Home for equipment reviews ?

pragmatist

pragmatist

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HWMBO and I were discussing the difficulties of locating information on equipment on these splendid fora - and the irritation of answering the same queries time and again (don't know how many times we've praised the Dickinson heater for example). We wondered why there wasn't a separate forum where personal reviews could be located by type (e.g. electronics/radar) to reduce repetition and make it easy to find. He pointed out that IPC had had the odd problem with unhappy manufacturers, including advertisers.

If IPC/YBW would be prepared to do this we'd find it v useful. Would others ?

And if YBW has a problem since they take advertising, we have lots of web space/bandwidth and would be happy to host this (purely non-commercial and nowt to do with my signature - could get a separate domain for it).

It would need some YBW regulars to help moderate to ensure that nothing libellous or indeed covert advertising popped up - altho we thought that anyone could post provided they declared their interest. That way it might encourage not only those who have kit they like/dislike but also responses from suppliers/manufacturers.

What do you think ? If anyone knows of anything similar elsewhere then please tell us and we won't bother.

Penny
 
I think it's a great idea.

Another big "repetition" point is about regular problems and tips eg a "Haine's"-type manual/resource for boat electrics, eberspacher, teak decks etc etc. A place for FAQ's on regular forum topics would be very valuable IMO
 
I think it would be a very good idea, with the number of new topics posted every day unless you visit regularly it is easy to miss an item and I do not find the search facility shall we say to my liking.

A separate section for reviews and/or information on equipment would get my vote
 
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Could YBW host a Wiki? Only persons with >xxx posts allowed to post, or moderate

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Dont confuse quantity with quality

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Don't get your point. Is that a "no" for Wikis in principle, or a comment about fora posters? My thoughts were simply to keep out the one-off posters with junk to sell.
 
Not quite sure how a Wiki fits - how would you break it down ? We were thinking major category (e.g. electronics) - minor categories (e.g. radar, GPS) and then within that perhaps by manufacturer and model. Could a Wiki do that or is it more unstructured ?
 
It would indeed be very useful but it would also be full of pitfalls. In particular, many people's technical skills are limited, but their willingness to blame others isnt. So you will get polemics about particluar equipment / suppliers when its not really deserved, and given that most of us are more inclined to damn than to praise, the postings will be more about problems than successes. That is certainly the pattern on the bike forums I am a member of.

So in my view it will need carefull moderating - perhaps going so far as to ask people to put their proper name on a post if it is negative. That at least would ensure they thought twice before slandering (or is it libelling) a supplier.

On the other side of the coin, how would you keep suppliers from posting praise under their private pseudonyms?

Despite these risks, well worth doing. Maybe just stick to the positive?
 
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Maybe just stick to the positive?

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Surely that would defeat the object of entirely. The reason we look at a review of something we fancy is to find out about the problems. You could end up with a favourable report from one person and 99 negative reports not being shown. Even the advertising led magazines manage to be more even-handed than that (most of time).
 
Citing Cliff's 'expert' opinions on Bukhs is a good example, but there is a problem with 'number of posts' as a criteria.

On the one hand, a great number of posts indicates a commitment to the YBW Forums.

On the other hand large numbers of posts could indicate a case of keyboard diarrhea.

I guess most people who use the forums a lot have a subconscious or conscious filter in their minds as they read the posts and ascribe more or less weight to opinions depending on who has posted.

Also opinions differ. Who is to say which is the 'right way' of doing something. Or who says something is the 'best equipment'.

Some people won't have gas on board at any price. Some people never remove their log impellors for cleaning because they hate water ingress and think they might sink. Some people use paper charts, and others live by their plotter. Some people swear that they don't need a log. For most of these sorts of challenges there is not always a 'right or wrong' - perhaps a 'better or worse' or just 'what works for you.
 
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Could YBW host a Wiki? Only persons with >xxx posts allowed to post, or moderate

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Dont confuse quantity with quality

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Whilst I understand your point, have you considered that the original comment was aimed at stopping non-contributors from adding adverts.
 
Have you thought about leveraging off the search facility that already exists.

It seems to be pretty effective in pulling up specific info. For example I just typed in "raymarine autopilot" and came up with 62 hits over the past year. Enough to be useful and not too many to cause over-load

You can refine it down to only look at this forum if you wish or you can be inclusive and see what the diesel drinkers have to offer as well.

The problem is really one of human behaviour - we are all either too busy or lazy to search so instead we just post and hope those who have more time can enlighten us.

Maybe there is a case for making the search facility more obvious or even offering it as part of the posting process. This is certainly what you find on many IT support web pages

Given that each post needs a subject maybe the guys who run this site could engineer it such that a search was run against the 'subject' text that you entered and a pop up notifies the would be poster that there are n similar posts that he/she might want to look at first.

c 40 years in and around the IT industry have taught me to be very careful not to rush into devising something new that will need to be maintained when some thinking about what the use case really is often leads to a simple adaptation of a current system.

Hope this helps
 
Some improvement to the search facility would be great and it would help if posters gave a proper subject heading instead of things like "HELP" or "I've got a problem with........". It annoys me to look at one of those and find that its about something of which I know nothing and are irrelevant for me.

If it is something I will want to reference later (eg fitting a dripless stern gland, then I save the thread as a favourite. This part of the User Options could be improved to have a list for current threads that you are following and a Library section for saving useful info.

What are Post reminders under Options anyway?
 
YBW.com search

...but on the subject of the search why oh why will it only let you search two or three times and then block you?

I have tried using it a number of times and find searches can be great once you have refined your criteria a few times to get a subset of results...impossible with only 2/3 chances and then a timeout...
 
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