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.

 

[drrich2]

If you want to avoid chasing off newbies, or discouraging people from postings, I've seen one issue where there's even a current thread going that highlights the issue.

Somebody fairly new buys some gear, and posts a thread asking what we think of it. The response has an undercurrent of 'Fool, if you wanted to know what we thought, you should've asked before you bought, it's too late now so what difference does it make?'

In the real world, people often buy houses, cars, computers, phones, tablets, guns or what-have-you, and then show them off, or look to see what other people think of them.

It's fine to critique the gear; I did that in the current thread (dive computer a good one, but a generation out of date; wetsuit a good brand, but their low end product that's even on a different web site not showing the brand name). But making somebody feel like a fool for asking what people think is not cool.

My opinion.

Richard.

 

[Hank49]

If you want to avoid chasing off newbies, or discouraging people from postings, I've seen one issue where there's even a current thread going that highlights the issue.

Somebody fairly new buys some gear, and posts a thread asking what we think of it. The response has an undercurrent of 'Fool, if you wanted to know what we thought, you should've asked before you bought, it's too late now so what difference does it make?'

In the real world, people often buy houses, cars, computers, phones, tablets, guns or what-have-you, and then show them off, or look to see what other people think of them.

It's fine to critique the gear; I did that in the current thread (dive computer a good one, but a generation out of date; wetsuit a good brand, but their low end product that's even on a different web site not showing the brand name). But making somebody feel like a fool for asking what people think is not cool.

My opinion.

Richard.

This can be true. But I would guess most times he ones ganging up and circling the wagons of the "Cool Gear Gang" are a bunch of lizards. Who cares what they think?

 

[NAM001]

Perhaps off topic but is there a way the member can close a thread they have started. Would put an end to the thread once the Op is satisfied with the responces received. I am rather ignorant when it comes to these board user options.

 

[Diver0001]

Rec.scuba was actually a great place to chat and exchange information from the early 90's to late 90's....I don't recall exactly when, but all of a sudden it got plagued by a few individuals with a serious agenda to RUIN Rec.scuba for everyone.... Barney was the name of one, but there were several....and there was no mechanism to exclude these trolls. Does anyone else remember who suddenly this hit?

It was always very edgy but when a user called Popeye hit the scene it every thread became explosive.

Prior to these few trolls that actively shut down the enjoyable threads....there never seemed to be any real problem with the lack of moderation.

Well... I tend to disagree. Ex- rec.scuba people who are on scubaboard are much more productive and much more helpful then they ever were before. The lack of moderation was a major impediment to the useful exchange of ideas, which is why the total population of rec.scuba never got above about 50 active users and why I'm sure if you went there today you'd still find 25 of them arguing in the same circles they have been since 1995.

Did I ever tell you that I got a serious death threat sent to me by one of the users on rec.scuba? (no... it wasn't you, just so everyone knows) He went considerably out of his way to fish out my address and telephone number from the internet (which was a major shock because I thought I was relatively anonymous) and told me on no uncertain terms that the next time he was in the neighborhood he was going to come to my house and put a bullet in my head.

I don't think he knew that I had children or the threat could have been a lot worse.

I could have used some moderator help when that happened.

R..

 

[gypsyjim]

Perhaps off topic but is there a way the member can close a thread they have started. Would put an end to the thread once the Op is satisfied with the responces received. I am rather ignorant when it comes to these board user options.

You can "Report" your own thread by pushing the Report button, and then request a mod to do so. After that it is up to the staff to decide, but I have done it myself and never been refused.

 

[The Chairman]

It was always very edgy but when a user called Popeye hit the scene it every thread became explosive.

Popeye and the gang came here trying to take over in 2001 or 2002. They hoped to get rid of me at the same time. I was clued into their evil Shenanigans by a long time user and he sent me to an IRC chat. I sat in their chat room as 'Bluto", Popeye's arch enemy and simply recorded the chatter. We knew the threads they were going to hit before they hit them. Kind of funny in a 7th grader sort of way. Popeye returned to ScubaBoard many years later, but not as Popeye. He's mellowed a bit since then.

 

[gypsyjim]

It was always very edgy but when a user called Popeye hit the scene it every thread became explosive.



Well... I tend to disagree. Ex- rec.scuba people who are on scubaboard are much more productive and much more helpful then they ever were before. The lack of moderation was a major impediment to the useful exchange of ideas, which is why the total population of rec.scuba never got above about 50 active users and why I'm sure if you went there today you'd still find 25 of them arguing in the same circles they have been since 1995.

