What do you want Crew.org.nz to be

[Guest]

Always good to ask this once in a while, and yes we are listening.

 

The latest complaints are around the signal to noise ratio. We created Small talk last time this came up and tried to separate it from the marine stuff - easy to pass over if you are not interested.

 

Anyway - let's hear it, but please remember I don't provide the content in the forums, all I do is provide a platform.

 

Plus I'm happy to hear suggestions for the home page - what interests you?

[Guest]

I've no problem with flicking through the stuff that doesn't interest me enough to read.

There is a bit more of it lately though.

[khayyam 68]

not so much less noise, as more signal.

 

for me, crew is a great source of experience to counter my lack thereof. i ask questions, dumb or otherwise, and get helpful answers. it's great. the most interesting threads (for me) are those where others have done the same.

[smithy09 50]

Agreed Khayyam. Small talk is no problem. You can always avoid it, it's just when you are looking for a serious answer and your thread gets hijacked. Have to say I am just as guilty as many others of doing this though.

I have found this site to be great fun (small talk) but also very informative, especially if you want to know about NZ yachts. You find out all sorts of stuff. There are some pretty clued up people on here who are happy to share knowledge as well as take the piss, and when I eventually get my boat, I will be asking a lot more questions (and probably seeing a lot more piss taking).

It would be good to have a more active Dinghy section. I am not sure how you achieve this, but I can imagine Opti, Starling and Laser fleets really getting into a forum like this. Most kids are on line from about 9 years old these days, and although you might have issues controlling them, you would get a lot of traffic, closly followed by all the Dinghy suppliers selling the latest carbon fibre Opti Bailer.

[Atom Ant 0]

Not sure how you get more people interested that live outside of the Auckland area. I know we have a few from Tauranga and Wellywood, as far as I know just one from Saudi Arabia, and recently the odd post from the Caribbean, one from San Francisco, and of course where would we be without our regular and wise contributor from Toots, the odd one from across the ditch and many more I'm sure, but somehow I would love to have more input from elsewhere in NZ. DT, it could be that we have plenty from around the traps and just don't know it!

 

When I think of it:

Competitions - check. Regular lashings of rum doled out - even though I don't drink it

Tech Talk - check. Faaantootintastic!

Class forums - check

Smalltalk - check. A good place for "volume posters" to let off steam! (probably me included!)

Racing - check

Cruising - check

Short Handed - check

Cup Talk - check. If only not to clutter up the other posts. It tends to be sporadic as is the nature of the AC

Classifieds - check

Aussie talk - check, but it looks like no one really cares that much

 

 

The only other thing I can think of is for articles of interest by say designers, builders etc, but how you could achieve it I don't know.

 

DT I think it is excellent now!

[Fusion 0]

Its all good. SmallTalk is great, I use the "Foe" option on 2 posters and it adds to the comedy sometimes. Not being able to see the post of your foe makes the whole experience better.

[Atom Ant 0]

So Fusion if you don't reply to me now then I'll know I'm on your Foe list?

[Jon 359]

Its all good

I believe that the atmospheric interference is a seasonal problem, and when there's more happening it will almost disappear.

 

Maybe if you had a user setting where you can set the "View Active Topics" that you wish to include ?

[tuffyluffy 76]

Some of my random thoughts

 

1. The 'archiving' of old threads is a pain. Theres been some great informative stuff posted over the years, but its difficult/impossible to find it! Storage aint that expensive.

 

2. Its a bit of an old boys club. Not enough new forumites, and some of the old boys can be a bit precious.

 

3. Watching DR/STS/... whoever, slide into mental disrepair over and over again is thoroughly entertaining. He's a slow-moving train crash.

 

4. Content, or should i say the lack of.

[John B 106]

I think you'd get more content and input if you had an edit and delete button on all posts. Even SA allows you to remove your post or thread if and when a thread goes sour ,and so do the other boards I've been using for a decade. I've posted on threads that have been hijacked by a troll here, ruined by them and I've been left thinking I don't want anything to do with it and should just get out.

 

Plus you can fix the typos.

 

Oh, and a link should open in a new window IMO.

[smithy09 50]

I think you'd get more content and input if you had an edit and delete button on all posts. Even SA allows you to remove your post or thread if and when a thread goes sour ,and so do the other boards I've been using for a decade. I've posted on threads that have been hijacked by a troll here, ruined by them and I've been left thinking I don't want anything to do with it and should just get out.

 

Plus you can fix the typos.

 

Oh, and a link should open in a new window IMO.

 

YES and YES. Great input JB.

[Guest]

I have no problem with either of those JB , just need to see if Mothership's magic computer will allow it.

 

 

Content is an interesting one, I'm a one man band - I love it when someone sends me something or posts good quality material themselves. I'll never have the resources to be a newspaper.

 

 

An interesting afterthought - since I went and got a day job and spend way less time fussing over the site, the stats just keep climbing.

[Guest]

Any suggestions on how to attract more dinghy sailors?

[MrWolf 0]

I'm really sorry that this site is not what it once was and I really am quite worried about it.

 

It seems to me lately that pretty much all I do is quickly glance through the Topic headings then hit the Mark forum's read button.

 

I've been avoiding small talk for a while, but even in marine talk, race talk and multi talk the clutter just gets very tiresome.

 

The stalwarts of the site seem to be spending less time on here as well.

