Same old questions, time for a change?
- Thread starter samwise
- Start date
Bosun Higgs
N/A
Beat you to it by a couple of hours Sam ( http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=228705 ) prompted by the same antifoul threads. Great minds 
Had a GS too, until it was written off. Great bikes.
It would make a lot of sense to have some way of gathering together the main help topics like osmosis, vat, anchors, antifoul, engines. Only difference with the GS forum is of course that we arent talking standard boats. The GS has well established probs with the fuel pump electronics ( and endless unrealistic winges about other issues) but there isnt a corresponding problem common to all boat engines
Had a GS too, until it was written off. Great bikes.
It would make a lot of sense to have some way of gathering together the main help topics like osmosis, vat, anchors, antifoul, engines. Only difference with the GS forum is of course that we arent talking standard boats. The GS has well established probs with the fuel pump electronics ( and endless unrealistic winges about other issues) but there isnt a corresponding problem common to all boat engines
David_Jersey
New member
Coincidentaly just helped wire a GPS into a brand spanking new GS1200 - not mine unfortunately
Whilst all very worthy suggestions - I suspect that you are comparing enthusiast / hobby run sites to commercial.
Hobby sites have Mods who work for f#ck all Dan (& crew?) probably won't want to follow that bizness model and it don't make commercial sense for IPC to pay 'em for either the time required to organise or to then maintain through active moderation.
The answer for IPC is either to find a business model that integrates the Forum content into the magazine website and sell off it (therefore making it cost effective and £££ attractive to do similar to the suggestion)..........or outsource / insource the Forum.
Whilst all very worthy suggestions - I suspect that you are comparing enthusiast / hobby run sites to commercial.
Hobby sites have Mods who work for f#ck all
Dan (& crew?) probably won't want to follow that bizness model and it don't make commercial sense for IPC to pay 'em for either the time required to organise or to then maintain through active moderation.The answer for IPC is either to find a business model that integrates the Forum content into the magazine website and sell off it (therefore making it cost effective and £££ attractive to do similar to the suggestion)..........or outsource / insource the Forum.
pmagowan
Well-known member
Anyone on the forum could start a Wiki, if they have enough know how. i just had a look on google and there are lots of free hosting sites. If a few influential people started it I think lots would follow. All you would rally need to do is develop some kind of pro-forma for a topic.
eg
Antifouling;
-types
*eroding
*smooth
*ultrasonic
*copper
-application
-removal
-etc
Then everyone could contribute until it reached a status quo. Could build up a pretty complete manual. I would have thought that is would be the perfect way for this site to expand its product focussed advertising. Blakes could put an ad on the above eg for example
Also it would allow people to post on the forum, 'i have read the wiki but...' in order to get to the nitty gritty
eg
Antifouling;
-types
*eroding
*smooth
*ultrasonic
*copper
-application
-removal
-etc
Then everyone could contribute until it reached a status quo. Could build up a pretty complete manual. I would have thought that is would be the perfect way for this site to expand its product focussed advertising. Blakes could put an ad on the above eg for example
Also it would allow people to post on the forum, 'i have read the wiki but...' in order to get to the nitty gritty
alan_d
Well-known member
Don't dismiss the lurkers!
When I first joined this forum I learned an enormous amount in a fairly short time just by reading what was posted. At that stage I did not even know which questions I needed to ask, but as time passed I got to know the answers to the FAQs, was able to ask a few sensible questions myself and provide some answers as well. I also formed opinions about which posters I should pay most attention to, who was wise and well informed, who were the cranks and who was entertaining but unreliable.
My point in recounting all this is that such a learning process might become more difficult in the future if the information was organised diffrently. Instead of the individual forum member deciding for themselves who was talking sense and who was not, how would this be achieved? Any sort of editorial control would probably cause a riot, any anything which relied on voting or consensus might end up rewarding those with the most stamina in promoting their own point of view. A slick and effective search option would be good, though.
When I first joined this forum I learned an enormous amount in a fairly short time just by reading what was posted. At that stage I did not even know which questions I needed to ask, but as time passed I got to know the answers to the FAQs, was able to ask a few sensible questions myself and provide some answers as well. I also formed opinions about which posters I should pay most attention to, who was wise and well informed, who were the cranks and who was entertaining but unreliable.
My point in recounting all this is that such a learning process might become more difficult in the future if the information was organised diffrently. Instead of the individual forum member deciding for themselves who was talking sense and who was not, how would this be achieved? Any sort of editorial control would probably cause a riot, any anything which relied on voting or consensus might end up rewarding those with the most stamina in promoting their own point of view. A slick and effective search option would be good, though.
samwise
New member
Oh dear! That's a Daily Mail reader response if ever I saw one. I never suggested that the forum should be "ruled" or restricted in any way. All I was proposing was that the core regular inquiries and the solutions (provided by forumites) could be gathered as a sticky under an appropriate heading so that they could be easily found. As David Jersey says in his very sensible response, that would mean extra work for the moderators and IPC may not be prepared to pay for the extra time involved. Following through his thought that IPC could finance this activity with commercial sponsorship is probably not a good idea insofar that the sponsors could demand a guaranteed amount of exposure for their products, which may not be the optimum solution.