Did I ever tell you that I got a serious death threat sent to me by one of the users on rec.scuba? (no... it wasn't you, just so everyone knows) He went considerably out of his way to fish out my address and telephone number from the internet (which was a major shock because I thought I was relatively anonymous) and told me on no uncertain terms that the next time he was in the neighborhood he was going to come to my house and put a bullet in my head.

I don't think he knew that I had children or the threat could have been a lot worse.

I could have used some moderator help when that happened.

R..

While I am confused about the mechanism for a mod preventing that death threat, specifically, I agree that any group of people eventually will need someone to set and enforce some sort of limits.

We human beings tend to need a set of known rules to keep us from degenerating into anarchy and chaos, and from chewing each other up for sport, profit or simply amusement. Both even handed and fair moderating of a forum like SB is absolutely necessary for it's long term survival.

 

[Diver0001]

While I am confused about the mechanism for a mod preventing that death threat, specifically, I agree that any group of people eventually will need someone to set and enforce some sort of limits.

Well. I think on a typical moderated site, there would have been an intervention well before emotions reached the point where someone would think to respond in such an extreme way.

It's no guarantee but there are good reasons why moderators on most sites take cyber bullying seriously and don't tolerate it.

R..

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

It was always very edgy but when a user called Popeye hit the scene it every thread became explosive.

Popeye was a member here for a time ... quite the character ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Ricky B]

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

The amount of useful information that I could get just by reading and if a topic that I wanted information on was not coming up in a search of old threads, just by asking.

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

Yes, satisfied.

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?

I have two suggestions. One I made in another thread, and I'll repost it here.

1. Diver0001 made this comment in a thread:

This is the reason I didn't want to get into a debate about this. People who have been long-time lurkers who finally dare to make their first post often "write off" scubaboard when people like *** use their genuine questions as a podium for the pumping negativity and the beating of dead horses into threads.

This is not a problem unique to Scubaboard. My response:

I propose a dead-horse forum. In that forum, the standard debate would be fairly summarized and posted as a sticky. When someone starts beating a dead horse, a moderator could split off that part of the thread to the appropriate thread in the dead-horse forum. That way, posters would not be censored, and they could have their say. If they felt that the summary in the sticky omitted an argument or did not present it fairly, or if they just wanted to have their say, they could do so freely and without reservation. It would be on topic. Although many issues have been discussed over and over again, there is a constant stream of new posters and some, quite reasonably, feel they should be able to get their two cents' worth in. After all, if 250 people have already beaten the dead horse, why can't they have a turn?

If I were to post a question about ice diving in the Belize forum, I hope the moderators would move it to a more appropriate forum. And I do see that threads are often moved to, or split off to, what a moderator feels is a more appropriate forum. That is one of the functions of a moderator, isn't it? To move threads that are started in the wrong forum or that veer into another forum's province?

Of course, I wouldn't call the dead-horse forum the "dead-horse forum," for that implies that the topic a poster wants to discuss is not worth discussing and is therefore condescending. I would call it something like "Common Controversies."

So I offer for consideration the idea that mods would split off threads that veer off the topic of the OP into dead-horse beating.

2. In the same thread, one of the posters, frustrated that another poster would not give up asserting his point of view, said:

Again, it's no wonder that with argumentative trolls like you on SB so few new posters return here.

The number one thing that drives many users from an internet forum is personal attack. This comment crossed over the line into personal attack. A troll is, by definition, a person, who in bad faith, provokes an argument for the sake of winding people up. IMO, accusing a poster of acting in bad faith is not a legitimate response to a question or assertion made by another poster.

What I suggest is not that moderators delete posts that contain a personal attack, but that they excise that portion of the post that constitutes a personal attack, expressly inserting a moderator's notation in the post that a comment has been excised as a personal attack and noting that personal attacks are not permitted in SB. IMO, deleting a post entirely or, worse, an entire thread and notifying the offender is an ineffective way to encourage civility. Providing an explanation by PM to the offender only informs the offender.

If on the other hand offending portions of posts were excised, regular users seeing portions of posts excised with explanations by the mods of the reason for the excision would be reminded of the standards. Perhaps some people think that calling another poster a troll, or questioning whether he or she is a troll is not offensive, but IMO it is. It has nothing to do with the merits of the issued being discussed and so is inherently off-topic. And the fear of being labeled a troll will discourage some people from asking questions. In my experience, what leads to flame wars on the internet are personal attacks.

Of course, if the entire post is offensive, then the entire post should be deleted, but in the example I gave above, only the assertion that the other poster was a troll was offensive, and if the entire post were deleted, then the board would have lost the benefit of the rest of the post.