Jump to content

SKF 3 months on


NoGi

Recommended Posts

It’s been almost 3 months since I took over SKF so a good time to take a pause, reflect and try to explain the logic behind some of the decisions so far. When I took over the ownership of SKF I found that there were a number of things that needed to be done fairly quickly to ensure our survival like having a roadmap for the site, a strategy to grow membership and other fundamental things like having a robust backup strategy in place in the event of a total system disaster. Unfortunately, forums can be like corporations where the corporate culture is formed based on the leadership at the time. I've had to slowly chip away at that so that I could align SKF with the new strategy and goals going forward.

 

The biggest mindset shift and challenge has been around my open versus the previously closed approach to things. This has only been possible because I’m in the hobby and not “in†the hobby if that makes sense. What I am trying to say is that I have no affiliation with stores, breeders or anyone else other than via the existing relationships with SKF (sponsors etc…) members. My only agenda is to run an online community of like-minded people and run it well.

 

That said, let’s look at some of the decisions in a little more detail.

 

Forum Upgrade

I think it’s safe to assume that everyone knows that running forums cost money. What some perhaps don’t know is that the gaps between memberships/sponsorships and running costs are funded by me personally. Whilst we have sponsors and a subscriber base, I don't see any of that until renewal, already paid subs did not come over with the site takeover. Keep this in mind when thinking “why upgrade if it works?â€.

 

The site was originally running on VBulletin 4.2.2 and the latest version at the time was VBulletin 5.1.1. Part of the forum roadmap included a number of new enhancements that I wanted to get developed and implemented. If I had paid to get them developed under 4.2.2, they would have needed to be redeveloped under 5.1.1 again. Given the funding source, it would not have been a prudent investment to spend money on the old version knowing that I would have to pay again to get it working under the new version. The move to VB 5.1.1, despite all the testing we did, was a complete disaster. I don’t think anyone would disagree with me there.

 

Today, the forum runs on IP.Board 3.4.6 and runs a lot better under the hood than VB ever did. For example, the database size went from around 700MB to 100MB which is a considerable drop in size. Whilst the move to VB 5.1.1 was bad, the quick migration to IP.Board was one of the best decisions we made. The developer community is active and enhancements are available – some free, others at a cost.

 

Subscriptions

Why oh why do PayPal need to make things difficult. Subscriptions are tied to the PayPal account and cannot be moved to another account. This totally messed up the subscriptions in the backend with renewals going to the previous owner rather than here. We ended up having to cancel (via previous PayPal account) all subscriptions so that they wouldn’t auto renew anymore. I also had to expire them all in the backend. What this means is that once your old subscription expires, you essentially have to resubscribe to setup a new subscription against the new PayPal account so that it’s all automated and running properly again. This has dropped the renewal rates considerably but hopefully we’ll see it pick up again soon.

 

Rebranding

Yes we have a new logo and yes not everyone is a fan. Unfortunately, can't please everyone but I wanted a logo that could appeal to all ages and after looking around at successful sites and our need to grow beyond our borders I went to market for a fresh new design. The old logo is still there as an optional theme for those still wanting it.

 

Opening up the site

I was wrong to think that there wouldn't be resistance to opening up the site to the rest of the world. But the reality is that we need to generate more visitors to the site and the only way is to give people a taste. This was also one of the key things that prospective sponsors wanted to see happen. By opening up the site, I've also embedded Google adverts so that people are more motivated to actually register and make the adverts go away.

 

There was a concern about outside people seeing photo’s posted here that people wouldn’t otherwise post. I’m not sure why, as, if I had a great aquascape, I would want the whole world to see it. In any case, that is why we now also have a Gallery feature available. Images posted to the gallery will not be made visible to unregistered users. 

 

We are already the premier shrimp site in OZ, I want us to be up there globally and this is one way we will be able to achieve this. Have a look at the site stats from when I first took over and this last week. By opening up parts of the forum and being more active on social media we've increased the number of channels that prospective members can come from.

 

post-25-0-74421000-1402540657_thumb.png

 

post-25-0-84227400-1402540655_thumb.png

 

Classifieds

There are 2 reasons why I moved the classifieds out of the forum. The first is post count – I didn’t want the sales part of the site to start skewing the data. Whilst some sites use this to make their forums look more active, I would rather report on things that count. The second reason was to offer a better user experience through a store-like classifieds area.

