firstly, i absolutely love this site and how it allows all of us to be creative as heck. thing is, it does have its fair share of flaws and one of those flaws is a sheer lack of user updates for groups & forums.
ever notice that a forum or group you are in doesn't give updates whenever a new topic is posted? bulletins and blogs, yeah sure. we all get updates for those. but i've never seen an update for someone starting a new thread in a group or forum. which is a shame since it would be a pivotal factor for keeping any micro community active :O
GOOD NEWS - THERE IS AN ACTUAL SOLUTION!!
ofc this does involve an extra step which really shouldn't need to be taken, but until our webmaster an fixes things, it kinda is needed. so here we go okay? whew. this is what we all need to pay attention to (not just here in frens, but the overall site as a whole):
this is the universal symbol for rss (really simple syndication). if you're into podcasting, or vlogging (or if you're active on some other site where aggregated content exists), you've seen the rss icon. there's a good chance you've already seen it on here, just from aimlessly doomscrolling on spacehey. but what the heckadoodie IS it?
it's a means of syndicating dynamic content, and how many people choose to get their news and updates. there are many many rss readers around, some web based, some via apps, some via desktop. so if you want regular updates to a particular forum or group, then until an addresses this and applies a much needed sitewide update, you need to pay attention to the following:
this is the rss link for this group, frens. feel free to use this post as a means of applying things to your own groups or forums but for purposes here, we're sticking with our own group's rss feed. what you need to do then is use an rss feed reader (again there are literally hundreds of these things around) and submit the url above!!
i just signed up with inoreader.com, which has a sleek interface and is very easy for newbs to get to grips with, but other popular feed readers include feedly, feedburner and newsblur. honestly, go with whatever works for you. then once you're set up, you will see regular updates and again, until this site is fixed, this really is the best alternative.
btw, this is what frens look like in inoreader:
despite not previously getting updates for new threads being posted, i am now!!
just set this up on rssguard and it works niceee. hopefully if more ppl adopt this forum posters will feel like theres actually a reason to post, so we'll get more posts. im trying to figure out if theres a way to get notifications for topic replies too (without having to manually add an rss feed for each topic), ill update if i figure that out!