Scratch Posted May 2, 2007 Share Posted May 2, 2007 Well.. I must admit - I'm less surprised than I suspected I would be. FlyFishAlberta has closed its forum permanently... ----- After launching the Tributaries Magazine concept and watching the response from the forum, I took a day to fish Stauffer Creek and had fun. I was excited and giddy about fly fishing all day, until I came home to the forum. Upon seeing the reaction to the launch of the forum for a couple of days and comparing it to the joy of being on the water, casting to beautiful trout, we announce the following. We're sorry to say that the Fly Fish Alberta Forum / Tributaries Magazine is no longer proceeding. We attempted to meld the forum into a magazine concept that would bring a series of mutlimedia presentations and works under one roof for the Alberta & SE BC region. We hoped that the nearly 2000 users of the Fly Fish Alberta Forum would appreciate our vision as well as our decade of work at the Forum and embrace this project. At the outset of launch, we had two requirements for success: to have Forum support and to have paid subscriptions reach a certain level. We had subscriptions incoming, however, the forum was clearly not supportive. Having put so much time and effort into the forum for so long, this was the only way we could continue, and without it we simply are closing the forum/magazine. A year ago we were told by forum users that they did not want heavy marketing, that banner ads were not wanted, and but an annual fee to use this forum would be supported. We attempted to launch this concept under those terms and would continue, however, backlash at the paid forum concept precluded any reasons for continuing with this project. We are in the process of refunding all subscriptions. Inexplicably, there were several people that had made financial gain from the forum that were outlandishly opposed. Guides who mined our forum for customers, a photographer who had his photos discovered on our forum, and others such as artists would not sign up, though they had made financial gains. We brought the Fly Fish Alberta Forum under the Tributaries label as we wished it to be a separate entity from the guide companies Fly Fish Alberta and Fortress Lake Retreat to inspire industry wide support. Behind the scenes the fly fishing industry supported this in a big way and we were ramping up to have major involvement from many people. We hoped to have a paid membership so that proper marketing could occur to encourage and foster new members to grow the depth of forum input. We hoped this would bring on new forum involvement from a broader field of experiences for subscribers to enjoy. We hoped to foster new writers and producers in our geographic region as well and wish those well that took the time to be involved. The 10 years I personally put into the Forum were great and, many times, tremendously challenging. Spending 20 to 30 hours a week for 10 years without pay was tough at times, especially considering the sidetracking from marketing our guide company and lodge. I did because I preceived that people were garnering good things from the site. Not one customer in the 2007 guide season is a member of our forum. Last year the forum literally almost came unglued when we had a moderating team of forum members. The in fighting and negativity occurring told us that there needed to be one central moderation. Hence, to keep this going, we needed to continue to log the hours as a collaboration effort was simply not working. We wish to thank you for over 10 years of visiting our forum. We did the best we could and we hope that you found it to be a positive in your fly fishing life. Remember that fly fishing is a beautiful thing in our lives. We wish you the best as you share it with the people that you love and cherish. I'll close with one final article. This was to be my article for the July, 2007 issue of Tributaries. I'd put this article together in January. It's a fun read. The article's focus finds irony for me. We only have so many decades in life. The Fly Fish Alberta Forum was one of mine. Thanks for the past decade. Take Care and please enjoy life to the fullest. I'm heading out today to do just that. Dave Jensen --- For those who come to the NLFT for a fix - welcome... we'll do our best! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johann Posted May 3, 2007 Share Posted May 3, 2007 Its an easy decision for me, personally. And I can't blame Dave for trying. As a businessman ( of sorts, anyway) myself, if I had invested that much time and money into something that had yielded sweet frig-all, it would have been a shorter conversation than 10 yrs to find out whether it would continue or not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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