A sticky thread for Cruise Reports - few initial ideas to discuss

[scubaman]

Hi All,

Stef has very kindly promised to put up a sticky thread for cruise reports following the idea discussed on here earlier. In short, the problem with the cruise reports at the moment is that quite soon after they have been posted, they start to drop down in the front page and gradually sink into oblivion. This is a shame as it takes quite a bit of effort to create a report in the first place and also enjoying the reports later is difficult if you don’t know which words to search for or forgot that some particular report even existed.

To tackle this, the idea of having a sticky thread into which links to cruise reports could be posted as individual posts, was discussed. Once set up by us, the thread would act as a directory making it easier to find and browse the reports.

Without wishing to make things too complicated I thought it might be good to discuss briefly the forum way of maintaining the thread, before the sticky is created. There were already some comments on this on the original thread about the matter in April, which I’ve summarized below:

Each post should only contain the following info:
* location/area
* month/year
* username of the original poster (?)
* short one sentence description of the report
* URL-link to the actual cruise report

As discussed earlier, all commentary should be kept on the original threads, this thread should only contain links to other posts.

Anybody can add a link to a cruise report he/she likes, also on behalf of the original poster. If someone feels uncomfortable having their post on the directory, I’m sure the poster of the link or the admins will help in removing such post.

In my view we shouldn’t set the bar too high; any post with a pic or a vid of a day out accompanied with a few words of the cruise and/or the destination is good enough for a cruise report if someone feels that it might be useful to others.

There is no practical way of having the posts organized chronologically, so we don’t have to worry about that. Also, maybe everyone could start by creating links to their own reports to avoid duplicates in the first phase. Later on it would be nice to check the directory first before posting a new link, but I wouldn’t worry too much about duplicates, they are still infinitely better than having no link at all.

Any comments/better ideas?

 

[jfm]

All that sounds perfect to me Scubaman.
I think it is critical that there is no chat on the thread, not even a "Thanks for posting that". All cruises need to be reported in their own threads, so that the "directory" thread contains only posts with a link, plus a title giving the cruise location, month/year, and then an introductory sentence or two in each post.

You could make the first post in the thread an index, like this:

Post #2, hurricane, Balearics 2014
Post #3, mapism, summer 2015 lots of forum boats in Carloforte Sardinia
Post #4, yadayada

... and so on, but only the creator of that post (you?) could edit it so would have that "job" for life.

 

[scubaman]

I think (but am not sure) that after a certain period you loose the ability to edit your own posts? At least I can't edit some of my earlier reports anymore. This would mean that each link would have to be an individual post.

So the guideline message format could be:

<username of the OP of the original thread> + <location/area> + <month and year>
<short description of the cruise report in question>
<URL link to the report>

 

[jimmy_the_builder]

All that sounds perfect to me Scubaman.
I think it is critical that there is no chat on the thread, not even a "Thanks for posting that". All cruises need to be reported in their own threads, so that the "directory" thread contains only posts with a link, plus a title giving the cruise location, month/year, and then an introductory sentence or two in each post.

You could make the first post in the thread an index, like this:

Post #2, hurricane, Balearics 2014
Post #3, mapism, summer 2015 lots of forum boats in Carloforte Sardinia
Post #4, yadayada

... and so on, but only the creator of that post (you?) could edit it so would have that "job" for life.

I think the 'cruise directory' thread is a good idea An approach I have seen on other forums is that authors of individual (in this case) cruise reports would add a post to the thread with the pointer to their own report; and then the thread owner would edit post #1 which contains the actual directory - so readers only ever have to look at post #1 to get the links to the individual reports. This also allows the thread owner to organise the reports (say) geographically, or chronologically, or by author or whatever.

This does rather depend on forum permissions though, and I think this forum now has a time limit on post edits (which it didn't used to have) - so perhaps we'd need the help of the admins on this point.

 

[vas]

great idea,

I'd rather have one author, Scuba fe, do the maintenance so that the sticky is just ONE post with a list of links to others plus the suitable description.
However, there is indeed a time limit which should be lifted not only for that but for other much longer and old threads... To give an example I'm planning to create an index with various milestones on my rebuilt thread so that someone (or rather myself in many occasions!) could easily go and check a particular event, a lot of work I know but without it, you only have to search for ever and miss a lot of things (even ones you have posted 3 or 4 yrs ago, let alone others!)

cheers

V.

 

[jfm]

Yup, we're all on same page. Mods would need to remove editing time limit so that the thread owner can edit whenever.

