Is ATARN.net (i.e. this forum) dead?

[pcoutin]

FB has it's advantages, it's more fast paced and you get more pictures and faster responses, but it's no ideal.

There's definitely a problem in the FB group following different things and searching for something. You're not able to present buildalongs in a stringent fashion. It's always a jumble of different posts.

Forum threads have always been better at this, they're far more accessible. The search function here sucks pretty bad though.

Then there's the problem with FB not being available in China outside of using a VPN.

Judging from how frequent you see materials for bowmaking on Taobao, there must be alot of people making bows. Sucks to have these people not be able to participate without jumping through all the hoops to make FB work there.

And this is why I like the idea of improving this forum. Say, upgrading it, making it HTTPS, adding UTF-8 support?, doing some sort of more seamless image uploading thing. I'm willing to do it...

did we need say good buy or week up

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

But it would be possible to copy things from FB if one made a program to do it. Would need to do page scraping and database code. But I guess we should ask FB people for permission... not sure if it's worth it

[Peter Dekker]

Thanks for the constructive comments, guys. Very helpful!

Pcoutin, KenH,

It would be great if you can help modernize this forum. You can e-mail me at [email protected] and we could discuss the details.

Once the new and improved forum is up we can promote it through several websites. Facebook, atarn.org, manchuarchery.org, etc to show traditional archers that it's back and more user-friendly. Those who post build-alongs can link to their post from Facebook to create awareness on facebook again that ATARN.net is back.

I'm getting some people together to speed up the ATARN.org work as well.

Regards,

Peter

[mikekeswick]

I hope you fellas get a new site up and running. There are plenty of us who wouldn't go near FB with a bargepole.
On a positive note I have quite a few new bows that could be posted

[Kviljo]

We miss you on Facebook, though, Mike! There are groups with names like "Atarn", "Hornbowyers", "Flight archery" and so on...

It's sad, but it's going to be difficult to compete with the ease of Facebook. Sad, because it is hopeless to find anything there that is older than a few days...

[Amarutu]

Yeah, so why take the time to write something with thought and a well made picture or two on fb? I still don't get it. It takes a little extra effort here, and you get a reply everey other day instead of merely instantly ... but aren't they worth the wait? Fb is ideal for cat-pics, jokes and ads. Short, flat, haha, skip, next. How can this be seen as a biotope for a topic as diverse and complex as archery. The only reason is the number of eyeballs looking over there, which is why I really like the idea of spreading the rumor via fb and have the thoughtful stuff here. Thank you all for the effort in refurbishing ATARN.

[KenH]

My thoughts exactly, Amarutu! Facebook is only marginally more information-dense than Twitter or SnapChat and we know how well they (don't) work! The whole world can't work with instant gratification! That's why we're fixing this place up and making it better all around.

[Peter Dekker]

Hi guys,

There has also been a discussion on Facebook regarding the subject.

My current take on the matter is that we probably cannot make a successful shift back to ATARN. The reason is that forums all around the world, also those with massive budgets, are failing against Facebook. Reasons are beyond our control.

Facebook is fixing many issues with groups and has successfully updated their search functions and statistics insights. Their mobile usability is second to none, and most internet access these days is through mobile devices. I'm sure they will get better and better over time. That and the single loging / access to many groups, makes them beat forums everywhere.

That doesn't mean we cannot, or shouldn't try. The least we can do is update the software of this forum and migrate all the old material to a modern interface.

As I said before, I need hands to do that. The current forum is very old, it's not an easy task to convert this ancient database to anything that works with something today. I build my own websites but this is something I cannot do.

Who can do this? You find me this person who is willing to put in some time to migrate the database, and I will give you a new forum.

[lurz]

Ok, seams more or less dead then. I'm sorry, but I don't think I have the skills needed to help making a new forum. But will the forum be kept online? I feel there is a lot of knowledge to be found here, and it would be a pity if it should be lost.

[Peter Dekker]

Yeah, it's hard to find someone with the right skills that helps us out for free so I decided to hire someone instead.

The forum will definitely be kept online for reference, that's a main priority of the big update.

[lurz]

Thanks, that's good news!

[Peter Dekker]

Welcome to an updated ATARN.net!

Attacing images is now a matter of drag & drop.

[KenH]

Hurrah!

[mikekeswick]

Hurrah! A new forum!
Well I suppose i'll have to post some of my new bows.
Thank you to everybody who helped behind the scenes

[Markus]

Great with a new forum. How do I post pictures from IPad ?

[Markus]

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