So the ACA has set up their own forum.Two of the new board members are
big forum supporters and want to see the ACA have "The" forum for
cichlids, so that people will become ACA members. They're paying some
$200-300 per year for the software and hosting. They used to have a
forum with compuserv (really the "original" forum, as fishnet was a
migration from the pre-Internet days), but nobody used the compuserv forum.
So now it's been set up, and in the last week they've managed to:
* piss off some of the 4 or so compuserv people still around by not even
mentioning the move,
* request that everyone on the board act as moderators, and
* have a big debate over whether to make it members only.
In fact, this last point is really throwing them for a loop. The guy
who set it up planned to have a small section open to the public, but
then require ACA membership for the other sections. Problem is, their
membership has a 50%/year turnover (worse than AGA's), and their
database isn't even online. So after one round of debate in which they
decided to stick with the members-only plan, there started to be e-mails
to the entire board like "Are any of these three people members: John
Smith, Fred Smith, Wayne Leibel?" Now they're starting to learn. It is
nigh IMPOSSIBLE to coordinate two memberships unless their databases are
tied together.
What they seemingly HAVEN'T managed to do is come up with a plan to
interest people in participating. They also haven't addressed the legal
aspects, especially as it's looking like they may switch to open access.
Another thing worth pointing out is that they do have a way in which
they give access to all current members to their existing "members-only"
website: a single password is printed in the mailed-out trading post
every 4 months.
- Erik