One further suggestion: to avoid one person (Scubaman!) having the job of "owning" the thread and having to keep the index post #1 up to date, we could with the agreement of the mods set up a new dummy user "CruiseReports" that say 5-10 people have the password for. Then any of those people can keep the index up to date and share the workload, and pass on the job as people come and go or whatever.

 

[colhel]

Why not set up a new sub forum ie like the racing and classic section. Have it between the Scuttlebut and Motorboat so all can join in

 

[jfm]

Why not set up a new sub forum ie like the racing and classic section. Have it between the Scuttlebut and Motorboat so all can join in

Nooo! Please no more salami slicing of forums!!! (imho) I only look at one forum and don't have time/inclination to look at others

 

[rafiki_]

Nooo! Please no more salami slicing of forums!!! (imho) I only look at one forum and don't have time/inclination to look at others

+1

 

[scubaman]

I've sent Stef an email to see how she sees sharing the dummy user's password and lifting the time limit on edits. The shared user idea is good, imo. If that doesn't get an approval, I would be very happy to pass the job to someone else to ensure better response times. If there are volunteers, that is.

If we get an ok for these, I think the idea of maintaining the index on a single post is a great improvement on usability. As JtB suggested, users would add the pointers to the cruise reports as replies to the thread which would also serve as indicators to others that something new has been added.

 

[jimmy_the_builder]

I've sent Stef an email to see how she sees sharing the dummy user's password and lifting the time limit on edits. The shared user idea is good, imo. If that doesn't get an approval, I would be very happy to pass the job to someone else to ensure better response times. If there are volunteers, that is.

If we get an ok for these, I think the idea of maintaining the index on a single post is a great improvement on usability. As JtB suggested, users would add the pointers to the cruise reports as replies to the thread which would also serve as indicators to others that something new has been added.

If you're asking for volunteers to maintain or own the thread, I don't mind putting my hand up.

 

[scubaman]

That's great! Let's see what Stef says and take it from there.

 

[maverickofpoole]

Admin should be able to set up a new member class or moderating class so that whoever is moderating that forum/post could take ownership of that area and edit/maintain the posts within. That's how another forum I run manages things and it works really well.

 

[MapisM]

All that sounds perfect to me Scubaman.

+1.
Let's hope it flies, eventually! :encouragement:

 

[scubaman]

There is some progress on this. Stef has found a way to allow a group of users to edit a single post, which would make it possible to follow JtB's idea of maintaining the index on the first post of the thread.

Stef has now asked me to make the first post (which I'll do shortly) and she will then make it a sticky. The post will contain guideline instructions on how to add the links. Once the post is up, please only add links as posts to that thread! If there are any comments regarding the instructions, etc., please post them on this thread and we can discuss them here.

Jimmy the Builder very kindly offered to take up the task of maintaining the index. JtB: if this is still ok with you, it would be great, but let's PM on this for instance. In the beginning at least, I think it would be good if there is only a single person doing that job. Following Stef's instructions we create a list of users who will then provide back up as needed. Those of you who might be volunteers for this, please PM me or reply to this thread and I'll forward the usernames to Stef.

We also need to decide, how to organise the index. One option could be to do it geographically to make it easier to find reports close to your area? Any views on this?

 

[jimmy_the_builder]

There is some progress on this. Stef has found a way to allow a group of users to edit a single post, which would make it possible to follow JtB's idea of maintaining the index on the first post of the thread.

Stef has now asked me to make the first post (which I'll do shortly) and she will then make it a sticky. The post will contain guideline instructions on how to add the links. Once the post is up, please only add links as posts to that thread! If there are any comments regarding the instructions, etc., please post them on this thread and we can discuss them here.

Jimmy the Builder very kindly offered to take up the task of maintaining the index. JtB: if this is still ok with you, it would be great, but let's PM on this for instance. In the beginning at least, I think it would be good if there is only a single person doing that job. Following Stef's instructions we create a list of users who will then provide back up as needed. Those of you who might be volunteers for this, please PM me or reply to this thread and I'll forward the usernames to Stef.

We also need to decide, how to organise the index. One option could be to do it geographically to make it easier to find reports close to your area? Any views on this?

I'm still happy to help. I agree that geographically is the way to organise things. Don't sweat too much over the format of the index post, we can figure this out as we go along - I don't see this as high task.

 

[scubaman]

That's great! I just did the first post. It's perhaps a bit long winding but let's edit later is as you say.

I'll get back with the details about the shared editing as I receive instructions from Stef.

 

[scubaman]

Good going, Murv! :encouragement:

 

[henryf]

Nooo! Please no more salami slicing of forums!!! (imho) I only look at one forum and don't have time/inclination to look at others

+2

I just come straight here.

 

[colhel]

Harumph