Please - Read this about posting trip reports [Archive]

Alison Boler

29-11-2005, 07:57

Hi All,
Please can you not use the forum for actually logging trip reports. I know that YD use their forum for trip reports, but we have a seperate permanent section for them which means that they are always available to site visitors and can be linked from the location pages. Not to mention the fact that trip reports that we publish in the Trip Report Section are rewarded with a £15 BSAC Shop voucher.

If you have logged a report below, it would be great if you would resend it to me at alison.boler@bsactravelclub.co.uk, together with any pictures you might have seperately in .jpg format. Then if you also let me have your postal address I will send you a shop voucher as a thank you. This way your report will form a permanent part of the TC website and be of huge use to other travelling divers.

The TC website is far more than just the forum - have a look at some of the other sections, particularly the Where to Dive section and the Trip Report Section - it gets more hits than most any page in any of the BSAC sites (other than home pages of course!)

Maybe what you might like to do is first send us the report for publishing - I can generally turn them around same day. Then if you want to publish to the forum, you could post up, linking to the report on the site and then there can be a discussion - further views put..... Have a look at Paul Oliver's thread on Vela Luka - it works really well!.

You can post your report here if you like, no one's going to remove it or anything, but it's just that so many more people can benefit from your experience if you allow me to publish it permanently.

Thanks

Allie

http://www.bsactravelclub.co.uk/reports/index

James - Narked@50

30-11-2005, 02:37

Alison

Can you please confirm that this is what the admins, and more importantly, the users want?

I was under the impression this was a BSAC open forum and being told to send you trip reports by email is not what I had in mind. I do not visit the TC web link as I have not found it particularly helpfull in the past, so I don't want to add to it.

James

Alison Boler

30-11-2005, 07:52

Hi James
I am one of the two Admins and Moderators for the TC Forum so I can confirm that this is exactly what we want :)

This is a BSAC Open Forum which is focussed on dive travel. By all means send your trip reports here if you like. I'm not going to remove them. However, I am pointing out to you, that if you do this, very soon they will be lost in the realms of the forum and therefore not very available for everyone else to read and therefore not very helpful. If you email me - as TC Chief Correspondant - your trip reports, then I publish them permanently for everyone to benefit from - and I send you back a BSAC Shop Voucher. It's up to you.

Sorry you haven't found the trip reports on site helpful - why not? Do they not reflect places or styles of diving that you particularly enjoy? Another good reason to send in your reports then!

All the best
Alison Boler

David Walker

30-11-2005, 10:13

I never look at the Travel Club website either - if I was looking for information about a place I might search on the forums, but wouldn't go trawling through the website. I have looked once or twice, although to be honest I didn't think much of the reports - I've seen many more with far more useful information contributed freely on places like YD as you mention.

Out of interest, where do all these £15 vouchers come from? Are they from a general BSAC budget or is Travel Club (hopefully) a self-funding part of BSAC? Seems a pointless waste of money paying people £15 for what i've seen tend to be short and not-very-useful trip reports when people are obviously happy to share more information on an open forum.

David

Keith Lawrence

30-11-2005, 10:38

Out of interest, where do all these £15 vouchers come from? Are they from a general BSAC budget or is Travel Club (hopefully) a self-funding part of BSAC? Seems a pointless waste of money paying people £15 for what i've seen tend to be short and not-very-useful trip reports when people are obviously happy to share more information on an open forum.
Forums are a minority activity David, the web stats that I have in front of me here show that the TC web site received four times the number of visitors that our old forums did. Travel club itself is a development project with it's own budget, it is already contributing to the BSAC in several tangible and intangible ways. There are plans for it for 2006 not to just be self financing but to produce some very real and positive contributions to the club way over and above what it costs to run it.

It is a valuable and worthwhile resource IMHO, but that's not just my view - TC has the backing of the BSAC Council for what it does and we all want it to continue. David who runs it and people like Allie (and the rest of the TC team) are in charge, but I must admit that I'm also on Allie's side on this, she's right in my view!

