just like teletext

Frankly those brought up in the Twitter/Facebook timeline format will find Discourse (the SE23.life software) more intuitive and attractive. Whereas traditional forum users may prefer the errr - forum model.

IMHO what trumps both is content and activity. As I reminded a previous owner of that forum at the time - the most active/successful forum in the area then and today has possibly the most user unfriendly software - https://mail.eastdulwichforum.co.uk

Stuart

There was lots of content on se23.life, it was pretty active.

I think that possibly may have contributed to it feeling difficult to navigate. Harder to find things when there's lots more to search through.

I'm not really sure how anyone can prefer older interfaces like this and the east Dulwich forum. Possibly it's out of habit. But there are many clear advantages of more modern interfaces. Mobile friendly a big one.

I guess there isn't much to be gained in discussing the pros and cons of the front-end, since we don't have that choice.

You make an excellent point about EDF, which I think is that the value is in the user-base/traffic and a modern front-end is not a necessary condition for this. Having said that I actually find EDF significantly more usable than here (some of this is down to what we are allowed to do here, some is what functionality is enabled here and some is down to differences in the front-end itself).

I'd like to see it as a new beginning for discussing local issues without the drama of the Chris Beech era or the way it became after he apparently left.

Agreed the way forward is to look to the future, Beech is in the past and now very old history, time to move onwards and upwards, embracing what we have and making use of it to disseminate information to the community, taking the cream of the old and the the best of new, as they said in the days of former pirate radio.

I've just read that the EDF Forum will also be closing in July unless someone else wishes to take over

That's a shame.

Just for reassurance, SE23.com's costs are covered by other sources of income so is unlikely to suffer the same fate. In fact, the forum has recently been moved to a better server with improved uptime. Looking forward to the next 20 years serving the community.

So sad to hear that, EDF has been a community resource for the past 16 years, I hope someone can step in and take over its running. It's probably been the most active Forum locally.

Time marches on and we are potentially within the last few days of the presence of the last of the .life websites.

Is there any update directly or indirectly from @ForestHull about why it is closing or any sign of preparedness or willingness to hand either of the sites on to new owners?

Seems strange to me that SE23 closing and EDforum rumored to be finishing whats the common problem, Personally sad to see local websites closing always helped big time. Will be missed.

It’s such a shame it’s closing.

Two features I’ve noticed that this site doesn’t have is the ability for logged in users to go to ‘last read’ post and it’s also missing a ‘like’ button for posts too.

I really liked the user interface of .life, felt contemporary and well ordered.

"Happy to hear suggestions on how SE23.com can help with serving the community."

When I moved here, this was the only forum and the one everyone seemed to use. Lots of useful info, good contributors etc, it was my go to place.

Times have changed and there are now a plethora of facebook groups, twitter people to follow, other social media type forums. Standing out against that is hard, but possible.

First thing all those things above have is ease of use on mobile phones, for reading, posting, uploading photos, quoting, adding links etc. I think to get enough users here, or on another forum, you will need to be able to do this, which means migrating to somethig like Discourse (not sure if you would need to start again / how to migrate users etc).

Not just mobiles, but the user experience at present on the site will not be good enough (IMO) to get enough people back, and you need a certain amount of volume of users for the site to be active.

Recommendations were extremely popular on .life - you could see which users recommended someone on a thread (on some fb groups it's always the same 3-4 people recommending the same people) so could take a view on how legitimate that reivew was. I'm not sure if it's changed, but previously on here you could not post a reply to someone asking for a recommendation. I don't understand SEO, but having a load of recommendations on a site and someone searching se23 and plumber and being directed to here (or a forum) can only be good for traffic to that forum.

There are lots of other things you need to decide on, moderation (there is one sarcastic post to a returning user - that sort of thing to decide on the tone and whether you are happy with it), how to engage with local societies (this is an area I think could be improved and never worked as well as it could have) and campaign groups but the two above would be the big ones for me.

As an open forum searchable on the web, that is one huge advantage you do have over some other social media. It might work without a software migration, but I can't see it myself, and if you don't do it, sooner or later I expect someone else might.

Good luck.

OakR, thanks for your constructive suggestions.

If the community finds SE23.com useful then fine. It won't disappear even if not.
It's not aiming to directly compete with anything else, rather is here as a complementary resource and to serve as an alternative when things go south elsewhere.

Sure, a fully mobile responsive site would require some work but is not beyond the realms of possibility. In the meantime pinch and zoom has to serve as a workaround.

Replies to requests for recommendations will be welcome.

Removing posts inevitably invites its own criticism, so probably better to leave it to members to comment on others' posts.

Any local group is welcome to use SE23.com if they think it might be useful.