 

As a source of news and information Crew can just be fantastic, and some of the Tech Talk advice is brilliant. There have been some terrific Rules/Handicap related discussions. The guys on the site are a great bunch.

 

The Foe button is an asset but needs a permanent cannon attachment for some people to be perfect.

 

The best idea I recently read is to limit in some way the content/number of posts.

[tuffyluffy 76]

Any suggestions on how to attract more dinghy sailors?

 

Yep,

 

Step 1. Make a list of the top 20-30 dinghy classes.

 

Step 2. Create a new sub-forum under dingy talk for each class. OK dinghy talk, Optimist talk etc etc.

 

Step 3. Search around and find out if the classes have an established website.

 

Step 4. If there is a website, contact the administrator and ask them to add a "Forum" button to their website that links across to their dinghy sub forum here on Crew.

 

Step 5. Sit back and watch the hits and advertising rates rise.

[rigger 47]

 

The only other thing I can think of is for articles of interest by say designers, builders etc, but how you could achieve it I don't know.

 

 

On the Articles, there were heaps on the homepage, but I do not think you can search it.

How is this for a suggestion - create a forum that only Squid and or limited number of users can post to that contains the articles from the homepage - suggested forum name: News Articles Archive, no one (except Squid) can add posts on the article threads in that forum so that we do not get thread drift - if people want to post something with regards to an article they can post it in the appropriate forum.

 

Some of my random thoughts

 

1. The 'archiving' of old threads is a pain. Theres been some great informative stuff posted over the years, but its difficult/impossible to find it! Storage aint that expensive.

 

 

1. Apologies I have a heap more of the old threads to repost - correct me if I am wrong but the archiving occurred due to the software upgrade I think.

 

I think you'd get more content and input if you had an edit and delete button on all posts. Even SA allows you to remove your post or thread if and when a thread goes sour ,and so do the other boards I've been using for a decade. I've posted on threads that have been hijacked by a troll here, ruined by them and I've been left thinking I don't want anything to do with it and should just get out.

 

Plus you can fix the typos.

 

Oh, and a link should open in a new window IMO.

 

Totally agree on the edit and delete buttons, but can understand why it can be troublesome to allow some to edit their posts.

 

When clicking on a link - hold down the control key then click the link

[smithy09 50]

Get together with the dinghy based yacht clubs and get a link? Also the class associations like NZ Laser, NZ Opti, Starling etc etc.

The potential just with Optis is huge. If they all came on board they would need their own forum!! Opti parents are also big spenders. For example, you can buy a brand new Far East Opti from Sail 1 for around $4500. Or you can go for a "Winner" Opti made in Denmark that will set you back around $7000.. Any diference? Sure, the Winner is a top quality product, but does it make any diference on the water? No more that one bad shift I would say, the beauty of 1 design. However there are still plenty of Winner boats out there sailing, so the cash has been spent!

My point is that if you can attract a dinghy forum, I'm sure you could attract a few Dinghy sponsors too!

Some links:

Murray's Bay: http://www.murraysbay.org

Kohi: http://www.kyc.org.nz

Wakatere: http://www.wakatere.org.nz

Worser Bay: http://www.wbbc.wellington.net.nz

Optis: http://www.optimist.org.nz

Starlings (Glendowie YC): http://www.gbcyachting.org.nz

 

I hope this is helpful. I'm not sure how you would get them on here, but once you did, all hell would break loose..

[wheels 543]

One big issue with Web places is that many members sit back waiting for it all to happen for them. These places are a Bullitin Board, not a Magazine and as such, reguire participation. If you want topics, then you have to start them and participate in them when they are started. Otherwise nothing happens. It really annoys me when I come across someone that says they just scim through and take what they want and yet don't offer anything and then complain about it.

Noise! I wish I could find more info on boating. When I find it I certainly make that a priority.

If what I am posting is too much and/or not of interest, then Squid can just say so and I will stop. No skin off my nose at all. My intentions are only to help this place grow for Squid. To me, there is nothing worse than a Web Forum that gets a post once a week or even less and even worse when there are no replies. But so far I just see two members with that opinion.

For me, a Forum is about getting to know people and biulding friendships and eventually maybe getting to meet them. To me, that is part of Cruising. I know many don't, that is fine and upto them.

I really like Crew. I like the variety, but in saying that, most all the racing Forums I don't bother with. That's fine. Just like some don't bother with say Oz or Stuff or whatever.

[Farrari 4]

I have only been a member of crew for a short while but here is a couple of observations I have made;

 

I regularly use "View Active Topics" to browse for new posts to topics I am interested in. It would be useful if I could create a personalised profile that only displayed topics of interest.

 

Lots of Post hijacking. I have been guilty of this as well. A gentle drift off topic once and a while is quite entertaining but some of this is downright blatant. This could be solved by more intense moderating i.e. enforcement of new topics when this happens. The other option could be to let the original author moderate their topic to a degree.

 

Linkages from other web sites, especially other yacht clubs. Even if you provided some sort of sponsorship it could have the potential to drive more traffic to crew.org.nz. A lot of these smaller clubs struggle to keep their own content up to date so if you make it easier for them I'm sure they would appreciate it. Even if you go down the path of mashups.

 

Hope this helps.

[BelowPAR 0]

The best thing here is the response to a question. It normally gets an answer! If you glance at other forums (main ones i use are around ski or kiteboard building). They are full of perfectly legit questions that are told to eff off and have a proper look through the forums. So dont fix the search function, and this wont be an issue.!