Cheers

Keith L
BSAC Council Member

Alison Boler

30-11-2005, 10:51

Hi David
I guess it all comes down to personal preference. If your principal interest in the BSAC websites is the forum, then you will have bookmarked it and come straight here and be very familiar with searching and trawling through the messages.
However, many people - and we get 30 - 40000 seperate visitors a month at the TC area of the BSAC site - will go to the Trip Report Index to find a trip report, or they will look at a location page and then follow links off to read trip reports on the place, or articles on the place. They may or may not come to the forums - you can see the number of members, it doesn't approach the size of the total visitors to the trip reports page.

I'm not trying by any means to stop you sharing info on the forum! I can only repeat what I've said to James - post trip reports here if you like but they are not so visible to most site visitors as they are if you send them up for permanent publishing. And that's a shame if - like the recent Croatia one - they give a different viewpoint on a location. As it happens, Paul has sent me that report with pictures and it should be on site today.

As regards the vouchers: BSAC Travel Club is just another team of volunteers working within BSAC. As such, all our activities are contained within the overall BSAC budget and run as a monitored cost centre. A voucher only costs the BSAC something if it is used - not if it is given. Many people do not actually use the vouchers. Many people have donated their reports for free. Many people who do use the voucher, spend more in the shop than the voucher is worth. So, the cost to the BSAC of building the database of trip reports is extremely small.

IMVHO, the forums are best used for discussion and for posting immediate and perhaps transient information. They are not the best way of posting information that is likely to be of lasting use to BSAC members. If you have used a dive centre that is substandard - or excellent - that is information that all members should have access to, not just forum members. But, it's your forum, you go ahead and use it as you like. I have just made a polite request is all.

Cheers

Allie

Alan Ewart

30-11-2005, 10:54

Before I start I'll declare a bias as a regular contributor to the travel club website!

I don't wish to demean anyone's views, but frankly I'm amazed that some people dont find the information on the TC website useful.

There are trip reports from all over the world. Sure they vary in quality and depth, but they are a warts and all view of peoples real experiences. I for one would like to see Pauls trip report on croatia preserved on the site rather than disappear in a few weeks.

I find the links to BSAC resorts etc very useful and they are my starting point every time I look to book diving in the UK or beyond.

What about the PTP's? There are some great deals to be had. Discounts available just for being a BSAC member!!

Bottom line for me is it's information, generally unbiased information and like all information can be used or discarded if its not of use to you. IMHO that can only be a good thing.

MattDuke

30-11-2005, 11:39

Vic

30-11-2005, 12:40

Hi Alison.

IMVHO, the forums are best used for discussion and for posting immediate and perhaps transient information. They are not the best way of posting information that is likely to be of lasting use to BSAC members.

Have you thought of using a Wiki approach for this sort of thing?

You get the "permanency" of static pages, but all registered users can post and alter content - you get a "concensus" page...

We've got a trial running (temporarily!) at http://bsacforum.co.uk/wiki/ - feel free to add some travel-report pages if you'd like to. If it works, we can look at partitioning the database to create a Travel Club-specific wiki (if that's what people want).

HTH

Vic.

TerryH

30-11-2005, 12:56

Come on people this is all nonsense.

If you post a report on here then it is on the BSAC fora, which is all part of
BSAC, so Ali - cut and paste it over to the other site.

It should be accepted that adding ANY information on here can be used for
the benefit of BSAC or any other divers for that matter, so if its travel
related why shouldnt we expect it to re-appear later on the TC website?

I wouldnt move it, but if its any good, copy it!

Tel.

Alison Boler

30-11-2005, 13:18

Hi
To respond to Vic first:
Have definitely thought about a Wiki approach and have been talking to Keith about it for a while.

To me, what would be a "perfect" solution would be the ability to be able to centrally reference everything relevant to a particular location from the location page. Obviously, for those who are only interested in the forum, all threads are still available there just as normal.

So, for instance on the Croatia Location page, we have text about Croatia, we have links to the tourist board, to Divernet Articles, To other articles, to all the published trip reports, to BSAC Schools and Centres AND we would have links to all related BB threads. That way, it wouldn't matter where you published your trip report, it would still be available from the location page on the main TC site, and highly visible, together with all the discussion around that report, plus any posts on "what the weather's like today/went to Weymouth yesterday and the viz was 5m, new air supplier open in Poole etc" etc - more relevant to the UK location pages really.
As of today we have all the links there except the ones to the forum boards. Yes, I could with "unlimited time" :) trawl through, capture the links to the threads and cut and paste them into the html pages but.......

