Statistics!

[John Williams]

Members: 796, Active Members: 650

Good to see the members number creeping up...where are we now?
:eek: 2% of the membership?:p

Let's hope there's a lot of folk coming here and taking an interest in the BSAC from the majority who do not vote...if we can increase member involvement from that (previously unengaged group) that MUST be a positive step towards a BSAC that people WANT to be a part of running.

To my question:
the gap between Members and Active Members is increasing VERY quickly!

What does it mean?
Do we have 796 members on these forums ...but only 650 who have ever posted?

That would mean lot's of people watching - but not contributing!
How can we get them to take just one more step and share their thoughts with the rest of us?
796 heads MUST be better then 650!

35,000 would be FANTASTIC ... but I beleive Tony (Blair) is working on getting the internet into every household in the UK!
(Then WE can work on getting every member signed up to the forums - and contibuting - then work towards every diver as we cruise to total domination of the planet!)

OK ...got carried away there...but you get my drift?

Why the gap?
How can we close it?
How can we get even more people involved?
(BSAC members and fellow divers of other persuasions)

John

[Keith Lawrence]

Members: 796, Active Members: 650

Good to see the members number creeping up...where are we now?
2% of the membership?

Let's hope there's a lot of folk coming here and taking an interest in the BSAC from the majority who do not vote...if we can increase member involvement from that (previously unengaged group) that MUST be a positive step towards a BSAC that people WANT to be a part of running.

To my question:
the gap between Members and Active Members is increasing VERY quickly!

What does it mean?
Do we have 796 members on these forums ...but only 650 who have ever posted?
Hi John

Well... there's lies, damn lies and statistics. Statistics are to managers what a lamp post is to a drunk - more for support than illumination ;) To answer your question 'Active' is deemed as being somebody who has registered and visited the forums in the last 30 days, as we have now been live for more than 30 days you will see that figure increasing. If you find it upsetting we can always change the configuration to hide the number or even fiddle it so that all members are shown as 'Active' :rolleyes:

But you're right John - we should be making more of the forums, at present there is less than one member per branch online, given that I suspect that around 50% of all members should have internet access then that figure is very low. We're always open to ideas on how we can make them better, they can be a great way to communicate, share an issue, have your say, get some help by seeing what other people have done. Then there are our guests, there have been mutterrings on the Sys Admin list about how we can make these forums better for all divers, not just BSAC members.

In 2006 I am going to be promoting the forums wider within the membership, we've got several ideas for how to do that. We also want to bring in some new features, a photo gallery is top of that list. But it's all about the forum members really, it is them who make a forum, not the facilities. So the Sys Admins are always listening - if anybody has any ideas for improvements then let's hear them. What you are seeing now is as a direct result of forum members suggestions, it's nothing like the mess that we first set up on a "what do you think of it?" basis :)

Cheers

Keith L

[Mark (seadweller)]

What does it mean?
Do we have 796 members on these forums ...but only 650 who have ever posted?

As one who has not posted here i dont think 150 non posters out of 800 is anything to worry about.let time take its course and the more people read and become accustom to this forum posts will increase.There are a lot of folk from YD here and other forums if they didnt like it they would soon go.
From little acorns grow big O....................
Seadweller

[David Walker]

I think to make them attractive to current non-forum-users within BSAC, we need to offer them something that isn't just "a place to chat about diving".

News from HQ / regions would be useful, somewhere where it won't be drowned out by all the other posts. Surely there must be something going on at HQ for them to keep us up-to-date on? Or more use of things like the calendar - at the minute there's virtually nothing on there, encouraging the coaching teams to start using that would help to attract members to look at it - I expect once HQ gets its new systems it'll be able to combine the SDC webpage dates with the calendar on here maybe?

Actually, on that topic of regions etc using them to attract others, a more general point i'd make is that at the minute BSAC does look, from a member's perspective, to be VERY basic on a technical level. The website (although being developed now) is still very difficult to navigate with numerous inconsistencies and inaccuracies and things that are simply out of date. Many of the regional websites listed don't exist anymore! Those that do are on various random webspaces around the country - the North East's used to be "1firtree1.freeserve.co.uk" - if HQ have got new servers and things can't we get all the regional websites in one place, ie northeast.bsac.org, westmids.bsac.org, london.bsac.org, etc? At least that way even if its not up to date there might be *some* information there? This might be part of the problem - the current perception (I think) is that the use of the internet by BSAC is very limited, and so people don't tend to bother looking for websites or forums or whatever.

