst very few post. In fact I could probably query the database and it would show thousands of member accounts without a single post to their name. This has got worse, perhaps in part due to the sheer amount of information available on arbtalk. Most questions have been asked in some form or another, and much of the traffic coming from google may well have their answer in a thread without the need to create one. The tip site directory is a prime example. This is currently a new service for which I have never asked any recompense for. This is one of many ideas that I have as a way of offering something beyond simple discourse on the site. I had hoped this feature would encourage members to give something back a little, by way of posting a bit more. However it has proved next to impossible to even get people to submit a simple 1 sentence review when using a tip site, despite it being incredibly simple to do. Lets consider the fact that the tip site directory alone is viewed 14,000 times each and every month and is actively used by people all over the country, yet in a little over a year since its launch a mere 39 people have bothered to take 20 seconds to leave a review on a tip site which would benefit other users. In fact out of those 39 reviews, 50% of them are probably made by the tip site owner themselves!! Its too hard to post on a forum(apparently).....well this kind of goes back to point 1 with regards facebook dumbing down the nation. One things for sure, they made a platform which makes it very simple for someone to post something. On the other hand its not so simple in other areas, such as the whole group thing. Its not exactly easy to find a thread thats a few days old on a facebook group, unlike a forum which is typically split into sections. I could go on, but fingers starting to repeat myself a little I expect, plus i'm enjoying reading other peoples views. But back to my initial point to Wisewood. The answer is simple, post more. There are less topics created these days, which corrolate directly to the overall post count. When a topic of interest is created there are still plenty of people replying....take a look at the recent HSE thread for example...the interest is still there for people to post, and in most cases spend time putting together worthwhile comments rather than 1 line quips such as are common place on social media. There have been 1617 registered members log into the forum in the past 30 days (85,000 visitors in total including registered members). Imagine what the results would be if every member committed themselves to post just 1 new topic each per month?

Again, this just isn't the case. Forums across the board are feeling the pinch. As you might imagine I spend a lot of time on forums for forum owners(yes thats how sad my life is) so see a completely different picture to what you are seeing. Forums need to evolve to keep relevant, and offer things that facebook doesn't. That means adding features which gravitate away from traditional discourse.

True facebook was in full flow, but groups didn't exist for a long time, or at least weren't adopted as much as they are now. That really became noticeable around 5 years ago(ish). To suggest the brexit debate is responsible for the lack of posting I think overlooks the actual issue, and that is that many people gravitate to facebook as their first port of call now, whereas it used to be google, or whatever their favourite site might have been. I'm not sure the larger percentage of the people in this industry are than soft skinned that they can't handle people with opposing view points to theirs, but then again I could be wrong. At the end of the day its 1 or 2 threads on the forum, that people don't even have to open if they don't wish. drove many away to where exactly...Facebook? Out of all the social media sites Facebook is by far the most toxic and poisonous. I can't scroll down my feed without seeing something about Brexit or any other political posts. In face it probably takes up 50% of my feed at some point

Enough of it in this thread now, thanks

Yep, what he said

Might need to be more specific, theres loads of results in google, for example Avenue of Oaks to Commemorate Babergh's War Dead » Babergh Mid Suffolk WWW.MIDSUFFOLK.GOV.UK Babergh MidSuffolk

I’d be very surprised if that would stand up to heavy winds in a field

But if you do, please video it

Sold a freelander a few years back to a Pole on eBay. Turned up on an artic to collect, and there were already 3 other freelander in there.

And typically the decay will be worse at the level of the brackets

Can’t really tell what height it’s been taken at in the pic. Do you have the full report? It should say

That would be my approach. Sure you could look at a reduction to make it safe short term but all you’re going to be doing is creating an ugly tree which is going to require constant maintenance. Best to get shot and replace with something that’s going to look nice

More info on tree. Picus is worthless without it really.

There’s always work on this industry for hard working people with a can do attitude, regardless of the part of the country you’re in. experience will be your let down but as hard as it is to find decent workers, I reckon most employers would overlook that for the right person who puts in the required effort consistently

Well this is news to me...its going to change my life ?

pretty sure Erdogan has heard different. Just had a missed call from Turkey, obviously they are looking to recruit tree surgeons in their fight against the Kurds

He's a member here, bare roots was his name I believe

He must have been short of work

Thanks guys. Probably should have known that one

What software are you going to....update of the existing or something completely new?

What’s this please?