Well, great post
@ayman.roshdy.
I am one of those that was around pre-Internet. My only source of aquarium-related information was Tropical Fish Hobbyist (TFH) and Freshwater and Marine Aquariums (FAMA). You have no idea how hard it was waiting a month to get another dose of information.
Then came Compuserv with the Aquarium Plant Section and the famous email list called the Aquatic Plant Digest (APD). This now provided more information on planted aquariums on an
almost daily basis.
By the time websites became a thing, forums quickly sprung up including my Aquatic Plant Central. Forums were THE place to get your daily fix of planted aquarium information for a long time. The hobby began to grow exponentially.
Facebook came around and has overtaken the forum as the place most aquarists hang. YouTube and Instagram are also places people go for planted aquarium information. The "now ancient" concept of a magazine has little chance of competing with social media. I support the relatively new attempts at bringing it back in a digital format but I don't have high hopes.
My personal feeling is that a forum and social media (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube) can and should co-exist. Choosing one over another is doing a disservice to one's experience of the hobby.
To me, social media is perfect when I just want to scroll through and see eye-candy and have relatively quick conversations. One-off questions
MAY also get a quick (albeit not always good) answer. It's intended to be consumed in bite-size pieces without much depth. To me it feels like showing up at a very crowded party. Great to be there and see everyone. Hard to have long conversations over the noise.
Again, to me, a forum is like going to your local hangout place. It's quieter, you feel more at ease, you know the people and can have longer, more detailed conversations. You can really think and learn. And, for the most part, you like the people there. They know you and you know them
better than you know the social media personas.
Sorry to go down a rabbit hole with what was a straight forward question. Just felt like putting my thoughts into this thread as I view the magazine to today as a timeline that has overall improved our way to interact and learn.
