How can we get the Facebook "Unicycle Chat" crowd back on here?

General
1

Recently, the Unicycle Chat Facebook group started annoying me so much, that I, after month of inactivity, logged into my good old Forum account again, and I saw that it was good. Facebook groups are just not designed for the job we try and use them for. So here are four reasons why I’d love to use the forum more: (feel free to add your own reasons to the list)

I. It’s lack of search functions makes topics just disappear. In a few days, if I had a question about Kris Holms 2015 lineup, the original post will have vanished, and I would have to start a new one. On which questions that were already answered in the first one will be asked again. Also, many questions are asked over and over again, like: “What is a good highjump tutorial?” Here, you use the search bar, and you will find highjump tutorials.

II.The lack of Sub-groups makes sorting into topics hard, and just gives us a big flood of information, that is hard to keep track of. I admit, since groups like “unicycle videos” and “unicycle photography” were introduced, it has improved, but still we find videos next to technical questions next to the new IUF rules.

III.Facebook text formatting isn’t really great for longer posts, I cannot really do things like this or this easily.

IV.Quite frankly, it makes posting maybe a bit too easy. Responding to a question that pops up on your news feed takes just seconds, and I feel like the forum encourages you more to take your time and think about your answer. And use somewhat proper grammar.

I am just throwing this out here, but I would really love to have the unicycle communities’ center of communication back here. But how could we achieve that? :thinking: I find myself using the facebook groups regardless of all it’s flaws, since it has more activity, and many videos etc. aren’t even shared here anymore.

2

I think Facebook groups are great for posting pictures and videos or quick updates or comments. It’s fun to see those things in my feed. But for conversation, discussion, getting help/advise and building a knowledge base, this site really is the way to go.

3

Forums are still better but you cant get everyone to migrate back across and even if you do the convenience fast response time of facebook will mean that before long people will end up on Unicycle Chat again. Also Unicycle Chat gets more exposure to general public than the forum through spamming all your non riding friends with your posts.

Facebook needs to implement a forum functionality really. A couple of riders are working on creating a forum that works off the facebook platform so that you have a forum that uses your facebook to sign in and post. I don’t understand how it works at all but supposedly it can be done. I think it would be the ideal solution.

4

It has allways been a mystery to me why so many people abandon forums and only use Facebook now. Why giving up clear structure and massive functionality for … yeah, for what? Never understood that. But what I also learned is, that If you really want to spread out information widely, you can’t ignore facebook. Often I think, what facebook really replaces for many people is a feed reader.

5

To be honest, most forum software, like this one for example, look like from the 90’s.

I use them, not because I like the forum software, but because it contains useful information… but the format, and the UX of this forum is not the best…

But I would say that is true from 95% of all the forums out there.

Migrating this forum to something like discourse would definitely help. At least it will lower the entry barrier.

The problem is that if we migrate to discourse, the links will be broken. And that might be a blocker.

6

the main plus of facebook for me is:
facebook has a simply app to be used on mobile phone, which help a lot to keep up.
this forum, while is a grat one, has no such interface, and to follow it on the handy is not so easy.

on this item there was a thread asking for tapatlk…
https://unicyclist.com//t/tapatalk/117841/1

7

The return of the gallery might help…
I don’t have facebook, but I presume the group mentioned has a gallery, with all the pics and vids in one easy to access place.

8

Lack of mobile interface is a bit lame, though I can’t use Tapatalk on any of my phones :roll_eyes: so a normal mobile site would do me fine :smiley:

The Facebook app is crap too though, and is creepy as hell, so that’s not much better.

I honestly don’t like facebook for things like this at all. All I ever see on Unicycle Chat are quick posts about eg. how to land X trick, or “check out my awesome new video of me doing boring street tricks” (sorry guys, I’m just not into it!). I like the longer discussions had here! :smiley:

9

+1

Yeah, that would be really great.

10

Engage a good group of hackers and shut down FB :smiley:

11

+1

Is all hype. After all is just a private network but with their huge Marketing they make us all go there like sheep. Never been in the Unicycle Facebook chat they are mentioning on this thread though. To be honest I am very happy with the way this forum works. Im not sure if you could find/search for old info/advise so easyly following the Facebook format but then I might be wrong (I don’t really use Facebook much so I’m no expert).

Yes this forum looks old fashion but who cares :). I love it. Loads of things in life are old fashion but they are still great :smiley:

12

Hey, this forum works fine for those who want to exchange ideas and information, even photographs! Even video links! Facebook will be outdated by something else. This forum has atmosphere like say an old ski lodge. Hang on to that, it’s irreplaceable.

13

It won’t happen, what we need is an integrated website with facebook for it to work.

Unicyclist.com just won’t be the main hub anymore, unless it revamps itself majorly.

14

This site is better but it hasn’t been rebuilt in ages and is a bit clunky. It’s so easy to use the facebook group that I don’t think it will come back here anytime soon.

15

Unfortunately I think times are changing. Not sure we will see the popularity of forums jump back up unless (as stated above) the whole platform is updated some how. I would much rather use a forum due to the ability of a “deeper” discussion on a given topic and the ease of following the discussion. Unfortunately it seems that people don’t want that anymore. Facebook is just too easy to use and everyone has it on there phones, myself included.

Interesting side note… look at the age of the people responding to this thread, pro and against forums. :slight_smile:

16

Howdy all! I’m solidly in the camp that holds onto both formats as useful.

I love to engage in longer discussions, research new products, etc. via forums. It also (seems, at least) that forums are more easily moderated to keep people on topic, and filter out stupid stuff like spam, advertisements, hate, etc. I moved away from forums as a means of keeping up with local people to ride with though, because the format is just too clunky. With something like Facebook, we can tailor communication to quickly reach out to people specifically.

For example, in my case there aren’t any locals I know who ride uni, so a forum like this is fantastic for my purposes. Riding MTBs though, I get huge benefit from networking with local friends and acquaintances for setting up rides and general chit chat.

17

I used facebook briefly in 2004. The program kept displaying dialog boxes asking for access to my computer. Pretty annoying. I reconnected with old college friends, but that got boring really quickly. Reading their posts on facebook made my old friends ‘less’ likable. It seemed like they were all showing off to one another, and I was getting sucked into the same behavior. Then I found out that some ex-Bush II administration official was working for facebook. I was sufficiently creeped out, so I quit. I read somewhere that the most exciting thing about using facebook, for many users, is monitoring how many ‘likes’ they have gotten. Sign of the end-times.

The forum is not perfect. Keyword searches result in many similar thread results. This is because many users consider it easier to start a new thread rather than append a perfectly on-topic, existing thread. The KH-2015-product line thread yesterday devolved into a discussion of testicle humor. Stuff like that. For all it’s weaknesses, the forum is democratic. I’ll take it over facebook any day.

18

Young people can have their FB hangout. The older group can have whatever they need here. This place is great and plenty updated, and we dont need a close social group, when we can communicate throughout other countries. I dont need to know what PeiceMaker is doing at every second.
Nothing needs to be changed here.

19

Everyone needs to know what I’m doing at every second :wink:

Out #Unicycling LOL

20

Yeah, knowledge is power, and the capitalist government wants to know everything about us and wants us to know nothing about it.

Talking about Facebook without someone mentioning this issue is quite rare, though with all the vacuuming and cross-indexing of phone, mail and email metadata and content, to name only a few of the many facets of this digital panopticon, I’m not entirely sure what tools Facebook offers our drone-wielding overlords that they don’t already have.

Oh well, it would be nice to get unicycle basketball going in my area, and maybe joining Facebook would be the best way to get that started…