Bethanyrayne

Its a search bar. enough said.

That is so true. It makes me laugh when I hear people say that life begins at 40, 50 or 60 its just not true. One thing young people should realise is the elderly are an invaluable source of life knowledge and experience and instead of being dismissive of them, listen to them. In my experience you learn something 10 minutes after you needed to know it. The elderly already know so take advantage of the resource.

Are you asking us to believe that you communicate with the "worlds biggest brands, such as LEGO, Squarespace, SEGA, Mattel" through the medium of this forum? That's not the case is it because they will have their own account managers.

A thought, maybe development of the forum is going the wrong way or should I say going the wrong way for those of us who aren't corporate entities. A corporate wants to be all over social media its their advertising without the cost. They're NOT interested in making money from a community or running an information resource other than the sale of their own product(s) or service(s). In addition, if they have knowledgable people on their "community" they can outsource their support costs by using their members as UNPAID support staff thus relieving the burden and cost on their own organisation. I'm sure there are many other benefits for a corporate client. But aren't we as small/medium niche forums just playing the social media game? Trying more and more to integrate with, look like and offer the same things as social media. Are we social media wannabes? and is that the right way to go if the forum is to flourish and survive? We bend over backwards to make it easy to register on our forum using social media accounts, WHY? Do we think (I hope you have all thought) that the majority of individuals that can't be bothered going through the simple registration process wil turn out to be active productive members of your community? They just want to consume the content that you have shamelessly barred them from while they are a guest. Never mind though they'll just join your forum through a social media link that you enabled, consume what they want and be on their way. Thank you very much for giving me the solution to my problem, the answer to my dilemma and knowledge I didn't previously possess and ALL at no cost plus a ridiculously easy way to login through my beloved social media account. I've searched for answers to many problems on the web such as, How to? The answer to any of those problems has NEVER come from social media and has a lot of the time come from someone's forum and inevitably shared on social media which completes the circle of "my beloved social media". You are providing your competitor with valuable content. The main problem as I see it is, you don't value your own content, you suffer from an inferiority complex. In the battle for views and the fear of your content not being listed on the almighty Google or shared on social media you've hoisted the white flag, (nearly) given up, (nearly), thrown in the towel, (nearly) afterall why should anyone be interested in becoming a member of your little information rich forum when they have access to the social media giants who publish nothing but own everything? Invision could help with the listing of content by giving the likes of Google et al member status (as far as I'm aware they don't) so that content hidden from guests could still be listed. Of course they will say it's against the rules or it's too difficult or some other erroneous response. Google Analytics can tell the difference between a bot and a real visitor why can't you? The content is available to anyone as long as they become a member. Time has come to get ahead of the curve and stop walking in the shadow of giants. A little to the left, a little to the right or a completely different path, there is sunlight. Lets get of our knees! I'm not a writer so I hope you at least get the gist of this post and also appologise to anyone I might have offended.

It's very true, they'll spend hours evryday Twittering on Twitter, Facetiming an Facebook, InstaGratting on Instagram, checking how many strangers LIKED their post or shared it. etc. But really hard to get them to register on a forum. Even if they like the content, they'll just consume it and leave.

Do you like cheese?