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Post by Low Light Mike on Oct 9, 2013 15:24:09 GMT -8
Regarding the recent board changes for non-ferry items:
We've always had these non-ferry items on our forum, or at least we did yesterday and last-week, and last-year, etc. - Ferry fans have always seemed to have interests in other transportation modes, and we've usually seen that evident on this ferry forum.
Regarding the reorganization, please remember: 1) All we're doing is replacing some individual non-ferries threads with some multiple non-ferries threads. 2) These non-ferries new threads are in the same non-ferries section of the forum that they were before 3) We're not importing non-ferries posts from elsewhere. All we're doing is moving where existing & future forum posts were kept. 4) For those who happily ignored the various "Forward Lounge" threads in the past, you can easily continue to ignore that whole non-ferries section.
We didn't have any fuss when we created a "World Cup" thread or a "All things in Space" thread. Both of those are non-ferries.
One more thing: the popularity of the Trains and Transit non-ferries topics are evident by the large number of posts in each of their old threads. Obviously, many ferry forum members were and are interested in these non-ferries topics, and they're interested in discussing them here, among this group.
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Post by WettCoast on Oct 9, 2013 16:32:51 GMT -8
This forum is really about an 'online community' of people who have an interest in ferries. The vast majority of people in this community live on the North-American west coast, specifically in the Washinton, BC & Alaska region. Hence, we have the 'West Coast Ferries Forum'.
Many people within this community also have a strong interest in other forms of transportation in this region. Nothing wrong with that. Some, like me, have a great interest in the railways. Some have a great interest in the transit systems, & others in air transportation. Again, nothing wrong with that. Having 'side stream' discussion on this forum relating to these interests is just fine and does not detract from the main interest, the ferries. Having that discussion presented in a more structured way is good, IMHO. If you are not interested in these side discussions it is easily avoided.
As I said yesterday, staying with the status quo is not the way to go. We need to organize things better (as is happening now thanks to Moderators Horn & Miles, and in my perspective is the way to go), or we drop all discussion that is not directly related to ferries. That means no more trains & buses, and no more 'Why is the Sky Blue' discussion. I don't favour this latter perspective.
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Post by Low Light Mike on Oct 9, 2013 16:45:48 GMT -8
As I said yesterday, staying with the status quo is not the way to go. We need to organize things better (as is happening now thanks to Moderators Horn & Miles, and in my perspective is the way to go), or we drop all discussion that is not directly related to ferries. That means no more trains & buses, and no more 'Why is the Sky Blue' discussion. I don't favour this latter perspective. I'll paraphrase the Wett Coast Kidd: - Having a few cluttered-up and popular threads for these non-ferries topics is not a good thing. If a thread is popular and well-used, it needs to have some attention given to it to ensure that it stays popular and well-used. Was it broken? Yes, the cluttered & bottomless-pit aspect of the old Transit thread and the old Trains thread made them broken, in my opinion. Continued use was going to get more difficult because of the continued posting into 1 sinking-hole thread. So if we have popular non-ferries threads, we need to do some periodic housekeeping on them. ...and that's what we're doing. As for the other non-ferries threads that we're not changing, none of them appear to be overly popular at the moment,and all appear to be doing fine as-is.
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Post by Mike C on Oct 9, 2013 16:59:38 GMT -8
Brief mobile comments:
I don't think we are spreading ourselves too thin. Our ferry content will continue to be respected and top notch, and our focus will not change. This was primarily an organizational change.
This change recieved almost overwhelming support pre-implementation. As well, most major contributors consistently have transportation interests outside of ferries. We have identified these consistencies, and we are allowing for a fairly basic level of discussion on these subjects. We are late to the game on this - most other major transport forums have spaces for other transportation.
I don't understand what the negatives are here? I think most understand that we collectively should go to other forums for higher levels of discussio on other interests.
Are we becoming the West Coast Transport Forum? Haha no, not on my watch. That will have to be a Coastal Skier party-night change while the rest of us are asleep.
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SolDuc
Voyager
West Coast Cyclist
SolDuc and SOBC - Photo by Scott
Posts: 2,055
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Post by SolDuc on Oct 9, 2013 18:13:41 GMT -8
The comments above made by WCK, Mr Horn and Mr Photo above are mostly accurate. Many of us are also interested in various modes of transportation. Most of us first got interested in ferries because they carry people and goods around. But ferries are not alone here.
This forum is not getting more focused on other modes, and ferries will always be what made us join and link us all, but its not like everybody is only interested in ferries. Thus it is understandable that we have threads for other modes of transportation. If you think we're getting off topic and not talking about ferries, just join a group trip and there you go: a whole bunch of ferry talk right there!
Not related to this, but I think there should be something done for photography. Of course this is not all about photographing ferries, but I think we've got a fairly big photographer base here, and people that would like to improve their skills in that domain. Perhaps a possible solution would be to have a photography sub-board like CPTDB has, for those of you that have an account there. Some ideas for a breakdown of threads would be like: photography equipment, photography techniques (depending on conditions, like ferries at night, backlit ferries and such), and our fairly large assorted photography thread.
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Neil
Voyager
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Post by Neil on Oct 9, 2013 20:24:00 GMT -8
I would be in sympathy with objections to these alterations if there was some danger that we were becoming like the History channel on TV... where these days, 'history' means guys in bandannas fixing up '72 Mustangs, hillbillies making moonshine, and truckers delivering lettuce to the arctic.
But we're not. We're simply people who congregate here because of an interest in ferries... but who have other interests too, both transport oriented, and otherwise. It's good to have a forum where lots of stuff gets discussed, in the right channels.
Another thing worth reflecting on is that often, there simply isn't a lot going on in the ferry world, locally. Maybe there are no newbuilds going on, or no controversies, no route changes; maybe the ferries are just doing what ferries do- going back and forth on the same routes, and the same schedules, between the same ports. Then, it's probably worthwhile to simply have other things to talk about, to keep people looking in here. No harm done, as far as I can see.
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Post by Low Light Mike on Oct 9, 2013 21:05:44 GMT -8
Rail sub-board reorganization is still in progress.
- but it's really starting to take shape.
I've looked at almost ALL the posts in Rail today, and I used this experience to make decisions on what threads we should have. You'll notice that I might have flip-flopped a few times on some issues.
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Post by Dane on Oct 9, 2013 22:03:58 GMT -8
Pre-implementation was only 24 hours, though, of which I worked 13, slept 7 and dedicated very little else to items other than personal administration and fitness. Not that the details of my life are relevant but the flash to bang here was quick. I do again emphasize that I don't care - I will personally miss the consolidated one stop shopping but it is what it is. Given I visit other sites as my "primary" for public transit / rail this essentially is no change to me except I may absorb slightly less content here which affects no one. To me there is one negative - the more attractive we become as an "organized" place for discussion, the more we compete with venues that we do not intend competition. This happened in the greater railfan world much to the detriment of quality discussion. If the primary users are happy, and the place doesn't turn into a dessert wasteland like parts of CPTDB, as an example, then all seems well.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 9, 2013 22:36:52 GMT -8
A modest increase in threads was needed to break down the "Trains" thread given the frequent posts by a few regulars. But we are losing our focus and creating too many boards & sub-boards. This forum was created by people who have an interest in BC Ferries, and the core of it shouldn't change. It seems to be preferable to break down any thread that has too many pages, for no apparent reason. The home page is getting crowded.
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Post by compdude787 on Oct 10, 2013 8:48:36 GMT -8
Really? We now have a sub-board here for Imperial Star Destroyers? Wow...
Other than that I like the re-organization of the transportation board so that it's no longer the 'bottomless pit' like we had before. I don't think this change detracts from the ferry part of this forum at all.
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Post by Kahloke on Oct 10, 2013 9:04:47 GMT -8
Really? We now have a sub-board here for Imperial Star Destroyers? Wow... Hey, even The Empire needs a place to discuss their transportation needs - just simply filling a niche
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Post by Low Light Mike on Oct 10, 2013 9:17:21 GMT -8
Really? We now have a sub-board here for Imperial Star Destroyers? Wow... Hey, even The Empire needs a place to discuss their transportation needs - just simply filling a niche Many people think that Palpatine was the Empire Builder. - But some of us know that it was actually James J. Hill. (how do you annoy a ferry-fan? you tell a rail joke)
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Post by Mike C on Oct 10, 2013 9:51:35 GMT -8
A modest increase in threads was needed to break down the "Trains" thread given the frequent posts by a few regulars. But we are losing our focus and creating too many boards & sub-boards. This forum was created by people who have an interest in BC Ferries, and the core of it shouldn't change. It seems to be preferable to break down any thread that has too many pages, for no apparent reason. The home page is getting crowded. It's worth pointing out that this board actually replaced an older board (Cruise Ships), and is therefore not an increase in the actual number of boards on the forum. It was a modification to the Cruise Ship board to encompass the rest of transportation, divided up by sub-boards. The logic behind breaking up larger threads is two-fold: 1) The length of the thread indicates a level of popularity that should be accommodated; and 2) Finding, organizing, and archiving items is far easier (as opposed to saying "I think it was on Page 24? Or was it 23?") I am trying to be as conservative as I can, regarding the production of new threads (I am doing the transit side). I, too, think that more advanced discussion should take place on the CPTDB. If we do ultimately lose focus (I will use the upcoming berth closures in Little River and Westview as a control), I am willing to review, at least my section, the impact it had on that.
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Post by compdude787 on Oct 10, 2013 11:58:39 GMT -8
A modest increase in threads was needed to break down the "Trains" thread given the frequent posts by a few regulars. But we are losing our focus and creating too many boards & sub-boards. This forum was created by people who have an interest in BC Ferries, and the core of it shouldn't change. It seems to be preferable to break down any thread that has too many pages, for no apparent reason. The home page is getting crowded. It's worth pointing out that this board actually replaced an older board (Cruise Ships), and is therefore not an increase in the actual number of boards on the forum. It was a modification to the Cruise Ship board to encompass the rest of transportation, divided up by sub-boards. The logic behind breaking up larger threads is two-fold: 1) The length of the thread indicates a level of popularity that should be accommodated; and 2) Finding, organizing, and archiving items is far easier (as opposed to saying "I think it was on Page 24? Or was it 23?") I am trying to be as conservative as I can, regarding the production of new threads (I am doing the transit side). I, too, think that more advanced discussion should take place on the CPTDB. If we do ultimately lose focus (I will use the upcoming berth closures in Little River and Westview as a control), I am willing to review, at least my section, the impact it had on that. You're right, it did replace the Cruise Ships board. BTW, for the new transit threads, are you going to move older posts from the "Public Transit Discussion" thread to each respective regional thread? I assume you'll do this; I'll just be patient.
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Post by Low Light Mike on Oct 11, 2013 9:14:47 GMT -8
I think it's absurd to assume that this forum would lose its ferry-focus, simply because of expanded-threads in some non-ferry topics.
Using the presence of non-ferry threads as a reason for lack of ferry discussion would be a ridiculous shift of responsibility away from all us members who have the ability and intent to continue discussing ferry items on this forum. - For any of us forum members who claim to be interested in ferries and in maintaining this forum as a place of quality ferry discussion, the responsibility is simply ours (all of us) to ensure that we continue discussing ferry items here.
Our Moderator responsibility is to set-up and organize the forum so that good ferry discussion can continue to happen. That's why all the non-ferry items are shut-away in a separate page that you need to open-up to get to. - And our "BC Ferries" heritage is evident in the fact that the first 3 boards at the top of the home-page are all for the fleet called "BC Ferries."
