I assume you mean birding-aus, not Birds Australia or Birdlife Australia.
I've found that it is possible to search the Facebook Groups from within
Facebook itself, but I don't think Google will return any results - can anyone
confirm that? The problem is that you first need to know which Facebook group
to search, and there are dozens of them now dedicated to Australian birding,
and probably many I don't know about.
So fragmentation is one problem too. As to whether the postings will even be
there when you look, people can delete their own postings, along with all the
replies, as can group owners, so maybe or maybe not.
There's no doubt there are less messages here now since a year or two ago, but
it appears to have stabilised at this lower level of usage, rather than be in
terminal decline. Time will tell. One benefit of the drift to Facebook has been
that many of the discussions that were considered off-topic or controversial
have drifted there too. Discussions here have degenerated into arguments a lot
less recently as a result, which may result in people remaining subscribers.
It's probably possible to set up archives of the Facebook group discussions.
You could direct Facebook's emailed notifications to an archive similar to
birding-aus's, but when I suggested this a while ago, other Facebook users
reacted in horror at the possibility of their conversations being archived. It
seems the ability to delete postings is a major attraction there.
Peter Shute
Sent from my iPad
> On 4 Jan 2016, at 12:20 PM, Bill Stent <> wrote:
>
> I agree, Steve.
>
> The various Facebook pages are great for showing off photos (I'm a
> show-off, I admit) but searching on them for past information is just
> impossible.
>
> Bill
>
>> On Mon, Jan 4, 2016 at 11:39 AM, Steve Clark <> wrote:
>> G'day all
>>
>> I mourn the decline of BA - having been a member since 1995 or so.
>> Yesterday I was asked for information from a chap writing an article for
>> Australian Field Ornithology. He did an online search and found an item on
>> BA of mine from 2001 that supported his article.
>>
>> Today I would be more likely to report an observation of interest on one of
>> the Facebook birding groups. Will a Facebook post from 2016 be able to be
>> found in 2030?
>>
>> I would urge birders to continue to post actively on BA (as well as on the
>> Facebook groups).
>>
>> Cheers
>> Steve Clark
>> Hamilton, Vic
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