Sailing BBs

[Guest]

Some people like the style of one forum. Others like the style of another. Many like to post on several.

Why we have to badmouth the ones that don't particularly suit us certainly beats me. Live and let live isn't a bad way to live.

 

[Guest]

I take it that means you are one of the 'in crowd' from the Marinas lot!?

 

[vyv_cox]

One of the things that I particularly dislike about BYM is the many threads that can be found amongst its pages expressing the view that Scuttlebutt is nowhere near as good as it used to be when "we intelligent, astute, knowledgeable mariners" were posting on it regularly. In contrast, Scuttlebutt is remarkably free of such sentiments. There is a far more open attitude amongst regular posters here and frequent encouragements to share the fun "over there" are to be found.

My personal observation is that less than 50% of BYM content has anything to do with boating. Fair enough, if what you want is a somewhat elitist chat line, but life is too short for me to want to indulge. But you won't catch me criticising the people who do choose to do so.

 

[Guest]

? In crowd

No, sorry. I post very occasionally here, very occasionally on CWBB and never on BYM, which I looked at for the first time as a result of all this furore. On the whole our opinions about matters of personal preference such as this say more about ourselves than they do about the ostensible subject. And, as an outsider on all these boards, it all looks pretty pointless to me.

 

[tcm]

Re: get a grip!

umm, a valid point, possibly. Do you feel *very passionately* that people can choose/prefer one BB over another, or are you ambivalent? What about others, who feel that it's alright for some people to be ambivalent, as you say you are, and others to hold stronger views?

Is yours even a point of view that can be discussed - because if you are ambivalent , then you probably wouldn't really care to develop the argument further? So why state it? Except to appear somehow "more tolerant" in a grown-up yet ultimately wishy-washy sort of way. Kindly fly off the handle one way or the other, or at least express a view.

 

[billmacfarlane]

Re: ? In crowd

Of course our personal preferences say a lot about us as individuals - that's why they're called personal. As a matter of interest , if you're in the pub having a couple with your mates , and if you think that expressing personal preferences is pointless , what on earth do you talk about ?

 

[billmacfarlane]

Re: get a grip!

He has expressed a view - he's ambivalent.

 

[tcm]

beyond ambivalence

Has he? he hasn't expressed ambivalence about the various BBs, but ambivalence about actually having a view one way or the other. hence my question asking him how passionately he felt about being ambivalent

 

[ghostwriter]

vyv , these are your words :
But you won't catch me criticising the people who do choose to do so.


well , if you re-read your posting , you have just been caught of criticising people , haven't you ? you are doing the very same thing that you are criticising in others.

what a pity the term "contradiction in terms" has already been coined by a couple of ancient Romans...

and if you would take a couple of minutes and scroll down in this very forum , you will also find people saying something like "we are better" , so at that point too the scores are even. (no wonder , ain't we ALL silly b*ggers ? )

Somewhere in BYM , one of their members uttered something about making a link between Scuttyourbutt and Bymbam...daft as it might sound , seen from the USERS side there would be a point in doing so.
Scutt would be the gin palace proudly flying somethig like the RYS burgee, BYM might be that rufty-tufty-go-anywhere wooden yot with the pirate's flag on it



<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by kimhollamby on Wed May 15 16:54:24 2002 (server time).</FONT></P>

 

[NigeCh]

Winds, seas and sailing

Vyv,

Casting aspidistras is just the same as quot homines tot sententiae ... IMO, all BB's function as the posters require them to perform. Any BB is just as good as any pub that we like - there are many pubs that we don't frequent - It may be the beer, it may be the ambiance or it could be something else - Who knows? It's down to personal preference.

The reason I post on BYM more than I do here is simply because BYM is an open house where passage making cockpit nighttime talk is welcome just as much as boating/sailing type threads can be developed. The two BB's are different and attract different types of people ... It's just like sailing. I like and love the risk taking sailing that can be found around Anglesea and West Coast Scotland ... others may just like sailing around marina's ....

Quot homines, tot sententiae.

Cheers,

Nige

 

[bedouin]

That's hardly fair Vyv.

BYM and SB serve very different purposes. BYM exists for that bar-room banter on any subject under the sun, which may or may not have anything to do with sailing.

SB is now a much more serious group, addressing primarily sailing issues.

IMHO it was trying to squeeze both approaches into the single board that eventually lead to the downfall of the original Scuttlebutt.

Most BYM regulars also read/post on SB

 

[tcm]

Re: Subject lines

I understand that BYM makes it open house to all topics (incl sailing) but s'butt hasn't ever been moderated to dissuade non-sailing subjects...except by the users. Has it?