 

Tapatalk

It’s ironic that one of the reasons SKF even has Tapatalk was because I wanted it during my tenure as a founding moderator. Tapatalk still works fine on the core forum functions but it won’t work with the enhancements we do (Gallery, Classifieds, etc…). These all still work fine with the mobile browser on your phone or tablet. My view on this is that we shouldn’t hold back new and improved functionality on the site just because Tapatalk doesn’t support it.

 

Inactive members

Just like post count, I don’t like the way inactive and spamming members are counted towards the total site membership count. One of the first things I did before migrating the site to IP.Boards was to purge the spammers list. This took the member totals from 3,000+ to under 1,000. Similarly, we have a large number of members that signed up over a year ago and still have a 0 post count. One of the fundamental principles of our community is to give and take and I wanted a way to remove just the takers. The end result was the implementation of a system that firstly notifies inactive members (after 120 days) and encourages them to get active followed by a second notification (after 180 days) which moves them to an inactive group which severely limits what they can see. Only non-subscription members are impacted by this system. Some have not liked this approach but the majority have given their support.

 

Note, whilst I have mentioned inactive members and spammers in the same sentence, they are not the same. Spammers are deleted, inactive members are moved to a moderated group.

 

Merchandise

Some items are in the SKF Store, others will come slowly. I need to see which sponsors are continuing on into the next period before I get stuff printed.

 

Hopefully that clears up some of the questions, sorry for the long post and thank you again for your ongoing support and commitment to the site.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the thread Nogi.....Great that you've explained the strategy, and I'm 100% behind your approach and great vision to ensure this forum has all the basis to expand and be an amazing forum from a information and community perspective. You did fail to mentioned the 1000's of hours you've invested on the forum, and no doubt the moderators too. We truly do have a great bunch of moderators, and the spirit of the hobby on this forum is AWESOME !

 

So thank you !

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ooops yes the mods, sorry guys how could I forget you.

 

The mods have made my life so much easier in that I leave the day to day running to them. Gives me the time I need to focus on the backend stuff.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the write up Nogi! Puts all the changes into perspective.

I had no doubt you had a clear path of where you wanted the forum to be heading, as a good captain always does!

Lots of change but glad everyone has been able to keep up and be so adaptive. And, as per usual with this great forum, good to see everyone helping each other during and through the changes.

Looking forward to what's ahead! The best shrimp community in the world!!

Edited by newbreed
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

You have done a great job Nogi and you brought back alot of life into the forum into my opinion when you took it over. 

 

Its hard to believe its been 3 months already and as most would agree the forum can only get better from here!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well done Nogi, definitely good to see your plan is coming to fruition! :thumbsu:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Rare to see a plan so transparent and well laid out. Well done.

 

I like the new platform personally, minus a few niggles. e.g. new content button doesn't pick up new content in classifieds or galleries. But these are mostly minor. :)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

July 7, 2014 - Aug 7, 2014:

post-25-0-57928900-1407396905_thumb.png

 

As you can see, we continue to steadily increase the flow of new visitors to the site. These are coming via Google searches - a direct result of opening up the site.

 

Also, reading about a couple of other large and popular sites that have had significant SPAM issues in the past few months, I'm glad I moved off that old platform. The one thing those affected sites had in common was the VBulletin forum software.

Edited by NoGi
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think we will vote you in as next Prime Minister, if only they were so organised and transparent and cared about

everyone as much as you do.

Well done NoGo, I just love this site and don't bother with any other sites. : SLOBBER :

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I love watching a plan come together, especially when it's a great plan led by a man like nogi.

You have the vision that most people lack.

Thank you for your countless hours of effort and for following through with your vision, even with a little resistance to parts of it. SKF is a better place for it. Growing a helpful and honest community online in today's world is a remarkable achievement and you should be proud of what you've done to accomplish it.

Cheers mick.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Join Our Community!

    Register today, ask questions and share your shrimp and fish tank experiences with us!

