I think TikTok is banned in the US? Plus I am not on there

TikTok was banned for roughly 24 hours, then got reinstated by the Feds. I have never used it as I consider it brain-rot.

I could see L-G utilizing X/Twitter in conjunction with Facebook to help market the site, but don’t think it would drive up numbers (new registered users, participation of existing) significantly.

I do use Facebook groups for hobby posts/info as well as Discord and forums like this. I find they all have their hood points and benefits, although forums typically have the best depth of discussion, along with Discord.

Facebook Groups and Discord tend to get the quickest response to topics. But with Facebook it tends to be the shallowest types of response, in other words just likes, etc rather than comments.

The main issue that I see with having hobby groups on sites like Facebook or services like Discord is that it removes information from being easily found on search engines and it also prevents people with lurking (I suppose some might see this as a good thing) which sometimes limits the people that would join and comment.

Not sure about Facebook but since Discord is more of chatroom, information also tends to get lost amongst the replies much more easily compared to a forum. For other hobbies, Reddit seems to be a good middle ground but it seems like lighting is still niche enough that there's not really a Reddit community for it.

I suppose the sites also filter unintentionally by demographic. People over 30-40 tend to prefer forums and Facebook for hobbies, while people under 30-40 tend to prefer Reddit, Discord, TikTok, etc even for hobbies. 

reckon starting a tiktok channel with clips of worthwhile lamp-related videos, with a link to the forum and gallery, could be a start.


Well you can also immediately euthanise the site... I generally think that it is consensus that this should remain a forum and not become anything close to tik tok etc (see my first post)

I did not say to get rid of the forum or the somewhat similar structured gallery. I said 'Start to participate in the modern world to attract people to this site'. Only with more people will you get more interaction.
One possibility would be to add a function (don't ask me how, or how much work it is for the admins) to allow users to set a checkbox 'Allow sharing to the Lighting Gallery Tiktok'. In other words, actively opt in if you want the site's tiktok to feature your pictures, with a pointer back to the website. Everyday either some random pictures, or the highest rated ones of the day, get automatically compiled into a slideshow and dumped on the site's official tiktok. Mostly automated and hands off, explicitely with the goal to draw people to *here*.

I'm no tiktok fan, don't get me wrong, but you gotta do something to attract people to a form of social media they literally may never ever have used before. Because that's the case. Forums are great, but i bet that the majority of internet users today, have not been frequent (at least weekly) users of a forum in more than 10 years.

To get people back to what i consider a much superior way of spreading knowledge and media over the current crop of low attention span, algorhythm driven platforms, you will have to make yourself able to be found from those platforms to point them here. I have no numbers, but if more people leave than join, eventually you might end up with just a handful of people left after a few years of population decline.

Hell, if people hate tiktok too much, make it youtube. There's plenty of lighting enthousiasts over there. Just *any kind* of official lighting gallery presence on other platforms may help the site to keep from losing more members than gaining, in the long term. Currently i see maybe 1 or 2 people join in any given week, but is that enough to guarantee an active population for the next 5 or 10 years? (i don't really keep an eye on things)

I love this site, but lately I’m noticing that I am not receiving much feedback at all on a lot of my uploads. I am very disappointed with this as at one time years ago I would recieve a lot of comments on most of my uploads and there would be good conversation going on but that just does not seem to happen anymore?

The last bunch of uploads I have put on in the last 24-48 hours have done very poor with little to no comments at all and are now mostly off the page. I would consider them uploads to be of interest to a lot of collectors here??

I know I am not alone in thinking this as other members here have also expressed concern? But Why is no one making the effort they used to once upon a time here?

Why is this? Am I just wasting my time uploading? Should I start referring to this site as Antisocialgallery.net LOL

I hope not being rude for this comment, but i visit this site in my (scarce) free time, so i'm more interested on see photos/read topics than placing comments.
Also, this can be seen as an exposition: you can see a lot of photos and, without obligations, you can place a comment.
Your last sentence, in my opinion, is rude: while everyone can comment photos, no one is obligated to do so and, because this isn't a social network where everyone must seek interactions to seem someone important, we are here to share our hobby, not to "emerge" as "influencer".
I'm in the same situation: little o none comments, but i don't care.
Please, rethink about comments.

A few of my thoughts regarding this topic...


-Sadly it's true that forums are dying out; I personally use both Lighting-Gallery and Discord for lighting stuff, I like to only post higher quality information and photos on the forum while I upload many photos of not-as-high-quality stuff to Discord, but I would never think of a lighting server on Discord to replace Lighting-Gallery as Discord isn't a forum-

-This is just a thought of mine but it also seems that the average age of lighting enthusiasts seems a bit higher and is it possible that younger people aren't as interested these days?

Also @Danny I love the photos of the experiments you do