Ray ( webmaster ) on 7/19/2012 7:36:23 AM:
Thank you, I always appreciate suggestions.
I am a Facebook user and think it's a great tool. But I have not set up a trail-related FB page because I can do more useful stuff with the forum comments when the discussion is kept here within the website. I can provide the tagging feature (tagging is not perfect but it goes a long way in helping with navigation). I can make comments about towns and businesses show up on the pages for those towns and businesses. I can pre-emptively filter out (most) spam, porn, and other inappropriate comments. If the discussion were moved over to FB, these things would not be possible or at least would require a lot of extra work in copying the FB comments into the website, adding tags, etc. There would definitely be some advantages in FB, but I think keeping the forum within the site provides a higher level of usefulness.
Having said that, I really do like your idea of having an option to be notified when someone replies to your post. I am going to add this to the development list (right after the itinerary builder feature which is still on the way).
Thanks again for suggestions, and all the compliments. :-)