  • Must Read SKF Articles

  • Posts

    • sdlTBfanUK
      Thats a great photo, beautiful blue bolt, I hope it survived the molt without dropping the eggs! I think I can just about see some black dots (eyes) on the central egg but can't be 100% sure. I used to (and plan to again) do weekly water change of 10-15% but if you do too large or quick (not drip in new water) that would likely trigger a molt. What KH are they in, my new setup is sitting at (and refusing to budge) KH 3 and PH 7.5 so I may have to settle for neocaridina shrimp this time as opposed to the caridina I want, though not looking/deciding just yet, give the tank a bit more of a run in! Tap water here starts at kH 14, tds 320, when filtered goes to KH 0 and PH 6 but when put in the tank keeps going to KH3 and PH 7.5 despite 3 x 50% water changes???? You may be at 'maximum capacity' with only 20L tank especially if the tank is a cube type rather than shallow type?
    • beanbag
      Right now this tank only has blue bolts and golden bee (red bolts?).  The eggs start off all brown, but at the end, I notice that some are kind of a clear pink-ish color.  So I don't know if that is the egg color of dud or golden bee.  Picture of shrimp only about half hour before molting. The water is always RO + remineralizer, so it should be ok. The tank seems to still be on a "good streak" ever since I started the regimen of weekly water change, monthly gravel vac and plant trim.  The point being to keep the amount of waste low and removing moss / floating plants so that the nitrates go towards growing algae.  At one point, I had three berried females, but only netted about half dozen babies by the end, due to this early molting problem.  There might be about 30-40 shrimp total in 5 gallons, but still very few full-sized adults.
    • ngoomie
      Alright, I've done a bit more research on gentian violet's cancer-causing potential but I haven't yet done research on malachite green's to compare. But from reading the California propositon 65 document about GV (North Americans incl. some Canadians will recognize this as the law that causes some products they buy to be labelled with "known to the state of California to cause cancer", including the exact product I bought) it seems that the risk of cancer is related to internal use, either injection or ingestion. Speaking of ingestion, I think GV bans mainly relate to its use in treating fish/shrimp/etc. which are intended for human consumption, because of the above. And in countries where GV isn't banned for this purpose, it does seem to get used on various species of shrimp without causing any issue for the shrimp themselves (at least enough so for shrimp farming purposes). See the following: In February, the FDA Began Rejecting Imported Shrimp for Gentian Violet and Chloramphenicol (2022 article by Southern Shrimp Alliance) FDA Starts New Calendar Year by Refusing Antibiotic-Contaminated Shrimp from Three BAP-Certified Indian Processors and Adding a BAP-Certified Vietnamese Processor to Import Alert (2024 article by Southern Shrimp Alliance) Southern Shrimp Alliance and some other organizations have tons of other articles in this vein, but I'd be here for a while and would end up writing an absolutely massive post if I were to link every instance I found of articles mentioning shrimp shipments with gentian violet and/or leucogentian violet registering as contaminants. That being said, I know shrimp farmed for consumption and dwarf shrimp are often somewhat distantly related (in fact, the one time a shrimp's species name is listed that I can see, it's the prawn sp. Macrobrachium rosenbergii, who at best occupies the same infraorder as Neocaridina davidi but nothing nearer), but this at least gives a slightly better way of guessing whether it will be safe for aquarium dwarf shrimp or not than my bladder snail anecdote from the OP.
    • sdlTBfanUK
      I would hazard a guess that perhaps those eggs were unfertilized and thereby unviable? Did the eggs change colour, usually yellow to grey as the yolks used up, or any eyes in the eggs. Is your water ok, using RO remineralised and the parameters in range, as I have heard others say that if the water isn't good it can 'force' a molt? How is it going overall, do you have a good size colony in the tank, you may have reached 'maximum occupancy' as a tank can only support so many occupants.
    • beanbag
      Hello folks,  The current problem I am having is that my Taiwan bee shrimp are molting before all their eggs have hatched.  Often the shrimp keep the eggs for 40+ days.  During that time, they lose about half or so, either due to dropping or duds or whatever.  Shortly before molting they look to have about a dozen left, and then they molt with about half a dozen eggs still on the shell.  Then the other shirmp will come and eat the shell.  These last few times, I have been getting around 0-3 surviving babies per batch.  I figure I can make the eggs hatch faster by raising the water temperature more (currently around 68F, which is already a few degrees higher than I used to keep it) or make the shrimp grow slower by feeding them less (protein).  Currently I feed Shrimp King complete every other day, and also a small dab of Shrimp Fit alternating days.  Maybe I can start alternating with more vegetable food like mulberry?  or just decrease the amount of food?
×
×
  • Create New...