tank of the month

[titus]

Hello,

One problem also with a thread of submissions is that there are no surprises.

Titus

[danny zubot]

I agree, with Titus. We need the element of surprise.

No I am not, I think the committee should pick tanks and then solicit the owners.

A bit of both is being done for now, but all we have to go on is the old pic forum, which is being watched very closley!

[aussiefishy]

can i please say something ?

after some reading behind the scene i have notice a few things. may be i can share my opinion:

1. it is a fabulous idea to have a tank of the month. no doubt about it.

2. i am pretty certain that we, as all the board members, cannot agree on a single set of criteria to choose this "tank of the month".

3. as compare to rc or reefs.org, their tank of the month is featured in their online magazine. one of the reasons why they do this is because some people, like me, have no time to read all the information/thread/irrelevant discussions on the board.

4. for me, totm is a showcase of what people can do, it might not be what i wanted to do nor i have the resources to do it, but just so that i know that can be done. it does not need to have a specific criteria.

i think totm is particularly important for beginners because it gives them a vision as to what type of tanks that they like to pursue, its like a holy grail, or just something they might ultimately want to achieve. as i said before, it need not be set on one set of criteria, like RC's or reefs.org, but the chosen reefer need to disclose all of his/her tricks to readers. that is the most important thing.

we all have our differences, we should all focus on how to grow this hobby, on 3 fronts, 1. support local businesses and 2. generate more hobbist, and last, grow this board. we should build something out of this effort instead of "sharing what i think is good"

i am willing to help out for whatever to make this work.

please save all unconstrutive criticism to my pm otherwise let get this totm going!

Cheers

Eric

[Rikko]

I think RC finds a lot of potential TOTM "marks" from the "Let's see your _____ tanks!" threads. I've noticed a lack of that on Canreef.. Nobody ever asks to see T5 tanks? Nobody's interested in MH-only tanks? Your LPS biotopes? Let's see what you did with your 55s?
Might be a good way to encourage photo submissions - I can't be bothered to go through the process of uploading pics into a member gallery when I have no stellar shots to show, but if somebody wants a quick look at, say, a DIY surge, I'm much more inclined to throw a quick and dirty link to a decent shot of what I did for educational purposes.
Obviously a "crap" photo (and there are many of those) doesn't make anybody's jaw drop, but it gives you a good feel for the tank and what a polished series of photos after a good cleaning (of the glass, if nothing else) will be like.

[titus]

Hello,

Good comments. But one thing at a time. Especially when we are all underfunded volunteers. There has been a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes. Lately with the FTOTM Committee, we have been discussing a lot. And I am still debugging from occasional flip flop coming up from time to time since the server migration. Some times we have to wonder if we come up with something, would it work. This is as in would the members on this board be willing to participate in it. For example, there has been a lot of activity with the FTOTM thread that Danny started with great support from the member base. But we are seeing the photos trickly in slowly. Maybe it is still early and people are cleaning up their tanks for the shots.

I'd also like to add to Aussiefishy's comments. We need to get the retailers to support us as well. So far Reef Crew is the only retailer generous enough to put up a banner ad.

Probably it is a Canadian thing. But when we moved onto a new server (in other words more costs), and e-mailed the various vendors who had in the past benefited from using this board's Vendor Announcement Forum or referrals to sponsor us, only 2 have replied saying they will look into it.

There has also been ... what maybe 2 startups e-mailed me saying they want to sponsor the board. One just told me that he is still working on his site. I don't know what happened to the other one. But every time when it comes down to actioning on sponsoring the board, it seems like most vendors bail out.

Now it is not like if there are no sponsors I am going to shut the board down or anything but sometimes it makes me wonder what is going on on this side of the border.

In the end, all in all, we are happy with the progress of this board. It has come a long way and has always given us a place to hang out.

Titus

[EmilyB]

Yes, J&L should sponsor here.

[Samw]

One of the goals of advertising though is to make the business more visible than the competition in order to generate more revenue. Banner ads are going to target online shoppers.

In this case, J&L is already known by everyone and has no serious online competition so they don't need the added visibility. Advertising on this board would probably not generate additional exposure nor revenues for them. To me, advertising here would be more beneficial to the smaller and unknown businesses.

[Cap'n]

Originally Posted by Titus

Probably it is a Canadian thing.




but sometimes it makes me wonder what is going on on this side of the border.

How does this discussion have anything to do with nationality?

[titus]

Hello,

Either way, big or small businesses whether they are known or not, are the same.

CptCleverer. The boards across the states have vendors actively pushing for ads, whether they are big or small, well known not or not. It is just like why we don't have major manufacturers over here.

This was brought up to somewhat explain why we haven't yet have some of the features like the US boards. I don't want to steer the thread into another direction or topic.

Titus

[Willow]

i dunno titus, aquarium pros has a buttload of sponsors, they each have their own forums on the board, banners and sponsor titles. most of them are regular posters that try and stay in touch with the community as they seem to have figured out that we are the source of their revenue. maybe you should look into how they have catered to the east coast retailers as i don't think it's a "canadian" thing.