Sharing information?

RobbieW, I found that site hard to update but will have another go. We'll be hitting (potentially literally if I'm at the wheel..) southern Sardinia in a few weeks time, look forward to reading your comments :)

And I agree it's selfish to not swop info!
 
SamanthaTabs said:
RobbieW, I found that site hard to update but will have another go. We'll be hitting (potentially literally if I'm at the wheel..) southern Sardinia in a few weeks time, look forward to reading your comments :)
Click to expand...

I'd agree, for some reason the Wiki developers have come up with a markup language unlike anything I've seen before (and that ranges from ScriptVS for any old mainframe folk to html and few others) - WYSIWYG it isnt. The guidance gives you some idea but copying stuff from other bits works well so try having two browser windows open. Navigation around the site is far from straightforward, especially if you want to go back to a higher level, say from Cagliari to Sardinia. So far as I can see there is a structure to each page and section which is all interrelated so I'm trying to work around that till I understand it better.

What I'm trying to to do is change the objective stuff, leaving the subjective to our blog - http://www.sailblogs.com/member/syspringdawn/
 
SamanthaTabs said:
RobbieW, I found that site hard to update but will have another go. We'll be hitting (potentially literally if I'm at the wheel..) southern Sardinia in a few weeks time, look forward to reading your comments :)

And I agree it's selfish to not swop info!
Click to expand...

I agree, it's selfish not to swap info. But there's info, and info. It has to be filtered, and there's a cost to that. In the end, every site has to make contributors jump hurdles. If they didn't, sites would be full of posts providing links to all sorts of completely irrelevant businesses - such as pay-day-loans, massage parlours, you mention it.

For users, the cheapest hurdle is to require you to "subscribe" before you can contribute. You did this to post on this forum. The hurdles are to identify some distorted letters which computers have difficulty reading, then ask you to answer a couple of test questions, and send your email address.

In spite of these precautions, spammers represent about 75% of the requests to join a site. That leaves me with the task of filtering out these rubbish applications, up to 10 a day, boring stuff.

Of course, I could pay for a filtering service . . .

Rather cheaper (for me) is to ask for a cash contribution "to see and post". That's the best filter service of all. But it puts off genuine users and contributors as well, so you lose contributions.

From now on my comments may be biased, since I run a site, albeit one limited to Europe.

The next "difficulty step" is the ergonomics of the site - how easy is it to jump straight to the place where the information you want is hiding.

Five free access sites have been mentioned in this thread. It's easy for you to compare them if they deal with your area of interest. Three advertise world cover, two offer local cover (others, not mentioned, exist behind paywalls or are very local). The freebies mentioned were:

http://www.cruiserswiki.org/wiki/World_Cruising_and_Sailing_Wiki
https://activecaptain.com/index.php
http://www.noonsite.com/
http://jimbsail.info/
http://www.french-waterways.com/

Now it's easy to compare these and assess them. Let's hear opinions about their strengths and weaknesses. From their front pages, Noonsite probably wins the "easy to get there" award. What else matters?

The next step, adding your contribution, requires you to log in. So you can't compare these without a bit of work. And that's a put off. There are, broadly, two approaches. True Wiki allows anyone to edit anything, and allows moderators to remove undesirables. "Comments" allow any addendum to a page, which may, or may not, become incorporated into the page by an editor. Both call for labour to manage the site. And that's because there are a certain number of nasty guys out there fighting personal battles against other businesses - or other nationalities and beliefs - and they have to be filtered out.

So, how do we pay for the labour? Noonsite and French Inland Waterways use the "Michelin Guide" model. Make cruising easy, and the sponsoring businesses will gain from the extra traffic. Rather more crude is to sell advertising space to the cruiser audience. Hmm. Too many publishers for that to pay its way. Sell yachting related goods? Maybe. Pennies. Beg? Well, nothing to lose.

Unless there'a a profit in it, enough to attract a hobby buyer to keep it going, these free sites will die.

Handkerchiefs for hire . . .
 
Last edited:
jimbaerselman said:
...Unless there'a a profit in it, enough to attract a hobby buyer to keep it going, these free sites will die....
Click to expand...

Aye, there's the rub. I regret, Jim, that some of the factors you describe were behind my decision to put effort into the cruisers wiki. Your site is very personal, I have a login, you do all? the editing so when you decide 'enough' your site will become outdated unless you have a successor in mind. Your site seems, to me anyway, to be aimed more at generalities, detail seems limited. So far as I've seen, there are multiple administrators on the wiki so perhaps there is more chance that it will survive an individual - on the other hand its now owned by socialknowledge (as are CruisersForum & Sailblogs amongst others) so who knows what the future holds there.

