Articles section suggestion

[elephantnose3334]

I have a good idea to make TFF better. It's about adding an article section in the site and it will cover many fish sections, including care, species, breeding, questions and answers, and more. I think this is a great idea because it is better to have an article section on the homepage than no article section. Imagine what the website will look like with hundreds of helpful articles submitted by members of the forum. For example, we would have a corydoras section on the article section. People will rate it out of 5 and read it. They will also comment the article made by the member. There will also be reviews on fish products as well.

There will be competitions for the best articles and people can win prizes if they have won the competition.

I hope that this idea will be implemented into the forum. Do you think it is a good idea?

 

[GaryE]

The problem with articles is they are written from a position of authority (in the expertise sense of the word). If we post our opinions in the more relaxed format of a forum, it's easy to discuss. If we post articles, we start with a thesis/main point and defend it, and this creates problems if we don't know our subject well. There are a couple of members who delight in finding stupid videos and posting them here. What if the creators of those fish killing videos start writing articles here?

If they post as members on a thread, then other members will call them out on their absurdities, and get them to explain why they say what they say. Maybe they change and learn. Maybe they convince others. But if the site accepts all articles with no oversight, we start out giving the dumb stuff credibility. We hurt the credibility and quality of the site.

I'm old school. I used to be an aquarium writer before the death of print media, and it was a solid part time job. Every article was checked by very experienced editors, some of whom were Ichthyologists. If I made a claim and didn't back it up, I got called for it and had to provide some proof, or support if I was speculating. There are fish sites that seem to do that. The articles on Seriously Fish have been evolving, and it has become a solid site for info. The Cichlid Room Companion is also good. A number of hobbyist publications are available in digital form, and a lot of older aquarium lit is finally being digitized.

We can no longer say the main stream of the fish internet is unreliable, though youtube has some serious catching up to do with its poor material.

Someone like you, @elephantnose3334 , is in the internet bind. You write well and love fish, but how do you break in and develop that skill? Video has replaced writing in a many ways. The places that used to accept the work of young writers about fish are gone. As an older writer, I can't make any money from my trade, and have had to teach myself to make video content. Any time I want, I can send off a text on killies or Cichlids to a specialist magazine in the hobby, and if you decide to specialize on one or two groups of fish that have an organized following, you could find a creative outlet there. There are places that beg for free articles, but not general or introductory ones.

I think forums are something different.

 

[elephantnose3334]

The problem with articles is they are written from a position of authority (in the expertise sense of the word). If we post our opinions in the more relaxed format of a forum, it's easy to discuss. If we post articles, we start with a thesis/main point and defend it, and this creates problems if we don't know our subject well. There are a couple of members who delight in finding stupid videos and posting them here. What if the creators of those fish killing videos start writing articles here?

If they post as members on a thread, then other members will call them out on their absurdities, and get them to explain why they say what they say. Maybe they change and learn. Maybe they convince others. But if the site accepts all articles with no oversight, we start out giving the dumb stuff credibility. We hurt the credibility and quality of the site.

I'm old school. I used to be an aquarium writer before the death of print media, and it was a solid part time job. Every article was checked by very experienced editors, some of whom were Ichthyologists. If I made a claim and didn't back it up, I got called for it and had to provide some proof, or support if I was speculating. There are fish sites that seem to do that. The articles on Seriously Fish have been evolving, and it has become a solid site for info. The Cichlid Room Companion is also good. A number of hobbyist publications are available in digital form, and a lot of older aquarium lit is finally being digitized.

We can no longer say the main stream of the fish internet is unreliable, though youtube has some serious catching up to do with its poor material.

Someone like you, @elephantnose3334 , is in the internet bind. You write well and love fish, but how do you break in and develop that skill? Video has replaced writing in a many ways. The places that used to accept the work of young writers about fish are gone. As an older writer, I can't make any money from my trade, and have had to teach myself to make video content. Any time I want, I can send off a text on killies or Cichlids to a specialist magazine in the hobby, and if you decide to specialize on one or two groups of fish that have an organized following, you could find a creative outlet there. There are places that beg for free articles, but not general or introductory ones.

I think forums are something different.

Interesting. The answer to the question you have asked me: I write well with my mind and always research the subject matter. I am good at typing stuff in Australian English. However I am bad at handwriting, as I failed handwriting in primary school. Some forums have article sections, others don't. I didn't know you were a good writer before print media disintegrated into videos.

 

[GaryE]

I didn't know you were a good writer before print media disintegrated into videos.

Maybe I wasn't, but I published a lot! I think video can be important, but it does get sidetracked into personality/celebrity wannabe stuff. Print was distant, and colder. The facts had to sit there exposed.

You have style and flow, and if you work at it, this random stranger from the internet says you can get really good. It's like being a musician - there are natural talents but they need practice and training. I'll make a suggestion - you are in Perth, Australia. To me, that is extremely exotic. But it is also ANGFA land - the Australia New Guinea Fish world. Rather than working on all the same fish every hobbyist wants to write about (but everyone has already read about), why not explore something a little different for an international audience - Australian blue eyes, Rhadinocentrus or Melanotaenia? There are Australian fishes kept in aquariums legally that I know next to nothing about, and I'm a serious fishnerd. Tell us about them.

This could steer you toward many print possibilities, as you learn things that aren't just researched in books. You could also do what I did when I first wrote on fish - find a local aquarium club and help them with their site. That would get you peer reviewers. I cut my teeth in the clubs, and that made me think I might be able to write for the then existing fish mags.

