Appeal for Support: Help Keep Our Forum Alive

[Bob Bacon]

We Need Your Help to Sustain Our Community

Dear Forum Members,

We are reaching out to you today with an urgent request for your support. As many of you have noticed, our forum has been experiencing a steady decline in engagement. Fewer users are visiting and contributing, which puts the future of our community at risk.

We truly value the connections, discussions, and knowledge shared here over the years. However, without your active participation, it will be challenging to sustain this space. We kindly ask each of you not only to continue supporting the forum by posting, commenting, and sharing, but also to encourage your friends and acquaintances to join us and get involved.

Regrettably, if this downward trend continues and engagement does not improve, we will likely be compelled to close the forum in March 2026. This is not a decision we wish to make, but it may become necessary if our community cannot be revitalised.

Please help us keep the forum alive. Your involvement can make all the difference. Share the forum with others, invite new members, and let’s work together to breathe new life into our discussions.

Thank you for your continued support and understanding.

Sincerely,

Bob Bacon

[John Turner]

I posted a screenshot of this on the “RWF pals” Facebook group, with links to the forum. 26 likes and 23 comments from 6 people, but none have commented on this thread or even seen it according to the stats, which also showed, at least when I’ve checked, that only one of those have logged in to the forum since - and that was after having to have an account reactivated. At least one other person failed to log in/register.

That was on the 13th and I noticed a couple of days later that the stats here were saying that the most users ever on line was 130, on that day; now it’s saying 11, today!

Social media is the downfall of many forums like this (so it’s a bit ironic asking for support there I supppse!)

I don’t know the answer bar that changes need to be made and they need to be radical.

[Bob Bacon]

Thanks John, for sharing the screenshot on the “RWF pals” Facebook group and trying to drum up some interest.

I completely agree with you that social media has certainly played a big part in the decline of forums like this, and the fact that there are fewer Royal Welch men around these days only adds to the challenge.

It’s a tough situation, but your efforts are much appreciated.

[John Turner]

Tom Binfield is saying his account has been deactivated.

i did a search and found him - username sixties. He’s a donator and all seems ok??

What do members have to do/not do to be deactivated anyway?

[Bob Bacon]

After a period of dormancy, members are automatically moved to a user group called Inactive.

Tom was last active in December 2023. I have now updated Tom’s status, so he should now be able to log in as usual.

If anyone else is in this situation, please email me at bob6995@me.com.

The only other option is to change the status of inactive members to Active en masse.

[John Turner]

I’ll pass that on to him.

I don’t see any problem with changing the status en masse,
members are either active or not.

That period of time must be less than two years then? However long it is the forum will never have a membership older than it - a bit counter productive!

[John Turner]

There are 770 members but only 90 (about 12%) are active, that means 680 have had their accounts deactivated and effectively the forum is just 99 strong.

You can expect around 90% of a forum’s members to be lurkers or inactive, 1% to be thread starters and 9% to be responders. So going by those statistics we’re not doing bad! However, if the vast majority of threads were not initiated by forum admin, it would be far worse!

Some of these deactivated accounts are donators!

I think that feature needs disabling and then more needs doing- like making the forum public (to view, not to post) - some forums can be members only - if you send people a link all they get is a registration page - let them see what it is they’re registering for!

The homepage is a history of the regiment, it’s a forum, the forums should be the homepage. Then there’s about fifty sub forums, it’s bewildering and even if the place was busy they’re still unjustified - then there’s all the statistics and bells and whistles. It all needs simplifying and decluttering. “use it or lose it” appeals aren’t going to work as things are.

[Bob Bacon]

Membership Statistics

The forum currently has a total of 770 members. This number encompasses all registered users who have access to the forum’s content and discussions.

Active Members

Out of the total membership, there are 89 individuals classified as ‘Active’ members. Members are designated as ‘active’ if they have visited the forum within the last six months.

Inactive Members

The Inactive Members Group consists of 399 members, with 12 having made donations in the past. Their last login dates range from 2015 to 2022

[John Turner]

Right, I mistakenly assumed everyone not active was deactivated. So the 399 inactive are deactivated? That can’t be right if Tim was deactivated when last active in Dec 23? Confused!

Anyway- that makes the statistics even worse. I hope something can be done.

[LightOrder]

" You can take a Horse to water, You can kick its legs away so it falls in, you can shove its mouth into the fast flowing stream, but if it won't drink ....." ?