I guess that, bottom line, I'm trying to bet on something that will persist and wont have a paywall put around it
 
More than happy to pay in order to subscribe to a site; more than happy to create membership details and login requirements et al. I regularly update on CAptains Mate, have looked at the wiki one and will endeavour to post there.
My point, and it's not laziness, is that it would be easy to post on specific categorised threads for each area on a forum such as this which (may) stop a thread degenerating into what's for supper or do you have a Manson...

Some sites are a pain to navigate and/or add info. Appreciate the comments made above saying that there are Facebook pages for sharing information in the Caribbean, sounds ideal :) This may sound simplistic but many of us just want to login in, post our findings and benefit from what others have put in as well.
 
Didn't Know You Had A Sister?

chinita said:
Anybody who allows themselves to be 'organised every day' deserves what they get. This is not the fault of Lagos town or marina.

I live in Norfolk but I don't have to talk like a turnip or **** my sister.
Click to expand...

Folk in Lagos organize things for themselves. Whether you join in is entirely up to you.

Quite a few people from Portimao travel over to Lagos to join in with some events (& very welcome they are).

Funnily enough they often comment that it would be nice if their liveaboards had similar get-togethers - but apathy rules.

Chinita - looking forward to meeting your sister:cool:
 
RobbieW said:
...I guess that, bottom line, I'm trying to bet on something that will persist and wont have a paywall put around it
Click to expand...
Me too. cruiserswiki is very far from perfect, but the more people contribute the better it will get, and the more it will reflect what the contributors want to see.

So, SamanthaTabs. please persevere with the editing. As Robbie says, the easiest way is to just copy from elsewhere in the site. Find something similar, hit edit, copy it into the target page, then edit it. And once you get the hang of it you can edit pretty much any other wiki you come across - like wikipedia. I've contributed to several wikis over the years. Some of them still exist! (Anyone remember Whole Wheat Radio?)
 
Will definitely get the hang of it! I'm too simplistic in my views as don't have intimate software knowledge. I was wrong to suggest this forum was a possibility as even devising subcategories would create endless pages for threads.

Ultimately what, I believe, the majority of us wish for is to post and share information. If such information stated that the holding was not good I'd rather the next post not ask what anchor I had or how much chain I'd let out!

Clear concise shared information which, as everyone knows, is personal experience alone but gives you a clue :)
 
SamanthaTabs said:
I regularly update on CAptains Mate, have looked at the wiki one and will endeavour to post there.
Click to expand...

CAptains Mate is a great application for gathering info - intuitive, sticks position data for the report onto the map automatically. It has multiplied the information flowing into the Cruising Association five-fold so far, and still increasing.
My point, and it's not laziness, is that it would be easy to post on specific categorised threads for each area on a forum such as this which (may) stop a thread degenerating into what's for supper or do you have a Manson...
Click to expand...
So, does the model I use, adding a comment to a region page, meet that criterion? Effectively, the chain of comments is a topic thread related to a place within that region.
 
Not to denegrade any of the very useful info out there or hard work many people put into making it available, but just turning up is quite often very underrated. :) even more exciting without a passage plan, sail for a few days and stop when you feel like it. Experience somewhere without any preconceived ideas. Asking around if you need something can make unforeseen things happen and new friends be made. Give it a go :)
 
Carmel2 said:
If they want you to buy food or beer they do, if they don't, they are probably private,
Click to expand...
Not always from my recent experience.
and would not be happy about you nicking their bandwidth!! It is actually theft tapping into a network that you haven't had consent for.
Click to expand...
Whats that got to do with buying a beer and getting their wifi details?
Please lets not go down the hacking bridleway.
 
Surely most liveaboards have a pay as ya go dongle thingy..

Sharing; most bars and restaurants here in the Mallorca area have wifi, buy a drink and get the code - simples! Many either change their password daily or issue a ticket redeemable for a certain amount of time, when times up just buy another drink - hic :)
 
GHA said:
Not to denegrade any of the very useful info out there or hard work many people put into making it available, but just turning up is quite often very underrated. :) even more exciting without a passage plan, sail for a few days and stop when you feel like it. Experience somewhere without any preconceived ideas. Asking around if you need something can make unforeseen things happen and new friends be made. Give it a go :)
Click to expand...
+ 1!
 
GHA, you are right. Our plan is usually to make a plan and see what happens, recently we were gently ambling back from Pollensa and decided to anchor in a beautiful bay (cala Sa Calobra) amazing doesn't begin to describe it. Likewise Punta Negra for anyone fed up with the noise of Palma Nova, again we are the only Brit boat here.

There's no harm in sharing where the gas depot is etc, doesn't make any of us less adventurous but can save time getting lost in the midday sun..

I'll be sharing far more soon as we're about to leave the Balearics for the forseeable future, doubt it'll turn bays into standing on heads though!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Other threads that may be of interest

E
Nimbus 305 or Marex 330
Replies
19
Views
770
Time Out
T

Share this page

Top