Shawn Gossman

Welcome to the community!!

The header is what caught my attention the most.

^This is exactly it. YouTube and Google aren't doing it for some kind of mental health awareness thing - they're doing it for the money.

Welcome :)

This thread is for the general discussion of the item The Hiking Forum. Please add to the discussion here.

This thread is for the general discussion of the item Blogging Collective. Please add to the discussion here.

This one is such a beautiful theme! https://smfthemedemos.levertine.org/index.php?media/item/zentoa.224/

I've seen this a few times. Members of a forum who are depressed or undergoing some form of mental health crisis. They threaten to kill or harm themselves. Many will do this in the open forum. Some may be faking it for attention, but there is always a chance they are not. How do you, as a forum owner, handle this sort of incident? Is it a ban-and-go issue, or are you trying to contact someone who can do something about it?

How do you all feel about requiring that your forum members have strong passwords? How about enabling features such as mandatory 2FA logins? (Two-Factor) How about for staff members, especially those who can get into your admin control panels? Do you think more forum admins need to take something like this issue seriously?

Great article. There are some really cool AI SaaS services out there that you can use to monitor your competitors' changes. Changes like any website change, new newsletters, social media posts, posting frequency, time/day post changes, etc. To me, it's an ultimate competitive intelligence gatherer. Sometimes, knowing those changes can help you stay on top of things.

I'm more internet productive at night but for my day job which is complex, I'd rather have a fresh morning start.

Just make sure you keep them updated. Each addon you install is an extra potential backdoor into your forum. Is there is a security problem in the code and it goes on without being updated, you might regret having it on there. I'm really super picky on the addons I use for that reason. I always read the comments and search for reviews and bad press online first. Another thing about add-ons is they tend to add extra bloat to your forum, which could slow it down.

I personally only have one admin. That admin is me. The only other personnel I add are moderators. I feel this is a better approach unless, of course, you need a technical admin or you and someone else are co-owning a forum. I have yet to go in on a co-owning forum in all of my years of being on forums.

I'm glad because I was falling down a long, dark road. Getting angry easily. Made mistakes back then, especially with friends. Glad to have moved on and matured from that life. Now I'm chasing Gnomes LOL

I have Monster Insights plugged in for my blogs. I like it because it gives me my analytics (GA4 integration) right on my blog and for each post. Still, I don't use it to capacity, and I should since I pay for that plugin. I'm really good at SEO, marketing, social media, and all that. I understand all the metrics and can even customize my own. However, I just don't do it as much. I love the creation side too much. As for the forums, I never check it aside from the footer stats.

You're right! I run a blog about blogging, I always tell people to do at least 1.5K to 2K words. However, I often write the bigger posts for the value side of it, and while I do some SEO on it, the main goal is for it to be an ultimate guide for the reader. I'm a firm believer in sentence auditing. What I mean by that is I will make sure every sentence leads to value or is the value. I look at blogging as writing a good book. If my copy isn't interesting in a sentence, no matter the sentence, then I'll likely lose someone's interest. Padding, fluff, and filler content are definitely not a good thing. I do it for money, but I don't rely on that money to pay the bills. That money pays for my VPS servers, though, but if it runs out, I can still afford it. However, it's nice to let it pay for it. However, I am working on content and media businesses that I hope to turn into high-revenue businesses. Some involve the outdoors, and others involve local businesses. If you've not noticed, I've become quite addicted to the outdoors. You saw the precursor of that back on AAF 1.0 when I started getting into cycling. Ha. That was the fuse that got lit.

It is! This state park does a lot of events. They always invite me to an outdoor fair to setup my Hiking with Shawn booth and even pay me to put on a presentation each year. I usually do something unique for the season. In 2025, I'm going to do a presentation on chasing frozen waterfalls. I can't wait!

Just got back from hiking. A state park had a Gnome Roam challenge. Yes, really. LOL. We completed all 7. Myself and my wife. Did about 5 miles total on 6 trails. One Gnome was at a Trailhead because the trail was closed for hunting. It's currently shotgun season here. Got a cool patch for doing it. All free and fun!

If you do create some kind of writing community, I'd love to be a member of that. I love writing, too. I mainly do it through blogging, but I still very much enjoy the actual process of writing and editing. I enjoy it so much that I usually write blog posts that are anywhere from 3,000 to 15,000 words. Some have told me I write posts that are too long. Personally, I disagree and couldn't care less what they think. :P I quit my last job after 13 years because the politics and good ole boy people were getting to me. I would stress out so much that I gave myself ulcers. Ever had one of them? They're not fun. Before I quit, I would write (blog) to relieve myself from the stress. I wrote big blog posts every day. In fact, that was the time I blogged on two blogs for 110 days straight! If it wasn't be writing, I think I would have gone insane. Well, if it wasn't for writing and my wife LOL. Excited to see what you come up with!

I just wanted to say "beat by Pete" lol

I do most of my work in the evenings, web and community wise. In fact, I don't sleep as much as I should because I don't like to miss things. That reminds me. I need to go to bed now. It's almost midnight LOL

I quit doing activities that made me depressed and started doing things that made me happy. Alcohol used to make me happy when I got drunk but always left me depressed when I was an a to people. I drank to cease pain. I finally helped myself out of the pain, quit drinking altogether, and start biking and hiking. Now that's my addiction and life couldn't be better. I met my now wife because of those hacks :)

I start with just me. When I hit 10 members, I look for my first moderator. I don't add another moderator until it gets too much for me and my one moderator to handle. And repeat. That's my strategy, nowadays.

phpBB1 was the first software I used. Shortly after, I went to version 2 and man I remember all the hours upon hours it took to add one plugin and back then it was all on dialup, too! :P I have a forum using phpBB3 and it's the first time I've used it as an admin. I like it a lot though the built-in spam controls sucked. But I got to see how easy it was to add a plugin now when I installed hcaptcha on it.

When someone makes me mad enough to where I wish to insult them, I just tune them out and ignore them. I forget about them. I don't hold a grudge but I just don't allow them back into my life or my circle again. I think holding grudges is bad for you.