PlanetCatfish.com

Hey Guys,

Just thought if you were surfing the web you might want to check out FuriousAquatics.com. Its a new predatory fish community. Maybe you guys could affiliate!

http://FuriousAquatics.com/

Why would we affiliate - what's your daily access figures? I've checked ours and we don't get a measurable amount of hits from you.

Jools

I certainly don't want to be blunt, but your homepage is almost illegible due to the black background.

I have to agree with Marc. You are going for a blood thing obviously but you really need to work on those colors.

George

A 1-post user and only to promote a badly designed website.....

Jools, YMMV, but IMO this is genuine SPAAAMMMMMMM

I agree the post is VERY close to SPAM, but I let it go as it is an aquatic website and, with that design, they're going to need all the exposure they can get.

Jools

Well I actually like the look of the website it's nice to see something other than the typical PN grey. The darker red font is a bit hard to read against the black though. I would sugest changing the small font to the brighter red. Looks like it might develop into a nice website when participation and membership increases. I've added it to my favorites and will certainly lurk around and see how it goes.

I tend to agree with Scotter the site linked to has the potential to be a good source of information etc for predatory fish.
I have to say while I find Planetcatfish invaluable when it comes to catfish and in general it is a great source for aquarists I found Jules posts to be extremely arrogant.
Yes you have a good site but why slag other sites? All this person was trying to do was promote their site-ok Planetcatfish dwarfs their site and PC might not gain much from linking or what ever to this other site but at the end of the day we are all aquarists- and if just one new person finds either PC or this other site via the other then the internet will be a better place. Get off your high horse Jules and try and help a few small fry instead of strutting around like the top dog.

PP

powerfulpumpkins wrote:Get off your high horse Jules and try and help a few small fry instead of strutting around like the top dog.

Since weâ??re talking about it, adolescent aesthetic style aside the site design is atrocious from an accessibility standpoint and severely discriminates against those with visual disabilities - but I didn't mention that until now - certainly I was trying to gently hint at that - not openly slag something off! That's not opinion, that's fact, run it through any accessibility checker...

Anyway, on to what my post was meant to dig outâ?¦

I do help sites with genuine content (small or large) as evidenced recently with our links to zebrapleco.com or, in the past, corycats.com and many others. Weâ??ll continue to do this in the future. We also send a huge amount of traffic to fishbase.org and plecofanatics.com. We also spend some of our advertising revenues on supporting other sites and community ventures such as our sponsorship of the recent CSG convention in the north of England.

Look at this from my point of view however, I (personally and usually by email) get about 10-20 requests of this kind every month from everyone who's just worked out how to setup a fishy forum and thinks that entitles them to SPAM me or other forums. I also get a similar number of emails asking to use hundreds of pictures from the site and I spend a similar amount of time persuing thoise that have elected to steal images from the siteâ??s contributors.

To those who ask something along the lines of this topic, I reply to them all in the same way, a polite request asking, basically, what's in it for us. How should we â??affiliateâ?

And god bless us everyone!!!

Kev

Jules thanks for the reply.
I responded in this thread as I felt your response to Landon about his site was somewhat excessive. Ok his site needs some work and may not show particularly well on screen (although looks fine on my screen) but why jump on him. He didnt SPAM you- ok it was unsolicited but it was aquatic related so should bring a fair response- it isnt like he was trying to sell you drugs porn or fleece you of money.
At some point PC was a small fry itself and thankfully survived to grow to what it is today which is a wonderful resource for catfish keepers.
What can PC do for these small fry? I dont know to be quite honest. The sites links section is hidden away in the cool stuff section and mainly carries catfish related links. Maybe you could have a FEATURED SITE OF THE WEEK or something like that on the main home page in return for sites carrying a PC banner link of some kind. I help run a Fishy forum myself just like the ones you indicate are popping up everywhere. We dont claim to offer the same information and content as PC as we are not that kind of site but what we are is a welcoming online community for people interested in all things aquatic. Yes at times someone posts a picture of a fish and 6 of us go yeeerrr great fish just like you would if you were showing a fish at a club meeting (in the real world) but many dont have access to clubs these days due to the changes in the aquatic hobby.
All I ask is you are alittle bit more posative when people look to promote their sites via PC- PC may get alittle something in return and we all benefit.