So have been asking Keith about having this automatically happen and apparently it is not far off with these new forums, but I guess you might know more about that than me ;)

I sometimes use a US site called www.scubadiving.com where they have a facility called Tripfinder which is like this, each page is a portal for a lot of info about a particular place, including bb threads.

To address Terry's point:

Yeah, I could cut and copy from a posting on the TC forum and turn it into a published trip report. However, at the moment this would be an entirely manual process and not quite as easy as it sounds. The reports need editting and spacing properly to look good in html - we use static html on the websites - and this takes a bit of time. Plus, I really prefer to have at least one picture with a report - we do have a very few without pictures but... Then again, I would want the author's consent to publish on the site. I know what you mean about it all being part of the BSAC, but what people put on a forum post is one thing - whether they are happy for it to become part of a permanent posting is quite another - I wouldn't feel right taking that for granted. Plus if we made that a condition of the forum, then it might inhibit people from posting, and I definitely wouldn't want that either.

So, until Keith/Vic and the IT guys get these "associated threads" or whatever turned on, my best suggestion is this:
1. If its a really short report that isn't really going to add anything as a permanent comment on a place, post it to the forum.
2. Otherwise, mail it to me. I will publish it on the TC site very quickly and notify you. You can then post a message to the forum about the report, hotlinking back to the report and everyone can chime in if they want to.
3. Otherwise, post it to the forum but accept that it won't get as large as audience as it may deserve.

Cheers

Allie

Tony F

30-11-2005, 13:20

It should be accepted that adding ANY information on here can be used for the benefit of BSAC or any other divers for that matter, so if its travel related why shouldnt we expect it to re-appear later on the TC website?

Why does this make me feel uncomfortable?

As I understand things this particular forum is in the public domain, anyone can read it - that's a given. It has been provided by the BSAC as a service to the diving community at large therefore.

If I post something on here it becomes 'public domain'. I'm certain that means it could be quoted and linked to from elsewhere but I'd have a hard time accepting my posts where copied in their entirety somewhere else without my prior knowledge, even if that was to the BSACs own TC.

Maybe I'm having a bad day but James, in his original post, asked if this was what 'members' wanted and Alison, speaking on behalf of Admins and/or the TC, replied that it was what 'we' wanted. This begs a question, who is this particular forum intended for?

I think I'm having a tetchy day and I'm not looking to cause a problem but IMHO perhaps a little clarity is needed to avoid any potential misunderstanding :)

MattS

30-11-2005, 14:03

Starting the thread by telling people what they 'can not do' is not the most constructive approach. Personally I would have told people what they 'can do' by emphasising the benefits of the Travel Club, and urged them to send trip reports there.

IMVHO telling everyone what they can not do is almost always going to wind someone up. As will plagerising their work without the courtesy of asking first. Inviting someone to re-write a trip report posted here for publication by the Travel Club will probably be taken as a compliment though. I think the current term is 'buy in'.

Quality of presentation has been somewhat distracting me just recently. Sorry for the intrusion.

Alison Boler

30-11-2005, 14:10

Hi Tony
I think that if you read my post, that I am in total agreement with you. I wouldn't dream of cutting and pasting anyone's post without their permission and I haven't suggested doing so.

All I have done is suggest - politely - that this forum is not the best place to post long trip reports that are of value to many other visitors to our website who are not forum users. I haven't removed any such posts and have made no threat to do so - in fact I make it clear that I am not going to do so, as I did when someone else suggested I cut and paste them. There is no question of censorship either.
My concern as TC Moderator is that the TC forum is put to the best use and also that trip reports gain the maximum visibility so as to be as useful as possible to all members. It is merely a question of where a trip report will get the most visibility - and it isn't here in the forum. Take Paul Oliver's excellent report on Croatia. It has had 160 odd views so far. Let's say that this doubles during the time the thread remains very visible in the TC forum. About 320 people will read it. He has now sent it to me with some fantastic pictures and I've published it permanently on the site. We get 30-40000 visitors to the TC site per month, many thousands of them visit and read the trip reports pages - a very very high percentage. Most of these visitors aren't forum members. Don't you think it's a better idea that all those people have a chance to read Paul's report rather than just a few hundred? We have 40000 members in the BSAC, about 1% of them come to the forums. The TC team want as many as possible to have access to the info.

