Hi Antony. I think what's happened is that many of the people who use the GRG website to track their runs now use a Facebook group - imaginatively called "Good Run Wall". So when people have a question, or want to shout about a run they've done, they post it on there - and it's a lot quicker and easier to respond. It's pretty powerful because complete strangers have become good friends, meeting up for races and socialising off the back of it too.

This does mean - and I'm sure that the guys behind GRG won't mind me saying this - that the concept of forums have been overtaken by the immediacy of social media.

I sincerely hope that the site itself is still getting traffic - I'm sure it must be, because for me it's still the best way of recording my runs. But the Facebook "Wall" is a quicker and more convenient way of chatting to other runners.

Hi Anthony.  Thanks for highlighing this.  Yes, we are a little disapointed that the forum is not being used more and this is probably partly due to social media as Burtie suggests. However, another member who was unable to reply to this post has pointed out that it wasn't working if using Internet Explorer 11 which we do think has had an impact as welll  We are pleased to say that this has now been sorted!  

We still have plenty of enthusiastic members and hopefully a lot of them will be using the Good Run Wall and other social media.  We have recently made it easier to make routes and runs public. 

I used to fairly regularly reply to questions or anything i felt I could put useful imput into as think its nice to exchange ideas on the forum. I have seen things here that i would have replied to in recent months but  the system wouldnt let me. I had emailed the contacts here and was told it was to do with my Windows system and an update not being compatible. I am sure there must be other people like me unable to post when they wanted to. When I read your post and unable yet again to reply I emailed and miraculously I can now voice my opinions again. So people lets see how the traffic increases now if paople have been like me come on try it and see if it works again. Hooray by the way. I Love Good Run Guide and always log my miles this way even although I now have Garmin still prefer to log them here too. Your post says its been viewd 58 times so surely a few people wanted to answer just like me. Thanks Brenda

Hi, I am that 'another member' and, like Brenda, find replies are now miraculously working.

:)  Yes, hopefully the technical issues have been sorted and we will get some more good advice on the forum.  If anyone still can't post then please email and let us know.  Thanks.

Well, I'm very glad to be partially wrong. If it's a technical problem rather than simply behavioural, then I'm happy to hear it's been fixed and will be of help to people.

Louise - I have got a suggestion which I think would hugely enhance the forum and increase useage, which is knowing when someone has replied to a topic I'm following. At the moment, if I put a question out there, or respond to someone else, I then need to periodically check as to whether anyone has responded. Not very motivating, especially if I'm lazy. It doesn't encourage frequent use. 

However, if I got an email alert, saying "There is a new reply to the topic 'London Marathon!'" (for example), I'd be much, much more inclined to log back in immediately and respond myself - which creates momentum for the other posters on that topic too. It's the system on the Runners World forum and it's effective because it drives conversation.

In a similar vein, you could also have an option which was "alert me when a new topic is created". Again, it needs to be optional, but I think many would be interested - if they could see the topic pop up as an email, they can then decide whether to log in and read fully, or simply delete.

Perhaps these exist already in my preferences and I haven't switched it on? If that's the case, it might be a good idea to change the default setting to "opt out" rather than "opt in" because I'm probably not the only one who finds it a bit clunky to have to "manually" check the forum. I really think if it were an option, you'd see a big increase in conversation.

A bit more personalisation might be nice too - in particular, if people's photo popped up against their posts. Where people have uploaded a photo to their profile, it'd be nice to see it, rather than having to click on the individual, which I doubt many people do Makes it a bit more friendly and a bit more variety on the page.

Hope that helps.

Hi Burtie

You have some very good suggestions there!  We will look into the development of these improvements ASAP.  Thanks!  Louise

... and, while I'm making suggestions, be great if it was available on the mobile version too. :-)

I agree with Burtie be nice if there was a way that you knew a post had been replied to would get us all actively talking and feeling connected. Also make the person who sent orgianl question or post know that they have got an answer rather than seeing its been viewed numberous times but not answered. Thanks Brenda

Yes defnitely and thanks Anthony for starting it off