The Value of Forums

[Ozzie]

Once again, looking for some of my old photos on tsp I noted a thread listing complaints on how face buck may not be a successful replacement for forums. ( I’ve not used the correct designation so as not to draw searches to promote the site) I don’t have Fb but my wife uses it occasionally to follow our daughters, being far flung across the globe. In her “general” Fb feed she often goes to show me something from five minutes ago and it’s gone. This seems to echo the sentiments on tsp about finding stuff from previous posters on Fb sailing groups.

Yet another recommendation to anyone who uses Fb rather than forums to post their tips or adventures. Apparently You may find it difficult to locate them again by the sounds of things, particularly annoying if you want to reference a previous fixit to a new member. For the most part this forum has kept a good searchable database since May22nd 2009. Not knocking anyones choice here, just inviting those who post there to double up if you can and copy and past to here as well. Our stuff is not sorted by algorithms as the tsp post seems to indicate.

Just on boating infotainment. I went down to the local newsagents the other day. I’m an infrequent visitor as I don’t buy newspapers anymore. Just for a look I checked out the magazine section. Two boating mags only kept on the shelf . One on expensive power boats from overseas publications , one fishing boats for sale. Used to be a dozen titles including Cruising Helmsman. As a comparison I checked Colesworths today. None, zip. Newsagent said if they don’t sell they don’t send them anymore and eventually they don’t get published.

Rather than fading away, forums may finish up the ultimate repository for boating/ sailing knowledge. Knowledge you can find anyway.

I lurk on other sailing/design forums and look at the comments on the bottom of YouTube videos. Some rather uncivil input. I remember my daughter selling something once yonks ago on a fB market site. The number of people who posted only to troll was staggering. We are lucky to enjoy a civilised little corner of the net here.

Happy posting

PS. I’m chuffed that on occasion there are 14 or more people online on the forum. I used to think they were just bots but I know now bots are actually identified as such in the little box below. Thanks for tuning in folks.
Anyone got a good trailer?

[Peter T]

Absolutely spot on Ozzie. Great post. fb is SO frustrating not being able to get back to a post that you just looked at. It really drives me mad.
Cheers mate. Great to see the weather getting back to something like we need to get back into tinkering with the 563.

[Ozzie]

Ta Peter. I fully understand the draw of FB. Personally it’s never interested me. One thing I don’t like is how it seems to connect people to a user. I occasionally look at the “people you may know “ or some such tosh on my wife’s account. She has no idea who some these people are.

On here you can remain as anonymous as you wish. If you check the membership register I think you will find only myself, Ian B who was the original instigator of the forum and its previous incarnation and a handful of others have given any details of themselves other than location and that’s fine with me.

Given the current state of the world the idea of giving practicing scumbags a grab bag of information that they can harvest from to scam you of your hard earned seems like a terribly bad plan. Call me old …fashioned

I’ve mentioned before that mrs and myself did quite a few WEA courses in the 80’s, mainly on writing. The ‘Writing for Publication’ course said many magazines in Oz were husband/wife concerns often done from a garage at home. About nine started up every year and the same closed. I would suggest that’s a one direction thing these days.

I noted also the once ubiquitous guitar magazine has almost disappeared from the shelf. This is hardly surprising. As I used to tell my guitar students, there has never been a better time to be a musician in the history of the world. Face to face won’t die but you can supplement your tuition easily. Not only are there more quality instruments for sale and truckloads of quality second hand gear but you can get multitudes of master class tuition for free on YouTube and user input tablature and chord charts. Some of It is from the original artists themselves. It’d be like getting online navigation lessons from Captain Cook

Hope this thread might lure a few Fbee Investigator users over here. If anyone would be interested in posting a link to this thread over there we’d be grateful.

[Ozzie]

Sometimes when I log in I throw a glance at the viewing stats at the bottom of the page . Occasionally it’s 20 plus other times 3, depending on the time. Anyway I was pretty surprised to see the stats below on May30th.

Only one of these was a bot, which are identified as such when you log in. Apparently we are not talking to ourselves. People look at forums for lots of reasons. I look at PBO almost every time I look here. Plus boat design, outdoor and outback travel / kayak stuff. Not interested in joining up, as lurking is providing all the interaction I need and no doubt that’s most of the 118 people online in that screen grab. If you are are a guest who is registered drop in sometime and tell us why you come here.