Stu Jackson
New member
This is just another one of those same repetitive threads!
Seems like very forum like this has the same issue. I know we did (www.c34ia.org) We started with a static website and many of us contributed to those pages by copying email list stories, then a few guys posted them on the website as "Projects" and "FAQs." The history is here: http://c34.org/bbs/index.php/topic,2629.0.html
Oddly enough, when the forum with a search engine came into vogue in about 2000, the same questions got asked, yet again. Why? Because folks sometimes like other people to do their homework for them, among the other nicer proposals put forward here, as a community sharing ideas, etc.
It took me some time to realize that different folks search for different things in different ways. I'm an engineer: I grab a book for reference and go immediately to the Index at the back to find what I'm looking for. Other people use the Table of Contents.
Recognizing that, we not only built our Information in ToC format, but one of our members put it into a spreadsheet.
The questions kept coming.
So, we built a wiki. In two years only one member has added a new wiki. Was that because we'd covered everything? Heck no, it's just extra work. I've used the wiki to update some older material I've written, and corrected over the years, but haven't started a new one.
Our forum allows pictures, so I post pictures and sketches, and because I use relevant topic headers, I can find most of what I've written. Off line I started my own Word doc of a Top Ten List, which grew to 23!
The ONE and MAJOR caution I would ask you to consider is to avoid like the plague starting separate topic areas, like General, Technical, Cruising, Racing, etc. The reason is that it takes forever to click through them; it's like having to go to 5 different websites. I like coming here, as we do to our forum, with one big board with daily stuff to read.
I've had 14 years of gabbing and listening around websites, and this simple, one size fits all approach is still the best. The USA Sailnet has this many topics: http://www.sailnet.com/forums/ It is so cumbersome.
My argument has always been: where do you put alternators? Engine or electrical? Our Knowledgebase spreadsheet cross referenced them, but it took a lot of work. Once I knew my friend was doing this, I actually got him to increase the number of topics, but that's because they were searchable.
If someone volunteers to assemble certain articles, that's great. But my enjoyment comes from the community, learning something new and realizing that there's more than one boating forum in which to learn new things and help fellow sailors.
Seems like very forum like this has the same issue. I know we did (www.c34ia.org) We started with a static website and many of us contributed to those pages by copying email list stories, then a few guys posted them on the website as "Projects" and "FAQs." The history is here: http://c34.org/bbs/index.php/topic,2629.0.html
Oddly enough, when the forum with a search engine came into vogue in about 2000, the same questions got asked, yet again. Why? Because folks sometimes like other people to do their homework for them, among the other nicer proposals put forward here, as a community sharing ideas, etc.
It took me some time to realize that different folks search for different things in different ways. I'm an engineer: I grab a book for reference and go immediately to the Index at the back to find what I'm looking for. Other people use the Table of Contents.
Recognizing that, we not only built our Information in ToC format, but one of our members put it into a spreadsheet.
The questions kept coming.
So, we built a wiki. In two years only one member has added a new wiki. Was that because we'd covered everything? Heck no, it's just extra work. I've used the wiki to update some older material I've written, and corrected over the years, but haven't started a new one.
Our forum allows pictures, so I post pictures and sketches, and because I use relevant topic headers, I can find most of what I've written. Off line I started my own Word doc of a Top Ten List, which grew to 23!
The ONE and MAJOR caution I would ask you to consider is to avoid like the plague starting separate topic areas, like General, Technical, Cruising, Racing, etc. The reason is that it takes forever to click through them; it's like having to go to 5 different websites. I like coming here, as we do to our forum, with one big board with daily stuff to read.
I've had 14 years of gabbing and listening around websites, and this simple, one size fits all approach is still the best. The USA Sailnet has this many topics: http://www.sailnet.com/forums/ It is so cumbersome.
My argument has always been: where do you put alternators? Engine or electrical? Our Knowledgebase spreadsheet cross referenced them, but it took a lot of work. Once I knew my friend was doing this, I actually got him to increase the number of topics, but that's because they were searchable.
If someone volunteers to assemble certain articles, that's great. But my enjoyment comes from the community, learning something new and realizing that there's more than one boating forum in which to learn new things and help fellow sailors.
Last edited:
David_Jersey
New member
LittleSister
Well-known member
You're joking, surely?