My friendly online community has a new home! Back in 2011 it was a little place for readers of The Labrador Site and other dog owners to get together and chat or get help from one another. Four years old last month, the forum had grown to nearly three thousand members. We'd …
Positive Gundogs – a new approach to training
As most of you will know, gundog training, and working my four gundogs, is one of my great passions. This month, we're celebrating the first birthday of my Facebook group, Positive Gundogs. I set this up as a 'little support group' for people that want to train their gun …
The ups and downs of managing an online community
I run quite a few online communities. And treading the line between keeping a community harmonious without being over-censorius, is not an easy one. Especially when it comes to some of the more subtle aspects of human interaction. Getting help Many people use online …
Puppies and propaganda
Some of the recent threads on my Labrador Facebook page have been dominated by those wishing to impose their views on others. We often post on somewhat controversial issues. Issues like Silver Labradors for example, and whether the dilute coat gene has any place in …
Facebook pages
I run a couple of busy Facebook pages. These are nice places for people to meet, chat about dogs, share photos etc. And I want to keep them that way. Increasingly, I am finding that I have to spend quite a bit of time removing adverts etc from these pages. So, I have …
Why I put Pinterest on hold
A few days ago, I read an interesting post by Darren Rowse from problogger. About what he had been doing with Pinterest. It was called "Learnings from my Pinterest experiment" As you probably know, Pinterest has grown dramatically over the last couple of years and is a …
Are forums dying?
Forums join geographically disconnected people with a common interest. Before forums came along, if you were crazy about gundogs and you lived in Surrey, the chances were you had never spoken to a group of people that kept working gundogs in the Scottish Highlands. Forums …
Internet behaviour: who is responsible?
Originally posted on 'Tales from the Ratcatcher's Wife' in August 2011. Originally posted on 'Tales from the Ratcatcher's Wife' in August 2011. I read an interesting blog post recently. It is called “if your website is full of assholes, its your fault”. The author Anil Dash …