Facebook or Club Arnage Forum

[aricus654]

Hi!

It's great that we're now represented on Facebook, but I'm not sure that it works for me very well.  I like the Facebook integration to my tablet and phone via Notifications, and the photo sharing, but conversation threads are limited to nested comments.  Unless it's just my ineptitude - I'm happy to be corrected.

So it feels like Facebook it great for the "Here and Now" - photos, locations, check-in, but the forum is much better for threaded conversations especially with useful information or advice.

So two questions?

1. What do other people think?

2. Is there and way that we can get a tablet/smart phone app for forum access (Big Cheese may be able to help on that one?)

Aricus

[Kev_mk3]

Facebook these days is killing forums and also allowing morons to be noticed more.

Facebook has so many good uses and it is great for here and now but IMO you cant beat a forum for good in depth chat / information.

Maybe a mobile skin for the forum would be handy for saving data allowance while at the race and possibly something to look into?

[dukla]

1 - I've forgotten my facebook logins (yup created 2 to prove that fake IDs were possible at the time years ago when they claimed it wasn't) so my vote is loudly of the miserable old git nature!
2 - Tapatalk

[Lawnmower Man]

1)  There are lots of ways we can comunicate and there are pros and cons for all of them.   As an example of how useful one is over the other.  I posted a "Happy Birthday Grace Hopper" soon my Facebook page. But can you find out when I did that?   On the other hand I posted a thread containing the words "Emballage De Raisin" on the forum I'm pretty sure you can find when I posted that.

2) Several people have mentioned Tapatalk I never tried it.

t.

[Jason]

1. Like others, Facebook is great for the look at this, but I do prefer a decent forum page

2. Tapatalk, my friends who own/run Ten-Tenths use it, being the tech savvy/pro user people they are, I take that as a good recomendation

[mgmark]

I can't access Facebook at work - but I can access the CA forum at work.....

Ditto others re Facebook - good for here/now/gone tomorrow and for brief comments.  No good for any real discussion or later reference.

No experience of Tapatalk so don't know if it would make life any easier when out and about.

MG Mark

[Si H]

I can't access Facebook at work - but I can access the CA forum at work.....

Ditto re: access at work. And catching up on the chats is a good break from the BAU stuff every now and then. So we need to keep the CA forum going for pre-race build up and post-race 'is it really another year' chats. It also means you can dip in and out of the conversations you're interested in whereas on facebook I imagine you'd see every post made on every subject.

[championaudi]

I don't do facearse (as its called in our house) so not for me
CA forum can be accessed at work too!

[Stu]

I don't do facearse (as its called in our house) so not for me
CA forum can be accessed at work too!

I call it faceache.  I prefer the forum by a country mile.

[Grand_Fromage]

I thought long and hard about extending CA to include Facebook and Twitter. Firstly, and most importantly, I think it was the right thing to do because we need to attract a new generation of 'Arnagiste' who probably would not find us through the forum alone. Secondly, I have no doubts at all that the forum will survive contentedly alongside Facebook and the two will interact positively for the foreseeable future.

As for updating the Forum software and making it friendly to mobile devices and tablets, that too is in my plan for 2016, but I need to tread carefully because I know that not everyone will like the changes that would be necessary, and I need to be sure that the majority of CA members are in favour of the move. What I might do is open a separate (and temporary) 'CA Mobile' forum for the purposes of evaluation, and make the final decision whether or not to upgrade the main forum a democratic one.

[mgmark]

GF,

Had thought that is where you might be headed and that all sounds spot on - it was the bit in the thread title expressed as "or" rather than "and" which sparked my response and I suspect some others......

Small (but important) point I have found with some forums I use that have been made mobile/tablet friendly, is that they then don't run very well, or at all, on the work PC because there is some functionality/software stuff in them (sorry, that's the limit of my IT technical knowledge) which fails the work "IT Stasi" test.  

If you can, please consider keeping the "classic" version of the forum running alongside one for mobiles/tablets with the same thread structure and content, which gives the best of both worlds and I've seen work well on some other forums.  Don't know if that's possible, but I hope so.

MG Mark  

[Lawnmower Man]

I agree with a lot of the points made. 

FaceSpace is too in your face.   You end up with every comment in a group in your newsfeed.   I much prefer the forum where you can see a subject and then choose if it is of interest to you.

The only real downside I see with having both is that some will prefer to use FaceSpace and others will prefer the forum. So there will be some fragmentation of the "Group".  Whilst you could have "rules" like:-
You must not post "tickets for sale/wanted" on FaceSpace that won't stop people doing it nor can you stop them.


t.

[aricus654]

@Mark - I was quite deliberate in my choice of "or" rather than "and".

@Cheese - I think you are right about attracting new Arginistas, and agree that they are much more likely to find a common interest group on FaceBook. (I accidentally came across CA when I was creating my own Le Mans bluffers guide for people I was bringing along).

Unfortunately I do see people getting divided between FB and the Forum.  I am not aware of any good integration tools, but confess I have not done a market scan.

Facebook is great for connecting And networking people and multiple interests, checking in and sharing pictures, but not so good for searching or persistence or longevity of ideas through threads or holding reference material.

And there are many people who have resisted the fatuous nature of FaceBook and always will, but there is no doubts about its popularity or pervasiveness, particularly with many organisations using FaceBook credentials for identity.  (I do believe that OpenId or Verify (UK govt) which provides a common identity and password credentials will prevail eventually and we will not have different ids for each service we access)

I am also wary of FaceBook.  Criminals use FaceBook to harvest information about people for identity fraud, and a FaceBook credentials (login details), in particular ones with lots of rich personal information are of far higher value than say, national insurance numbers or (I am told) credit card numbers.

I do fear that we will become different communities unless we find a way of bridging the Forum and FaceBook.

On the other side, I'm up for a mobile trial.

Aricus

 

[MIKE C (Liverpool Boys)]

very simple for me I don't have a Facebook account and don't want one.

[Perdu]

I'm in the same boat as Mike

Facethingy will not be part of my life in the liveable future


I see that some will like and use it but not me, I have enough scumbags trying to harvest my electronic lifestyle already just from email

And having lost an email account to some tosser who used it to scam my friends that is as far as I am going

No new emails either