Is Fatbirder having a laugh? (1 Viewer)

I noticed that on almost every page on fatbirder.com, they are promoting a 'birding forum'

http://www.mebirdie.com
The only truly world-wide birding forum with a huge picture gallery you can post your photos to, post your own trip reports, a very active mailing forum, instant messaging and much more. Fatbirder recommended.

I don't know if Fatbirder is having a laugh or if they have moved into the caged bird business but this site is aimed squarley at the bird keeping fraternity. As for the 'very active mailing forum', it has all the activity of the Marie Celeste.

Ben

It clearly states it is a bird fancier's forum.

Fear not Ben!

Steve

Ben O said:

http://www.mebirdie.com
The only truly world-wide birding forum with a huge picture gallery you can post your photos to, post your own trip reports, a very active mailing forum, instant messaging and much more. Fatbirder recommended.

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Who writes this rubbish? It's not a birding forum, neither is it active and truly worldwide. Why would Fatbirder get involved with a caged bird site like this? He has gone way down in my estimation.

Wine Man

Had a quick look into their birding forum and would you believe that the most members online at a given time was 11, way back in August 2004.
Fatbirder recommending a caged bird site, I wont be visiting his site again.

Says it all really.

Ben O said:

I noticed that on almost every page on fatbirder.com, they are promoting a 'birding forum'
http://www.mebirdie.com
The only truly world-wide birding forum with a huge picture gallery you can post your photos to, post your own trip reports, a very active mailing forum, instant messaging and much more. Fatbirder recommended.
I don't know if Fatbirder is having a laugh or if they have moved into the caged bird business but this site is aimed squarley at the bird keeping fraternity. As for the 'very active mailing forum', it has all the activity of the Marie Celeste.Ben

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Hi Ben.

The forums have only 182 registered users, only 106 articles have been submitted and the last of these was on July 21. Wow! that sounds a real threat to Birdforum.

Why is Fat Birder doing this?

The answer is in the Forums pages. If you look at the BIRD WATCHING forums you will see that they are all "In association with Fat Birder"

In this section, look at BIRD WATCHING VACATIONS.
There are about 40 birding holidays advertised and every one of them is under the heading of FAT BIRDERS ANYTIME TOURS.

The answer is simple. Fat Birder is only trying to advertise himself and his tours to become more successful and make more money. I see nothing wrong with this and rather than "going down" in peoples estimation I think he should be congratulated on an astute economic move, ie. reciprocal linking and high profile advertising for nothing.

For every 10 "caged bird" fanciers that visit this bird forum site there are probably as many genuine birders who look at it.

I bet there are many others out there who wish that they had thought of it first.

Oh, and by the way, before anyone gets suspicious, I am not a part of Fat Birders Anytime birding holidays scheme.

Regards from Doñana.

John.

My little website for my own sighting is a member of the webring run by Fatbirder. Over the last couple of weeks the logo on my site has been replaced by a white box with a red cross which indicates that there is no link to that picture of the logo. I checked in his website and the page to the webring gives an 'error not found' which explains why I get what I get in the link. I have emailed him to ask if there is a problem but have had no reply. I may remove the code to the ring so that my site looks OK again.

John Butler said:

Hi Ben.

The forums have only 182 registered users, only 106 articles have been submitted and the last of these was on July 21. Wow! that sounds a real threat to Birdforum.
Regards from Doñana.

John.

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I was not implying for one moment that this is any threat to birdforum and even if it were, it matters little to myself.
It was just a concern to me that Fatbirder would be involved with a caged bird site, which has little in common with those going on birding holidays unless they are holidays to zoos :eek!:

Ben

I'll be awaiting an advert for Fatbirder holidays in Pigeon Fanciers Weekly then. I always regarded Fatbirder.com as an excellent resource for birders but directing people to a caged bird site with misleading text has devalued it to me. Clearly profits outweigh all else to some people.

Sorry but as John Butler states, fat birder is associated with the birdwatching element of the site,not the caged birds, if you were to actually look rather than just assuming you would see this.
Wine man be careful what you say, fatbirder was and is very much pro keeping birding on the net free and was openly criticle (along with BFs owners, surfbirds owners etc) of Swarovskis attempts a year or so back of trying to charge people to access info that can be found for free on other sites. It is however and expensive bussiness trying to run a large site such as Fatbirder/Bird forum and advertising is a way to make that money back, and keep things free.
Oh and yes I do have an affiliation with fatbirder he is my dad!