Which is why I requested that trip reports are sent to me for permanent publication.

However, if you want your report to just be read by forum members, post it to the forum - there isn't a problem with that and no one will delete it or steal it without permission, I can assure you. It just seems a real waste and not very Clublike.

Allie

Beanie

30-11-2005, 14:17

Maybe the best way forward is to let people post trip reports, and if they are worthy of publication then ask if there willing to have them published over on TC.

This is what we do on RebreatherWorld and it works for us.

Tony F

30-11-2005, 14:30

Hi Tony
I think that if you read my post, that I am in total agreement with you. I wouldn't dream of cutting and pasting anyone's post without their permission and I haven't suggested doing so................

Hey Allie

Right, step back, firstly I don't doubt anything of what you say or your motives (grand job at TC btw). I'm also well aware that you wouldn't post (copy something) without permission that part of my concern was really directed at the previous post to mine which didn't seem quite 'in step' with you.

Specifically regarding your post you answered James's question from only your own perspective without doffing your hat to fact that this is a 'members' forum in the public domain, he had mention that in effect. Assuming those members (both BSAC and forum) are the beneficiaries of this particular forum, it's raison d'etre if you will, I believe their wishes for the functionality should be paramount.

At best I was perhaps being a little over sensitive and at worse perhaps you could've worded your reply better but I think we're both singing from the same hymnsheet now :)

Fiona

30-11-2005, 14:48

I think it probably comes down to what we are used to which isn't always the best for all places.

Lots of us have been used to posting and reading trip reports not just holiday type trips but weekends away and even days out, I think the Travel forum which has been on the BSAC pages for sometime isn't perhaps used as much as it should be.

I have to say I wouldn't read the Travel section on a daily basis the way I would trip reports, but I have recently looked there because we are going to the Galapagos and I looked for a report, unfortunately there was only one report and when I emailed the guy he was no longer at the club as it was a few years old.

So I can appreciate the need to post in the Travel Forum for those sort of trips.

I think that is what is called sitting on the fence :D

TerryH

30-11-2005, 14:48

Why does this make me feel uncomfortable?

I've no idea.

If you post anything anywhere, expect it to be copied, quoted, moved, end
up on BB, or find its way to no end of scuba boards in the USA.

Way I look at it is we are supposed to all be BSAC and the TC is part of
BSAC. So my simple logic says just cut and paste (use library pics).

I'd feel uncomfortable about a re-write, but as long as its just spelling or
punctuation corrections why not?

TerryH

John Williams

30-11-2005, 15:36

why not?

TerryH

Because it's not for anyone else to edit your work!
Neither is it for anyone else to put it where you don't want it!

(and by refusing Allie's polite request to do the cut and paste it into an email to her yourself - with one or two pictures *of your trip* (and not from the library) I would assume an inferred reluctance to have it copied to the TC site)

Why should Allie - a volunteer - spend all her spare time re-writing other member's articles for the benefit of other members - when she has a family to run and a life to lead?

It's not enough to ask "Why not?"
You need to ask "Why?" as well

All the best

John

PS
Way to go Allie and all at the TC!

Paul Oliver

30-11-2005, 19:37

From my point of view i just want to pass on my findings on the trip, and i am in the process of doing another from Turkey earlier this year for Allison.

However, and more importantly Allie has done a far better job than i could with the presentation of the article, i could not get the pictures into it, and the layout she has used is much better than my effort.

I prefer it to be where more people are going to see it, which is working fine i suspect.

I have also done it as a link from YD and its being read from there as well.

MattS

30-11-2005, 20:15

So what are you going to buy with your vouchers then Paul?

Paul Oliver

30-11-2005, 21:24

So what are you going to buy with your vouchers then Paul?

New set of 88 Tables, mine are getting a bit worn ;)

I think the voucher will go into the Club Xmas raffle :)

Or maybe a years supply of log books ;)

TerryH

30-11-2005, 23:19

Because it's not for anyone else to edit your work!
Neither is it for anyone else to put it where you don't want it!

I just have John by pressing the quote button :-)

(and by refusing Allie's polite request to do the cut
and paste it into an email to her yourself - with one or two pictures *of
your trip* (and not from the library) I would assume an inferred reluctance
to have it copied to the TC site)

Yes I can see that, but I can also see that posting on any public fora means
it will propogate to other sources. Such is the nature of the web.

Why should Allie - a volunteer - spend all her spare time re-writing
other member's articles for the benefit of other members - when she has a
family to run and a life to lead?

Oh come on. Allie ignores 99% of articles and finds one which is well written,
informative and fills a gap on the list. So you telling me she wouldnt spend
5 minutes doing a cut & paste if it was acceptable to do so. You also telling
me that the majority of those posting would not be pleased that there report
was deemed worthy of being reposted?

What I dont quite get here is that many are ok with letting all and sundry
into the Branch fora (before it was clarified) citing informing the membership,
but get all uppity when its suggested that a PUBLIC post be used for exactly
the same reasons by reposting to the TC.

T.

Paul Oliver

30-11-2005, 23:30

Alison, what i would say about the travel dive forum is that you have some superb country home pages, which i found it very hard to find but which also give superb information, this is the Croatia one which you attached to the bottom of my report.

http://www.bsactravelclub.co.uk/where/croatia

I have seen it before, but i am not sure how i got to it (probably at the bottom of one of the other reports). It has all the key info, plus an English version of the Croatian Diving federation web site, which is extremely useful.

Maybe the country home pages need to be more obvious/visible, then again maybe i need to become a bit cleverer at finding them ;)

In fact i think i found it via Google not the web site map.

David Walker

01-12-2005, 00:30

Ok ok, how about a bit of a compromise?

Can we at least change the title of this thread, or "unstick" it and make a new sticky with a more "appropriate" title? Saying "no trip reports here" really isn't very encouraging - why not "visit BSAC travel club" or something along those lines? Encourage people to use travel club, encourage people to submit trip report to BOTH here at the travel club, but I don't think discouraging anyone to post things immediately on a public forum is necessarily a good way to go. Not until we can have an automatic copy of each new travel club article put on here as soon as its published.

The main difference I think is that on here people will notice things as they happen, and something might be of general interest. On a static website people will only visit when looking for something specific, and so may miss out on interesting articles just because they're not looking for information about that particular destination.

That an acceptable compromise? To be honest it just doesn't seem right having an instruction in a forum from an admin saying "don't post here"!

David

James - Narked@50

01-12-2005, 01:50

It's very interesting to see both sides of the coin play out in this thread, and I'm happy it is not compulsary to send reports to TC, or have them edited without authorisation.

This may be an example of admin "telling" us what "we" want rather than "listening" to what "we" want, but it's early days, and it would be foolish to ignore either side or make similar assumptions in the future. You only have to look at the replies to realise it hit a nerve, but we must move on with mutual tolerance if it is going to work.

My personal feelings about trip reports are that I do them for the people "I know" and have interaction with, on the forum. I have no interest in fame or quantity of people reading them, and they have no commercial value to me at all. I also like to read reports, not only of places that interest me, but from people "I know" as well, as it adds to the article a feeling of "seeing it through their eyes", I can imagine how a certain person would react for instance, when they realise they are at 6m with no fins on a negative entry dive! You can also follow trips from the planning, through the "banter" and then read how it played out. You can be a part of that trip without ever leaving your chair, that's why I like forums, and feel trip reports do indead belong here.

Forums become communities in their own right with people getting to know each other, that's just not possible through TC, which I feel has a different target audiance to forums, though many members of both will interact, and I don't feel that detracts from either.

James

Dave

01-12-2005, 07:32

I've no idea.

If you post anything anywhere, expect it to be copied, quoted, moved, end
up on BB, or find its way to no end of scuba boards in the USA.

Way I look at it is we are supposed to all be BSAC and the TC is part of
BSAC. So my simple logic says just cut and paste (use library pics).

I'd feel uncomfortable about a re-write, but as long as its just spelling or
punctuation corrections why not?

TerryH

I would object to my work being used elsewhere without my permission, in the same way I would have objected to WSJ using stuff I used on another forum without my permission ; they had the courtesy to ask beforehand and all was ok

Dave

Janos

01-12-2005, 10:17

TerryH

01-12-2005, 10:50

I would object to my work being used elsewhere without my permission, in the same way I would have objected to WSJ using stuff I used on another forum without my permission ; they had the courtesy to ask beforehand and all was ok

Dave

Yes I fully understand that stance, but if it was an open statement that
posts on here may be duplicated elsewhere on the BSAC site, then if you
felt that way dont post.

I really dont see that this is any different to me posting a report on the
general forum and a mod moving it to travel. Isnt that moving without
permission? Or dont we just accept that mods do sometimes move posts?

It must be me, but if the motives for posting a report is to inform, why on
earth is everybody so agreived about duplication, with the same result and
motives?

TerryH

John Williams

01-12-2005, 10:51

You can be a part of that trip without ever leaving your chair, that's why I like forums, and feel trip reports do indead belong here.

Forums become communities in their own right with people getting to know each other, that's just not possible through TC, which I feel has a different target audiance to forums, though many members of both will interact, and I don't feel that detracts from either.

James

Which is exactly Allie's point.

Feel free to post reports here and share with your mates and have all the banter!

Why not see if you can make more friends, benefit more people, by ALSO emailing the report (you've written it anyway) with a few pics to Allie for inclusion in the TC static site.

Or...to get them to work together ...why not sent it to Allie, complete with photos (and support in presentation) and then link to it from the forums?

Allie - how about allowing a comments/guestbook section at the end of each report ...to allow this feeling of camaraderie to spill over onto the TC site?

Best of both worlds?

John

John Williams

01-12-2005, 10:59

What I dont quite get here is that many are ok with letting all and sundry
into the Branch fora (before it was clarified) citing informing the membership,
but get all uppity when its suggested that a PUBLIC post be used for exactly
the same reasons by reposting to the TC.

One is exclusion and therefore denying people the right to contribute (imposing your will on others)
If people want to contribute then ...let them!
If they want to join in they will ask (and we should let them join in)

One is plagiarism/stealing (and imposing your will on others)
If people want to contribute ...let them (but don't force it upon them!)
If we want them to join in then we should ask (not just take)

Guess it's a matter of ettiquette and manners (but I can see your point of view...just don't agree with it!)

I'll not be forcing my opinion upon you though - nor will I be moving your work from this forum (where I shall feel free to cut & paste to my heart's content since you chose to put it here) to anywhere else - without asking you for permission first!

All the best

John

Alan Ewart

01-12-2005, 11:01

Been an interesting debate this one. Nice to see views from everyone. Also nice to see a sensible compromise being reached on this issue and others over the lastcouple of days

John Williams

01-12-2005, 11:07

[QUOTE][It must be me.....
TerryH
/QUOTE]

Think so!
But I have been wrong before!

I guess it's about the scale of Moderation. Actually I don't think anyone but a SysAdmin can move a post from one forum to another. Of course anyone can quote a post in a different forum! (but that is different from moving a thread)

Forum Moderators are about keeping their own areas tidy and civil (and safe from liability). I don't think they would impose their will on others by summarily removing a post from their forum (unless it was offensive) - even to put it somewhere else.

If you see it - then PMs have probably been exchanged behind the scenes ... and an explanation should be posted before the original thread is closed and compressed and a link left to where it is now.

At least that's how I beleive it is done (or should be!)

John

Alison Boler

01-12-2005, 12:46

Hi John

The guestbook/comments idea is something we are desperately trying to achieve currently but waiting for a bit of technology to achieve. Basically we need to be able to link forum threads into static html pages - Keith says it can be done so it will happen, but I can't do it right now! :eek:

I think what I would say about what some of you are saying re trip reports is this.
It's fine to write trip reports for your friends or for people "on the forum" but isn't it a bit cliquey? Publishing them on the main site isn't about fame, fortune or monetary reward :D It's about giving your views and the benefit of your experience to a wide audience of divers. Perhaps people who are new to diving and are going to be too timid to get involved in a forum discussion anytime soon. Or people who want to read but don't want to discuss. Actually it's a sentiment that is totally at the heart of the whole BSAC ethic. We all work together to share our knowledge and experience - we don't hog it to ourselves in some sort of "knowledge is power" or "You're not in my gang so I don't talk to you".

This is the Dive Travel forum - it's about getting out there and diving different places, meeting different people and trying different things. :)

Anyway, I hope we have achieved a compromise that works for everyone. As I say, if you want to just post trip reports here, no one will raise an eyebrow, but I think you're missing a big opportunity to help other divers and that's a shame.

Allie

Vic

01-12-2005, 21:31

To me, what would be a "perfect" solution would be the ability to be able to centrally reference everything relevant to a particular location from the location page.

Something like http://www.bsacforum.co.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Travel:Croatia , then?

Vic.

MattDuke

01-12-2005, 22:11

Something like http://www.bsacforum.co.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Travel:Croatia , then?

Vic.

What a great use of wiki. :o

Keith Lawrence

01-12-2005, 23:16

Something like http://www.bsacforum.co.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Travel:Croatia , then?Impressive! Vic - meet Allie, Allie - meet Vic :D

Keith L

Andy Wade

01-12-2005, 23:34

What a great use of wiki. :o

Isn't it just?

The BSAC Wiki has such potential.
I've been using it on and off for a couple of weeks now and I'm almost an hexpert... :rolleyes:
The pages are really very easy to build. Even for me.
All we need is for people to start adding something.

Paul Oliver

02-12-2005, 00:37

That is excellent, just what is needed :)

Alison Boler

02-12-2005, 09:40

Something like http://www.bsacforum.co.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Travel:Croatia , then?

Vic.

Exactly, Vic. However, :) I am just the hands that make some of the TC web pages, I'm not the webmaster, and I haven't got enough knowledge of the ins and outs of websites to know whether this would be a good way to go or whether it would be better to wait a bit till Keith and co have got the similar threads thing sorted so that we can implant threads into the main site.

My concerns would be - and maybe you tekkie team guys need to take this offline now and decide with the other web teams a strategy and solution which Council will need to approve -
1. How manageable is the wiki? I am not a web developer but I am a software developer and I have used enough software "generator" type packages in my time to know that they are great for an "instant" solution but horrible over the long term in terms of maintenance and management. Right now, the TC website is very easy to maintain and manage - I can find a page instantly because of the naming convention, the folder layout etc. Is it just as controlable within the wiki?
2. This would put the wiki as a "higher level" in the hierarchy of structure than areas on the main website. From a design point of view, they all need to look the same - we can adjust to having a forum that looks different from the web pages, but if people are in and out of areas that all look stylistically different, this isn't so good. It's confusing.
3. The "overall view" feature is one that everyone will benefit from. How do we make the wiki visible to the majority of people who will come to the site via the main web pages, rather than the forum? We have to create a solution that will work for everyone.

I'm sure there are some other issues but ;) thank goodness, not for me to hammer out. You guys know what the TC admin team want - which is the same as the forum users want - except we care about how easy it will be to maintain going forward. At the moment, I have to change the location page every time I add a trip report to add the link. As this is the case, I think I would prefer to add the threads in there, rather than have to then go to the wiki page and do something else as well. But... take it up with the webmaster and let me know!

Cheers

Allie

Keith Lawrence

02-12-2005, 09:53

Exactly, Vic. However, :) I am just the hands that make some of the TC web pages, I'm not the webmaster, and I haven't got enough knowledge of the ins and outs of websites to know whether this would be a good way to go or whether it would be better to wait a bit till Keith and co have got the similar threads thing sorted so that we can implant threads into the main site.
:) The real problem we face at the moment Allie is that we now have so many different ways of doing things that it can be difficult to choose! So what Vic and the guys are doing (which I fully support BTW) is showing us just what is possible with the different tools. Like you, I don't fully understand Wiki's, I've never used one, but rather than bog things down with theory and committees I think that we should let them show us, on an experimental basis, just what some of these tools are capable of.

As for your TC site... loads of ways of doing that. Maybe what you need is a CMS, the "similar threads" thing may or may not be applicable, you might want to consider an RSS feed to the home page (talk to Adrian K, he's had one running), you can have a "forum" that isn't, it's actually a URL link to somewhere else... So sorry Allie, we don't have the answers for you - that's because there are loads of answers and we don't know which ones you're going to like best :D

Keith L

Vic

02-12-2005, 11:35

Exactly, Vic. However, :) I am just the hands that make some of the TC web pages, I'm not the webmaster, and I haven't got enough knowledge of the ins and outs of websites to know whether this would be a good way to go

It's an unknown as far as you're concerned - that's normal.

Why don't you give it a go? You can't break anything...

1. How manageable is the wiki? I am not a web developer but I am a software developer and I have used enough software "generator" type packages in my time to know that they are great for an "instant" solution but horrible over the long term in terms of maintenance and management.

How manageable do you want it to be?

Wiki pages are just the cumulative expression of everyone who's wanted to say something on the topic. The page structure is whatever you want it to be. Maintenance and management are according to those who want to manage and maintain the pages. There are one or two tricks that the Sysop account can do, but they are rarely needed...

Right now, the TC website is very easy to maintain and manage - I can find a page instantly because of the naming convention, the folder layout etc. Is it just as controlable within the wiki?

That depends on what you mean by "find a page"... :-)

If you, as a user, want to find pages that pertain to, for example, gas laws - you'd type "gas laws" into the search bar & press "search". This will give you a list of pages where the title matches, and a list of pages which contain the text within them. Finding stuff is easy.

If you, as a page editor, want to find the page - it's exactly the same process. Find the page, edit it to your heart's content.

2. This would put the wiki as a "higher level" in the hierarchy of structure than areas on the main website. From a design point of view, they all need to look the same - we can adjust to having a forum that looks different from the web pages, but if people are in and out of areas that all look stylistically different, this isn't so good. It's confusing.

So - change what you want to change. If you need a specific "skin" - design one. I'd offer to, but I have *zero* graphic design skills :-(

3. The "overall view" feature is one that everyone will benefit from. How do we make the wiki visible to the majority of people who will come to the site via the main web pages, rather than the forum? We have to create a solution that will work for everyone.

Create a link. A wiki is just a set of web pages, as far as a reader is concerned.

At the moment, I have to change the location page every time I add a trip report to add the link.

Changing a Wiki page takes seconds. It's easier than you can imagine - and, of course, it means that each version of your page is held permanently in the databse, so you can examine, amend, and even reverse your changes at will.

Try it - it's easier than you think!

Vic.

PeteM

02-12-2005, 11:45

Changing a Wiki page takes seconds. It's easier than you can imagine - and, of course, it means that each version of your page is held permanently in the databse, so you can examine, amend, and even reverse your changes at will.

Try it - it's easier than you think!

Vic.

Just had a go myself (on the Croatia page) and yes it is very easy

John Williams

02-12-2005, 11:54

What....sort of like a Branch Dive Marshalling Resource pack?

(you know - the one that the DO lends to new Marshalls running their first trip to a favourite branch site so that they don't have to struggle finding previously known info ... and everyone gets a good, relaxed dive)

But on a bigger, BSAC-wide (nay on a whole diving community basis!)

Couldn't do that...people might find it useful!
People might even find it made going diving easy!

(We need to hold onto that power and pull that ladder up behind us! We struggled to accumulate this sort of info without the interwebby thingy...so should they!)

How else will they understand that Marshalling is HARD!
(they'll be wanting to steal all our fun and do it themselves next!)

Oh ...wait!
Does that mean I just get to tag along and enjoy my diving with none of the hassle (cos someone else will do the Marshalling for me?)

Or when I go somewhere new I can get ideas for where from the TC...and all the answers to where to get air, which is the best centres, the best boat, the best guide, the best time to go, the best apres-dive bar ...all that stuff will be sorted for me before I go grey and bald with the worry! (oops too late! - already bald and the bits that are left are already grey!)

HeHeHe

John