Suggestion Feedback on keeping ScubaBoard members

[gypsyjim]

This question is directed at all members, new and old. It is actually a multiple part question, and is designed to get us all thinking about what ScubaBoard is, or could be for someone just discovering us today or tomorrow.

Two weeks ago on Utila Colleen and I were part of 4 couples with no previous contact who were diving on the same boat for a week, so we had lots of time to chat. It turned out that 5 (6 including myself) of the 9 divers including the DM, were all members of ScubaBoard at one time or another, but I was the only actively participating SM user.

A subsequent conversation with a friend who is also a moderator, has had me thinking about this, so here are my questions:

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1) What attracted you to ScubaBoard in the first place?

2) Are you satisfied that the board addresses your needs adequately? And if not what would you change, if you could to make it do so

3) Why do you think other folks who have joined, have not stayed around?

4) Do you have ideas on what the board either did not provide well, or what might have done to scare them away, without becoming participating members?

5) Do you have ideas or suggestions of new ways to both attract and keep new members, new divers involved, and satisfied with this forum?
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---------- Post added March 3rd, 2014 at 08:30 AM ----------

I will start by adding my own 2 cents.

I discovered SB while researching a dive trip back in '05, and was not a terribly active member for some time. I did though, find the info I was seeking.

I did soon after that did make some friends on the board, as both DeputyDan and Herman offered advice and invited my family to join their group for a trip to Bonaire.

I also later asked for underwater photography advice, and got a lot of help from such diverse members as ScubaSteve and DandyDon, who were more than willing to help a struggling novice.

I had a few conflicts in some of the threads along the way, especially early on, with some of the more vocal know it alls, but while that slowed me down a bit and kept me quiet, it did not scare me off. I just spent more time lurking till I became more comfortable standing up for my beliefs, and not afraid of the loud mouths. It just took me time to realize by lurking that they were a small minority, and not particularly as well respected universally as they might have thought, which made me feel less the outsider.

(Note) I think a lot of that 'know it all' attitude seems to have disappeared from the boards, or at least become far less of an issue. I heard a lot of feedback from non member divers between '95 and about 2000 that this "slamming of 'stupid questions' " was a big turn off, but I do not sense this same complaint from my more recent contactsd, when discussing SB. Now it seems more like SB is not supplying what divers are seeking, and they are just moving on to other sources of info.

I know many folks have moved on to FB, but while I enjoy FB a lot myself, I have never seen it as having the potential to reach as many divers, or to serve as a useful search base for dive related questions.

 

[Hank49]

bigass speargun is part of the cool gear

As I recall, I never pulled the trigger during those dives.

Just don't' shoot any octopuses with Bob around……. heh……heh……heh…….(this is some deep SB stuff….)

 

[Wayward Son]

we even saw an octo -bob found it- on one of the dives.

 

[Ricky B]

I have another suggestion to improve the board: edit the stickies, or replace them with FAQ's.

Often a thread will have a lot of good information, and the powers that be will make it a "sticky." Good idea as far as it goes, but there is often a lot of extraneous information in a thread that has been made a sticky. And it can be difficult to wade through the entire thread.

Take, for example, the sticky "To weight or not to weight" in the "New Divers and Those Considering Diving" forum. There are five pages of posts, 226 replies, in that sticky. A lot of replies are "great post," "keep it up," "good thinking," and that kind of thing. Entirely appropriate for the thread, but distracting noise in a sticky. In addition, other posters join in with questions, some of which have already been answered in the thread or are variations on a theme that don't add anything.

On this board and other boards, I often will extract from various posts in a thread the information that I consider useful and save it in a document on my computer. If, say, 50 board members do that, the effort is repeated 50 times. Wouldn't it make sense for the moderators who want to make a thread a sticky to edit the thread? That way, it would take only one effort to sort the wheat from the chaff instead of the effort being made repeatedly.

But taking the thinking a step further, why even make a thread a sticky? It seems like the lazy man's way to convey information. Why not take common topics and make a FAQ for each of them out of the collective wisdom. That would make for more efficient reading by the users, and when a new user posts a question that has been asked and answered hundreds of times, other board members could point the OP to the FAQ. A FAQ could even save lives! By having a FAQ that answers the question of "How much weight do I need?" new divers might adopt safer weighting practices and be introduced to the concept of a balanced rig.

In creating a FAQ on a topic where there are differences of opinion, the FAQ should not take sides but simply report the differing views. And the FAQ should be edited by one person so that the manner of expression is consistent. To be able to post, a new member would first have to pass through the FAQ's (in some fashion) so that he or she would know they exist (but would not be required to read them).

The downside of this is that (1) it creates more work for the powers that be and (2) there might be less traffic as fewer questions that are answered by the FAQ's are asked in posts. On the other hand, the signal to noise ratio in posts might go up.

 

[Cave Diver]

I have another suggestion to improve the board: edit the stickies, or replace them with FAQ's.

That would probably be relatively easy to do. The simplest method would be to split the thread and leave the original post as the FAQ, close it, then add a link to a thread where it could be discussed. That allows the initial info to be visible, yet still allow for discussion

 

[gypsyjim]

Earlier this morning a couple of us were discussing A&I threads, and the idea came up of making stickies of some of the more useful posts.

The example used was the thread on Quero's accident.

Some extremely good information on how investigations of such deaths progress glacially, and how our demanding immediate answers effects both those involved,and possibly even the investigation itself, negatively, might make good reading for anyone posting in any A&I thread?