 

[bedouin]

Re: Subject lines

No, not at all. SB is only regulated by what people choose to post here.

However, going back to the old version. There was a lot of tension between two different sets of posters as to what the board was for. It was when that tension got out of hand that the forum had to be closed down (the ultimate form of censorship).

The new SB is much more focussed on sailing than the old one ever was, to the extent that there is much less difference between SB and R2R now than previously, and the old gossip (or "Scuttlebutt" - that's where the name came from) has all but vanished from either forum.

I think the two styles of threads are best kept on separate boards and I can't understand why the members of one should disparage the other.

 

[Grehan]

YBW and BYM

Disparagement and some childish ya boo sucks bang on the letterbox and run away posting does happen. My dad's better than your dad. You're not a member of our gang and you're all smelly. 'Cos my mum's car's a Rover it's better than your mum's Ford.

Why it does is completely beyond me, when most postings on both boards are actually sensible, informative and entertaining. Posted by some jolly good people, so they seem to me. And many people look at and post on both.

But some - a very few - just need to grow up, or maybe they've already exceeded their second childhood . . . Might I suggest that if they're that silly, then they ought not to be sailing? No, that's just as silly in itself!

That each BB has an individual personality is beyond doubt, but variety is the essence of life. And that's what I like.

 

[NigeCh]

Postscript

And what I've said above is probably calling the kettle black too! - BB's are what people make them - It's up to everyone who posts to turn them into the BB's that they are. Some people race one class and decry all other classes, some people sail racing boats as cruisers and enjoy sailing just as much ....

It's horse's for courses and if you take the number of posters on ALL BB's relative to the number of magazine purchasers (not readers) then you'll find that all BB's are the only places in the world where a free lunch is a FREE LUNCH.

Tks to all BB providers for allowing the punters for allowing us to make way.

 

[kimhollamby]

Re: Subject lines

No, the only qualifications for the sin bin here are overtly commercial postings (which usually are reported by users themselves), occasional weeding out of duplicate threads (again often at users' request), items which pose a risk in terms of libel/slander and postings that are in particularly poor taste or that abuse other visitors to a level that is plain destructive (once again, often at users' request).

Thankfully, we ditch very few if any threads/posts in an average month, despite perceptions of censorship.

There's been some interesting comment over the months about Scuttlebutt having been 'reborn', being 'post-menopausal' and so on, which seems to have got irrevocably tied up with the incident in May 2001 when I closed all forums in order to a) prevent one particularly sad soul from wreaking havoc and b) to grab the opportunity to rebuild the forums using better software. There was never any editorial policy change, for want of a better phrase - as you intimate this forum is what everyone makes of it which is the way we would like to manage it ongoing.

kim_hollamby@ipcmedia.com

 

[kimhollamby]

Re: Subject lines

Can I just clarify Scuttlebutt was not closed because of clashes between two groups - it was suspended simply because one person started to abuse the trust we placed in everyone at that time on SB and MBC to be able to post without registration. We always suspected it would happen sooner or later, given what we knew about BBs and it is, perhaps, to our discredit, mine in particular, that we took the comfortable (albeit occasionally sparky) status quo for granted and didn't act sooner.

Because we didn't rush a quick fix into being there was a void and it is natural that it was filled, to an extent, elsewhere. That's the way these things work and we understand that. No problem.

kim_hollamby@ipcmedia.com

 

[bedouin]

Re: Subject lines

I was never actually sure how many people were involved. At one point I certainly felt there was more than one.

A while later this sad,sad person (a.k.a. "The Rat") attempted to justify his behaviour by saying it was a protest against the attitude of certain regulars on the board to newcomers.

But the formation of "BYM" was not as a direct result of the closing of the original SB. The BYM forum was started a little before that to provide a more chatty, 'clubroom' group where anything could be discussed, not necessarily sailing related. It has thrived in that form and would have done so even if SB hadn't had to shut down for a while.

In spite of all the nostalgia here and elsewhere, I think the current SB/R2R are better now than they were before - so we are all winners.

What I can't work out is what has happened to all those threads we used to get about blue ensigns, MDL marina fees and the like...

 

[Guest]

Ouch!!!!

Originally posted by Ghostwriter "Somewhere in BYM , one of their typical silly members"

Kim - I really do think "Foul" should be called here, and Ghostwriters post be suitably moderated. I post both here and on BYM, and I am sure that Bedouin, NigeCh, Mirelle and many others will join me at taking exception at this 'broad brush' reference.

 

[kimhollamby]

Re: Subject lines

We're convinced that is was one person. He did a good impersonation of the three-headed monster for a while but I don't really miss him

kim_hollamby@ipcmedia.com