A typical article for me began with my setting up a tank and getting the fish I wanted to write about. I'd observe them while reading everything I could get my hands on. In a few weeks or months, they would breed, and I would have a subject. If I watched them closely, and saw how the fry developed, what their spawning rituals were and then found out how they were to raise, I had my 1500 words. Early on, I overgeneralized a bit and didn't always take into account the conditions in my tanks influencing things, but in time, I learned to be critical of my own observations. I usually had the fish for 8-10 months before I knew enough to write about it, and I didn't write about fish I hadn't kept (well, I ghost wrote a bit under other people's names, and if they wanted me to write on fish I didn't know, I did that. They were customers).

There's legwork to be done, and it's hard if you are young and can't have enough tanks to make things work like that.

 

[elephantnose3334]

Maybe I wasn't, but I published a lot! I think video can be important, but it does get sidetracked into personality/celebrity wannabe stuff. Print was distant, and colder. The facts had to sit there exposed.

You have style and flow, and if you work at it, this random stranger from the internet says you can get really good. It's like being a musician - there are natural talents but they need practice and training. I'll make a suggestion - you are in Perth, Australia. To me, that is extremely exotic. But it is also ANGFA land - the Australia New Guinea Fish world. Rather than working on all the same fish every hobbyist wants to write about (but everyone has already read about), why not explore something a little different for an international audience - Australian blue eyes, Rhadinocentrus or Melanotaenia? There are Australian fishes kept in aquariums legally that I know next to nothing about, and I'm a serious fishnerd. Tell us about them.

This could steer you toward many print possibilities, as you learn things that aren't just researched in books. You could also do what I did when I first wrote on fish - find a local aquarium club and help them with their site. That would get you peer reviewers. I cut my teeth in the clubs, and that made me think I might be able to write for the then existing fish mags.

A typical article for me began with my setting up a tank and getting the fish I wanted to write about. I'd observe them while reading everything I could get my hands on. In a few weeks or months, they would breed, and I would have a subject. If I watched them closely, and saw how the fry developed, what their spawning rituals were and then found out how they were to raise, I had my 1500 words. Early on, I overgeneralized a bit and didn't always take into account the conditions in my tanks influencing things, but in time, I learned to be critical of my own observations. I usually had the fish for 8-10 months before I knew enough to write about it, and I didn't write about fish I hadn't kept (well, I ghost wrote a bit under other people's names, and if they wanted me to write on fish I didn't know, I did that. They were customers).

There's legwork to be done, and it's hard if you are young and can't have enough tanks to make things work like that.

I think it's a great idea. Melanotaenia is a genus of rainbowfish native to Australia and New Guinea. I did add this genus and the other rainbowfishes in the first part of care guides of various fish types. It's in the first section of the article. https://www.fishforums.net/threads/common-fishes-in-aquaria-and-how-to-care-for-them.489579/

 

[elephantnose3334]

Rather than working on all the same fish every hobbyist wants to write about (but everyone has already read about), why not explore something a little different for an international audience - Australian blue eyes, Rhadinocentrus or Melanotaenia? There are Australian fishes kept in aquariums legally that I know next to nothing about, and I'm a serious fishnerd. Tell us about them.

I can briefly explain to you about them. There are three main families of rainbowfish mentioned in my article: Madagascan, the blue-eyes and the normal rainbowfish. The thing about rainbows is that they can get large, probably 8cm-12cm. The blue-eyes are smaller than the normal rainbows you see in the aquarium shop. Rhadinocentrus- I know nothing about them. All of these fishes need specialised care as they grow older after you brought them in an aquarium shop.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Here is a suggestion. Head over to Planetcatfish.com. Once there poke around. What you will see are three things relating to fish articles. The first are actual article which are written by folks internationally known as experts on the species involved. next you will find threads as described in above posts where there is a a back and forth. And then there is Taxonomy & Science News here recent research papers are cited and abstracts provided with links.

In this Forum there are also 3 sub-fourms: Non-dissertation student research sticky, The Dissertations Sticky and The catfish distributions sticky

There is more science in the above that I have seen on almost any fish site and for sure better than anything one might find on Youtube

It used to be that getting published involved a reviews= process as GaryE noted. But any fool can post anything they want on Youtube, there is no review process. So my feeling is that, for the most part, Youtube if the last place to go for good information on almost any topic. There is actually some excellent stuff there but it is often easier to fine the proverbial needle in a haystack than to find the rare good info on Youtube. A lot of the best fish info I have found there has been in a lanugae other than English and I need to read the subtiles on the bottom of the vid to understand things.

 

[GaryE]

I can briefly explain to you about them. There are three main families of rainbowfish mentioned in my article: Madagascan, the blue-eyes and the normal rainbowfish. The thing about rainbows is that they can get large, probably 8cm-12cm. The blue-eyes are smaller than the normal rainbows you see in the aquarium shop. Rhadinocentrus- I know nothing about them. All of these fishes need specialised care as they grow older after you brought them in an aquarium shop.

The thing is, Madagascans are included with rainbows for convenience in the hobby. Blue eyes are in the same boat - not rainbows. So if you go at writing without fully exploring the fish, you easily end up making errors like that.
Rhads are in Australia. I wish they were easily available here. Beautiful little fish. Check them out. I would love to see an article from you on them if you can get some and see what keeping them is like.

Slow down, look at a lot of articles and books on the rainbowfish (family Melanotaeniidae), Madagascan (family Bedotiidae) and Pseudomugiliinae, the blue eyes. They aren't even in the same family, whatever aquarium trade marketers want to list them as. It's easy to get caught by stuff like that if you rush to write. And there lies the problem with articles on a forum. No editor, no peer review before posting, and you end up making mistakes in print that you may kick yourself for later.

 

[Back in the fold]

@GaryE What older aquarium literature is being digitized and where can a guy find it ? Where does the search for that older literature start ?

 

[GaryE]

Alas, it seems to start by joining the clubs that printed the stuff. I'll send a link tomorrow when I have time to dig a good site out.