Ashley beolens said:

fatbirder was and is very much pro keeping birding on the net free and was openly criticle (along with BFs owners, surfbirds owners etc) of Swarovskis attempts a year or so back of trying to charge people to access info that can be found for free on other sites. It is however and expensive bussiness trying to run a large site such as Fatbirder/Bird forum and advertising is a way to make that money back, and keep things free.

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I, along with many birders, would rather see the birds free than the websites free. I do not see any other birding sites affiliate themselves with bird keepers and I am sure the owners of Birdforum would not contemplate anything of the sort.

Wine Man

Wine Man said:

I'll be awaiting an advert for Fatbirder holidays in Pigeon Fanciers Weekly then. I always regarded Fatbirder.com as an excellent resource for birders but directing people to a caged bird site with misleading text has devalued it to me. Clearly profits outweigh all else to some people.

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I agree that Fat Birder may have "crossed the line" in some peoples eyes by advocating the keeping of caged birds, but let's be a little bit more pragmatic about this situation. Fat Birder still produces a wonderful resource for true birdwatchers, but, let's be honest here, for every birdwatcher there is probably a "caged bird" person out there. Many of these, as is evidenced on the birdforum membership, combine their desire to keep birds with a genuine enthusiasm to watch wild birds.

I have been a birder for over 40 years and when I lived in England I had a large aviary - 8 metres long x 2 metres high x 2.5 metres in width, in which I kept up to 40 birds, which all bred. My mentality at this time was that I was "rescuing" them, as I would much prefer to see these birds living in some semblance of normality, with space to fly, rather than spending their lives in a small table-top cage.

Having caged birds did not dampen my enthusiasm for going out at every opportunity to watch wild birds and I think many people do not understand that. People who know me will testify to my great love and enthusiasm of birds and birding.

Likewise, I feel certain that many caged bird owners are interested in wild birds and I suspect that a fair percentage of those would be interested in birding holidays. I know for a fact that numerous clients that I take on birding tours are also bird owners, be it a parrot, budgerigar, love bird or canary in a small cage, or aviary owners.

Back to Fat Birder. Regardless of opinions that he is just seeking more and more profit he is also exploiting a niche in the market which I feel sure will meet with some success.

I would like to point out that whilst I do not condone his actions entirely, I do understand his motives.

The answer is fairly simple. If you have strong feelings about Fat Birder's actions, write to him and give him a chance to explain himself, or, completely boycot his site. However, I suspect the second option would be like cuttings one's nose off to spite one's face.

Regards from Doñana.

John.

Ashley beolens said:

It is however and expensive bussiness trying to run a large site such as Fatbirder/Bird forum and advertising is a way to make that money back, and keep things free.

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Be fair, Ashley, it's a bit more than just an advert to keep the wolf from the door.
It's a 'FatBirder recommends' item, and when you go to it, it describes fatbirder as its sister site!

and it's rubbish.

Due to popular demand Fatbirder will be removing these links and affiation with this site.

Colin, The fatbirder site has recently been relaunched with new coding etc, and the webring will need to be restarted. They are trying to send messages to all the people registered with the ring with this informaton, but rest assured there will be a new ring soon, unfortunatley people may have to re-register, but look out for an announcment soon.

Ashley beolens said:

Due to popular demand Fatbirder will be removing these links and affiation with this site.

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I think that's probably a wise move - partly because of the whole cage bird issue - which clearly people feel stringly about. But also because the forum on that site was a bit of a joke - in the birdwatcing section there were 7 threads only one had a reply on - I'd guess it had more traffic today as a result of this thread than it's ever had before.

I do think that perhaps those who took issue with the links should have contacted the fatbirder directly (as John suggested) rather than airing it all here. If Ashley had not been on BF the thread could have gone on and on without anyone connected to the site being aware of the issues people had with it, and that would have done no one any good.

Congrats to Ashley and fatbirder for responding to these concerns so swiftly and acting to remove the 'offending' links - I for one will contine to use the fatbirder website.

Ashley beolens said:

Colin, The fatbirder site has recently been relaunched with new coding etc, and the webring will need to be restarted. They are trying to send messages to all the people registered with the ring with this informaton, but rest assured there will be a new ring soon, unfortunatley people may have to re-register, but look out for an announcment soon.

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Thanks for that Ashley. It is also affecting the KOS website that I help to look after.

James Lowther said:

Wow, that's people power in action!!

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Took the words right out of my mouth
Anyway, I think everything has been happily resolved :t:
cheers,
Andy

Fat lot of good deleting that post was (i though it was a bit inane)!!! LOL

James Lowther said:

Fat lot of good deleting that post was (i though it was a bit inane)!!! LOL

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I must have quoted it before you deleted, got distracted whilst typing and then hit reply. Sorry :stuck: