The Spoonpluggers Forum

I consider myself an "intermediate" spoonplugger. Thanks to Jim Shell for starting up this board and to Buck for the foundation of knowledge. I have gained some invaluable insights from listening to other posters tell of their successes, failures and experiences.
Just one problem:
Most of the same s/p do all the talking. Jim needs some help in getting more s/p to voice their experiences whether they be beginners or pros. I believe everyone enjoys reading other's experiences and that's what this board is all about. But, you can't be just a "taker," you have to "give" also.
We all have a dept to Buck and Jim to make this board a success and hopefully entice more fishermen to enter the world of spoonplugging. We all have a stake in this, the future of spoonplugging.
Bottom line:
We need more posters, no matter if you are a beginner. Just get off your butt and toss something into the pot. We all OWE

Well put, Pat! I agree 100% There's a lot of knowledge out there, but if it's never shared, it's useless. I've been following this Spoonplugging for years and new information keeps popping up here and there. Some of this stuff isn't in the literature or on the tapes. Mr. Perry had a lot of private conversations and correspondence with a lot of people. I'm sure that's where a lot of this new stuff comes from. Some people spent quite a lot of time talking to him, and a lucky few, even fishing with him. If this knowledge base-beyond the basics- isn't shared...it will be lost forever!!

pat maio wrote:I consider myself an "intermediate" spoonplugger. Thanks to Jim Shell for starting up this board and to Buck for the foundation of knowledge. I have gained some invaluable insights from listening to other posters tell of their successes, failures and experiences.
Just one problem:
Most of the same s/p do all the talking. Jim needs some help in getting more s/p to voice their experiences whether they be beginners or pros. I believe everyone enjoys reading other's experiences and that's what this board is all about. But, you can't be just a "taker," you have to "give" also.
We all have a dept to Buck and Jim to make this board a success and hopefully entice more fishermen to enter the world of spoonplugging. We all have a stake in this, the future of spoonplugging.
Bottom line:
We need more posters, no matter if you are a beginner. Just get off your butt and toss something into the pot. We all OWE

When this forum first was starting I posted that the multi-thread format was typically less effective than the single thread.

I subscribe to many discussion forums.
Most of them revolve around real estate investing or internet marketing.
One of the most respected folks in these industries recently responded to a request to change his single thread forum to a multi thread.

Here is his response:

My experience with splitting forums into subforums has been that the subforums tend to get little or no traffic, and the main forum eventually loses its appeal.

As the developer of the HelpTalk.com site (which had 40 forums), I found that the more you split the forums into subforums, the less traffic the site attracted.

I've seen this on other sites as well - if you eliminate the central meeting place, you eliminate much of the sense of community.

Still, on some sites, it does make sense to have many sub-forums - as long as the site owner understands that having multiple sub-forums usually means less traffic to the main forum.

That certainly seems to be the case here.
Simply look at the dates of the last posts on the separate threads...most of them are ancient.
Most folks won't enter a thread where the most recent post was months ago...so they simply stop posting and eventually stop reading.

Just food for thought, but like I said, I presented this a couple of years ago and the technocrats still created these neat 'unused' threads.

bobInIndy,

Thanks for the input. I definitely agree with the subcategories and the "old" posts on them. I've deleted some categories. I'll have a section on the main web page for the national outings.
You have me thinking about even minimizing it more. I was thinking of just having the following categories:

General discussion

Fishing Reports

Spoonplugging 101 (this will replace water/water, structure, movements, etc...)

Buy/Sell

The Pub

Everyone please let me know your thoughts....

Ok... I went ahead and changed things

I think it looks much better and will make it much easer to find all the most recent postings.

Thanks for the input BobInIndy
Feedback is always appreciated...Thanks

Jim

Jim,

I really like this format! I think it will be much easier to see if anyone has added a comment.

Thanks for your good work,

Noel