Another example - go to bsac.org, and someone tell me where the nice new forums are announced? From what I can see there's a small link in the third column, 11 items down the second section.... How are people going to know anything's changed? The front page isn't what it should be - its an index to seemingly the entire website, rather than a few nice easy-to-spot links that seamlessly send people around the site to the correct place.

The news is thankfully fairly up-to-date on the BSAC website now, but how about copying those articles into a forum here? In its current form its not easy to browse articles, with everything on one massive page - having some titles to follow might work better... having say links to the past 3 articles on the front page would be even better!

Maybe once the rest of the BSAC "web strategy" is complete forums will link in well... but my general feeling is that you can't attract people to the forums when the rest of BSAC's web presence is so user-unfriendly.

I did have another idea too but i've completely blanked now, after my ramblings above... :rolleyes:

Anyway, back to my assignments... :(

David

[Alan Ewart]

I think to make them attractive to current non-forum-users within BSAC, we need to offer them something that isn't just "a place to chat about diving".

News from HQ / regions would be useful, somewhere where it won't be drowned out by all the other posts. Surely there must be something going on at HQ for them to keep us up-to-date on? Or more use of things like the calendar - at the minute there's virtually nothing on there, encouraging the coaching teams to start using that would help to attract members to look at it - I expect once HQ gets its new systems it'll be able to combine the SDC webpage dates with the calendar on here maybe?


David

Well said David. I totally agree with all of your post, especially these parts.

One thing that BSAC is ALWAYS accused of is failing to keep memebers informed and of a lack of communication from council. I would really like to see more use of the forums to communicate important information and indeed the thoughts of those who give so generously of their time & effort to run BSAC.

As an example, a couple of weeks ago, Mark Davison posted a well thought out and argued 'open letter' to the first class examiner suggesting that 1st class diver should be scrapped.

We know that Marcus and Claire both visit the forum, Keith is on council and that their are a few regional coaches etc around. So lets be realistic, those who run the club are well aware of Marks post. We get a lot of really balanced input on the threads, some good suggestions and several invitations from posters asking for comments from the Chair, NDO and 1st class examiner. Unfortunately no response!!

Why not I wonder? I thought this was a wonderful opportunity for those at the head ofthe club to communicate their views. It doesn't necessarily have to reflect BSAC policy, but the thoughts of individuals would help us to understand where we are going as a club and healthy intelligent debate could help those who run the club to understand where we want our club to go. I accept that we who use the forums are but a snapshot of the membership, but the very fact we are here indicates that we are amongst the most interested.

I think use of the forums as a communication tool would help to increase use by the membership.

(Dons flame proof overalls and bows out) :D

BTW I would not want this post to be seen as a pop at our leadership who I believe are doing a great job.
Alan

[Fiona]

796 heads MUST be better then 650!

John

:eek: or just give us 796 different opinions :D

[Nigel Hewitt]

Members: 796, Active Members: 650
Good to see the members number creeping up...where are we now?
:eek: 2% of the membership?:pBut in terms of 'time spent on the web' we may well be 20% or even 50%.
Most web users never touch the participant sites. The web is just a reference tool. I don't think I should expect divers to be any different.

We don't need to compete with the 'proper' BSAC websites where announcements and details should be found but we are free to discuss them. I would be worried if we start to become a general chat board, look at the way YD is going and divernet has gone... I read YD via 'new posts' and at times only the troll-fights are on diving. It's rather sad...

:eek: or just give us 796 different opinions :DWhich is what make the wiki type encyclopedias worthless or even dangerous.

[Alan Taylor]

What does it mean?
Do we have 796 members on these forums ...but only 650 who have ever posted?

As one who has not posted here i dont think 150 non posters out of 800 is anything to worry about.let time take its course and the more people read and become accustom to this forum posts will increase.There are a lot of folk from YD here and other forums if they didnt like it they would soon go.
From little acorns grow big O....................
Seadweller

Gotcha! it worked then?:)

[Alan Taylor]

Members: 796, Active Members: 650

Good to see the members number creeping up...where are we now?
:eek: 2% of the membership?:p

Let's hope there's a lot of folk coming here and taking an interest in the BSAC from the majority who do not vote...if we can increase member involvement from that (previously unengaged group) that MUST be a positive step towards a BSAC that people WANT to be a part of running.

To my question:
the gap between Members and Active Members is increasing VERY quickly!

What does it mean?
Do we have 796 members on these forums ...but only 650 who have ever posted?

That would mean lot's of people watching - but not contributing!
How can we get them to take just one more step and share their thoughts with the rest of us?
796 heads MUST be better then 650!