So if you're genuinely afraid that new train & transit threads will inhibit ferry discussion, then make sure that you're doing your part in discussing ferry items here on this forum.
As for me, I'm going to continue posting about ferries here. News stories that I see, comments from trips that I've done, and photos and videos of the ships.
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Post by WettCoast on Oct 11, 2013 10:43:00 GMT -8
I think it's absurd to assume that this forum would lose its ferry-focus, simply because of expanded-threads in some non-ferry topics. Using the presence of non-ferry threads as a reason for lack of ferry discussion would be a ridiculous shift of responsibility away from all us members who have the ability and intent to continue discussing ferry items on this forum. - For any of us forum members who claim to be interested in ferries and in maintaining this forum as a place of quality ferry discussion, the responsibility is simply ours (all of us) to ensure that we continue discussing ferry items here. Our Moderator responsibility is to set-up and organize the forum so that good ferry discussion can continue to happen. That's why all the non-ferry items are shut-away in a separate page that you need to open-up to get to. - And our "BC Ferries" heritage is evident in the fact that the first 3 boards at the top of the home-page are all for the fleet called "BC Ferries." So if you're genuinely afraid that new train & transit threads will inhibit ferry discussion, then make sure that you're doing your part in discussing ferry items here on this forum. Very well said, Mr. Horn. Thank you.
Questions: We have at least a couple of transportation 'categories' that could fit in more than one board on this forum. One that comes to mind is commuter rail such as BC's 'West Coast Express'. Do you place this in 'Transit', or 'Passenger Rail'? Obviously, it fits equally well on either board. A second category I'm thinking about is commuter ferries such as Vancouver's 'SeaBus' operations. The discussion on 'SeaBus' currently rests within the 'Other BC Ferries' board. I believe that it should be kept there but you could argue that it belongs in 'Transit'.
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Post by Low Light Mike on Oct 11, 2013 10:55:13 GMT -8
Questions: We have at least a couple of transportation 'categories' that could fit in more than one board on this forum. Two that come to mind are commuter rail such as BC's West Coast Express. Do you place this in 'Transit', or 'Passenger Rail'? Obviously, it fits equally well on either board. The second category I'm thinking about is commuter ferries such as Vancouver's SeaBus operations. The discussion on 'SeaBus' currently rests within the 'Other BC Ferries' board. I believe that it should be kept there but you could argue that it belongs in 'Transit'. West Coast Express was one of those items that we had to make a decision on, and stick with it. We can't have it in both places, so we had to choose one. - Because we set up the Transit sub-board with a TransLink thread, and because West Coast Express is operated by TransLink, and because West Coast Express is primarily and extension of transit (re its purpose), it made the most sense to include it in transit. Obvious West Coast Express is a train which runs on rails, and so it's a railway. But this is a good example of where anyone who organized this would need to make a choice. We trust that most people will understand this, and choose not to make it an issue. Same thing with SeaBus regarding the need to make a choice and stick with it. - and the nautical aspect of SeaBus overrides the transit aspect, because after all we are primarily a "Ferries Forum." We knew that when we did this, anyone could make a number of arguments over any category choices, because so many things can be categorized in a number of different ways. Anyone who's ever managed a categorization-project knows that there are many choices to be made and lots of "it could go here or there" options. And those people soon realize that you just need to make a choice and then go with it. And there are always people who seem to get hung-up on the choices and are unable to understand how complicated it can be to do a categorization-project. They don't realize that there are always a few multi-category items. For me personally, if people get that picky on multi-choice items, I don't have the time to play their picky obsessive game. (that's a general world comment, not a WCFF specific comment at WCK's question) ------------- ps: BC Ferries likely had this same type of issue in figuring out how to categorize the Saanich Inlet (Mill Bay ferry) route, in its schedules. A 1-off oddball that needed to fit in somewhere.
