Northwest Diver Forum

[gcbryan]

I see that the old Northwest Diver board finally bit the dust. Maybe it happened a while ago but for sure it's not there now.

This is no big news I know and it was run into the ground functionally long ago anyway but in it's prime it was a good site.

The lessons that should be learned in my opinion from that site are that an owner has to allow for differing opinions, has to not have such tight control and moderators should not all be of the same opinion and allow for a little more free speech.

Another important thing which applies to all boards is that change is needed every so often. It's obvious when "bad" people are involved but it applies equally to "good" people. Everyone has to be able to take criticism. At one point that was one insular board with one viewpoint and it was run into the ground.

The good points? At least at one point there were some good and entertaining discussions, good dive reports from many locations were available, and it was a good source for finding dive buddies.

I actually didn't come to Scubaboard much in those day. Now, in my opinion it's better than it was in the past. The good old days of Scubaboard are now. I hope no one group ever dominates this board and probably won't/can't since it's a national/international board.

There is too much emphasis attached to dive personalities sometimes, I don't know why, but it seems to be more prevalent in diving than in some other activities. It's not good. People get built up for no reason, develop over sized ego's, and either leave or become a#holes. Diver's are divers and they are just people. We don't need dive "gods". I like this board now.

Pointless as a post I suppose but Northwest Diver shutting down reminded me of a few things I suppose.

 

[gcbryan]

I guess I'm wrong. I see it's back up although it's obviously not being moderated as all the new posts are for Viagra!

 

[TSandM]

As far as I know, that board has been moribund for over a year. The NW Dive Club has superceded it, and attracted most of its high quality poster.

I think bulletin board are a lot of work, and require a ton of maintenance. SB survives because it has quite a large group of volunteer moderators, who get rid of the spam and try to control the trolls. NWDC survives because most of the members know one another, and I think that limits people's behavior -- they're also pretty willing to kick somebody out if they misbehave.

You need enough people on a board to bring a diversity of opinions, to make discussion interesting. But you also need civility and a police force. I don't know what was lacking with the NW Diver forum, because it was pretty much on its last legs when I first found it.