PP

The site in question is almost a carbon copy of waterwolves. Same board format, pinned topic almost the same, just with less content.

I wonder what is the point...

No worries, as Barbie eludes to, the site in question has loads more advertising just becuase of this post than it might have had otherwise - I think it's closer to SPAM than you think as the fact it's about aquarium fish is a pretty tenuous link and the wording of the post just reads like SPAM - my opinion mind you and you'll notice I didn't delete it as it was borderline.

One thing though, the links page only has catfish sites on it so it can remain manageable. Since I wrote the last reply I have had three (2 emails and 1 PM) requests to put links into it for other (non-catfish) sites. All of them were politely told that the links page is for catfish sites (or sites with significant catfish content) only.

The "Featured site of the Week" thing is a good idea, but I'm not planning to do it simply becuase it's just another job I need to manage. Another administrative task that eats away at the time available to do other things.

Jools

You've all made great points I think, but I felt I needed to point out at least one thing..

powerfulpumpkins wrote:At some point PC was a small fry itself and thankfully survived to grow to what it is today which is a wonderful resource for catfish keepers.

I've been referring to the Species Log/Cat E-log for years now, so I just had to say that this site abounded with content BEFORE there was a forum. The forum was simply a natural progression to an already popular site. I moderate on a predatory fish forum that's not even 3 years old, and it's still quite difficult to match the forum's capabilities with actual site content. Then it's just generally difficult to find a place in such an overrun arena of the fishkeeping hobby. Fact is, upstart predatory fish forums are a dime a dozen (heck even the established ones are!), and are often run by a young former member of another forum that didn't like what the other members told him.

Basicly all I'm saying is this.. Unless something about your new forum sets itself apart from the rest, fills an open niche or offers something else besides what came with the free forum software, it'll go nowhere fast all by itself. No matter how much you post links to it!

It also survived becuase I've been daft enough to stick at it. I do wonder if many of the sites we know today will be around in 2, 5 or 10 years time.

BTW, we celebrate our 10th Birthday next year, here's what we looked like in 1999 - http://web.archive.org/web/199905081257 ... ntdoor.htm !

Jools

Hey cool Jools!!
I remember the site this way since I first started to surf on here back around that time, January 1999... seems like ages ago!!

Thanks for sharing this piece of archives!!

Cheers
Yann

I didnt set out to offend anyone with my replies to this thread, I just felt that Landon had been unfairly sat on by Jules but then on reflection as suggested he had not posted anything before coming onto the site offering his site up so I guess he didnt go about things the right way.
I guess Jules just gets hardened to these kind of requests after a while which is understandable.
Personally I wouldnt dream of promoting a site I may help run here on PC unless it was acceptable to Jules. The only site I do advertise in my Sig is for a UK fishkeeping society to try and keep it functioning.
Keep up the good work everyone.

PP

PP,

Don't back off - you don't have to! I don't mind brazen plugging of a site as long as it's accepted that response or feedback to that plug will be equally forthright!

Anyway, the site in question has had it's share of publicity now!

Jools

but then on reflection as suggested he had not posted anything before coming onto the site offering his site up so I guess he didnt go about things the right way.

Maybe if the guy was a regular contributor to PC, he may have had a more polite response.

It's best to put something in before you take I think.

The fact that the guy hasn't bothered to respond, probably means that he hasn't even checked for a reply to his post, and is busy spamming some other forum.

Jools wrote:PP,

Don't back off - you don't have to! I don't mind brazen plugging of a site as long as it's accepted that response or feedback to that plug will be equally forthright!

Anyway, the site in question has had it's share of publicity now!

Jools

OK Jules thanks for the reply.
I guess I have to plug a site then dont I.
For anyone looking to take part in a fish forum with a friendly welcoming crowd of fishkeepers why not join.
http://www.fishouseforum.co.uk
Fishouseforum recommends Planetcatfish for all your catfish needs.


PP