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Post by WettCoast on Oct 11, 2013 11:18:00 GMT -8
That response is fair and reasonable. With regard to Seabus discussion, will it stay where it is or go into Translink as indicated by this? Discussion and photos for TransLink and it's subsidiaries and services (SkyTrain network, SeaBus, West Coast Express, Buses). ------- Lastly, is it possible to place a link or just a note to indicate that discussion on a certain topic is on another board? By this I mean that the list of sub-boards for railways would include a Link/Note re "WCE" & other Commuter Rail discussion located 'here'...; or for Seabus discussion go 'here'.
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Post by Low Light Mike on Oct 11, 2013 11:24:07 GMT -8
That response is fair and reasonable. With regard to Seabus discussion, will it stay where it is or go into Translink as indicated by this? Discussion and photos for TransLink and it's subsidiaries and services (SkyTrain network, SeaBus, West Coast Express, Buses). ------- Lastly, is it possible to place a link or just a note to indicate that discussion on a certain topic is on another board? By this I mean that the list of sub-boards for railways would include a Link/Note re "WCE" & other Commuter Rail discussion located 'here'...; or for Seabus discussion go 'here'. Firstly, thanks for doing your part in quality-control here. Much appreciated. Re SeaBus, I wasn't aware of that quote from my fellow moderator, but I'll defer to what he thinks is best. (please give him a few days to get to this - thanks). Re the "Here's where you find it" link: That's a great idea. That fits well in the category sub-headers on the main "Other Transportation" board page. We've done a bit of that already, but I'll try to make it clearer and detailed.
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Post by Low Light Mike on Oct 11, 2013 13:47:29 GMT -8
An anecdotal response to some of the concerns about this re-org of non-ferry threads: - I regularly read the blog Uni Watch and it has a regular update on news about the current controversy surrounding the name of an NFL team in Washington DC. Paul (the blogger) wrote a response today to the ongoing criticism that he's received from his blog readers about how they don't like this coverage included in his blog. Here, he notes a common criticism (similar to comments that non-ferry items are taking over this forum) and he gives a response that I think can be translated to our ferry-forum situation:
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Post by Low Light Mike on Nov 18, 2013 17:45:18 GMT -8
So, how'd we do today in keeping our ferry focus on this forum?
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We anticipated a major BC Ferries news story for today (thanks to a CBC radio report heard on Friday, and thanks to our ongoing monitoring of the Government Review process), and we publicized it on our forum in advance of today's major news.
We posted news re today's announcement within 20 minutes of the first news release today.
We set up a an announcement thread with a link to the most relevant document re the service cuts, so that it would be easy for everyone to find the relevant document.
And now, I'm going to do some more analysis of the news, to be posted this evening.
- it's been a hectic but fun day for me on the forum.
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During today, we had plenty of discussion from various members re the big news. - Today was probably the most important news day in terms of BC Ferries service levels since March 22, 2006.
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Not bad for a forum that also discusses railways and airplanes, eh?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 18, 2013 20:58:25 GMT -8
So, how'd we do today in keeping our ferry focus on this forum? --------------- We anticipated a major BC Ferries news story for today (thanks to a CBC radio report heard on Friday, and thanks to our ongoing monitoring of the Government Review process), and we publicized it on our forum in advance of today's major news. We posted news re today's announcement within 20 minutes of the first news release today. We set up a an announcement thread with a link to the most relevant document re the service cuts, so that it would be easy for everyone to find the relevant document. And now, I'm going to do some more analysis of the news, to be posted this evening. - it's been a hectic but fun day for me on the forum. ------------------ During today, we had plenty of discussion from various members re the big news. - Today was probably the most important news day in terms of BC Ferries service levels since March 22, 2006. ----------- Not bad for a forum that also discusses railways and airplanes, eh? You're right that we haven't lost our focus so far, but have you tried finding a specific thread from the home page to post a picture or ask a question? How long did it take? If we lose our focus, which is likely over time, it will be gradual and it would take more than one and a half months. I guess it's more difficult for those who check the forum once a day or less. We should make this place as easy to view for new members and guests, which isn't the case now.
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