35,000 would be FANTASTIC ... but I beleive Tony (Blair) is working on getting the internet into every household in the UK!
(Then WE can work on getting every member signed up to the forums - and contibuting - then work towards every diver as we cruise to total domination of the planet!)

OK ...got carried away there...but you get my drift?

Why the gap?
How can we close it?
How can we get even more people involved?
(BSAC members and fellow divers of other persuasions)

John

Perhaps the other 146 have just gone diving.:)

[Alan Taylor]

I think to make them attractive to current non-forum-users within BSAC, we need to offer them something that isn't just "a place to chat about diving".

News from HQ / regions would be useful, somewhere where it won't be drowned out by all the other posts. Surely there must be something going on at HQ for them to keep us up-to-date on? Or more use of things like the calendar - at the minute there's virtually nothing on there, encouraging the coaching teams to start using that would help to attract members to look at it - I expect once HQ gets its new systems it'll be able to combine the SDC webpage dates with the calendar on here maybe?

Actually, on that topic of regions etc using them to attract others, a more general point i'd make is that at the minute BSAC does look, from a member's perspective, to be VERY basic on a technical level. The website (although being developed now) is still very difficult to navigate with numerous inconsistencies and inaccuracies and things that are simply out of date. Many of the regional websites listed don't exist anymore! Those that do are on various random webspaces around the country - the North East's used to be "1firtree1.freeserve.co.uk" - if HQ have got new servers and things can't we get all the regional websites in one place, ie northeast.bsac.org, westmids.bsac.org, london.bsac.org, etc? At least that way even if its not up to date there might be *some* information there? This might be part of the problem - the current perception (I think) is that the use of the internet by BSAC is very limited, and so people don't tend to bother looking for websites or forums or whatever.

Another example - go to bsac.org, and someone tell me where the nice new forums are announced? From what I can see there's a small link in the third column, 11 items down the second section.... How are people going to know anything's changed? The front page isn't what it should be - its an index to seemingly the entire website, rather than a few nice easy-to-spot links that seamlessly send people around the site to the correct place.

The news is thankfully fairly up-to-date on the BSAC website now, but how about copying those articles into a forum here? In its current form its not easy to browse articles, with everything on one massive page - having some titles to follow might work better... having say links to the past 3 articles on the front page would be even better!

Maybe once the rest of the BSAC "web strategy" is complete forums will link in well... but my general feeling is that you can't attract people to the forums when the rest of BSAC's web presence is so user-unfriendly.

I did have another idea too but i've completely blanked now, after my ramblings above... :rolleyes:

Anyway, back to my assignments... :(

David

Sorry? Is the BSAC a Club about the persute of Underwater Exploration and the forums a place to 'chat about diving' The communication tools of BSAC, BSAC.org, BSAC world and DIVE magazine? My BSAC subs are paid to futher British Diving and the benefits i can get from belonging to the Club, not to the British Computer or web user club. My understanding was that the vast majority of the 'work' that goes into these sites is unpaid and done in 'spare time'. Perhaps we need more volunteers or would there then be to many cooks.:)

[Adrian Kelland]

Sorry? Is the BSAC a Club about the persute of Underwater Exploration and the forums a place to 'chat about diving' The communication tools of BSAC, BSAC.org, BSAC world and DIVE magazine? My BSAC subs are paid to futher British Diving and the benefits i can get from belonging to the Club, not to the British Computer or web user club. My understanding was that the vast majority of the 'work' that goes into these sites is unpaid and done in 'spare time'. Perhaps we need more volunteers or would there then be to many cooks.:)
Most of the work is unpaid and volunteered. Some of us help here in the same way as some give their time to instruct, each to their own.

However given that the website is used commercially by BSAC (helping to keeping membership fees down BTW), I can see the value of having commercial hosting, software and support. I would not rely on unpaid volunteer support 24/7.

Too many cooks can cetainly be a valid point.

Adrian

[Keith Lawrence]

My BSAC subs are paid to futher British Diving and the benefits i can get from belonging to the Club, not to the British Computer or web user club. My understanding was that the vast majority of the 'work' that goes into these sites is unpaid and done in 'spare time'. Perhaps we need more volunteers or would there then be to many cooks.:)Hi Alan

The IT side of the BSAC is a weird mix actually, some of it commercial, some of it volunteer. It needs to be. Our HQ systems are commercial grade with commercial support contracts, as are our web servers with commercial support and hosting. That is essential - HQ would stop without their systems, we receive somewhere between £0.25M and £0.5M of our gross income directly via the web servers. I'm not going to risk that to a ISP's freebie web space.

For the web sites themselves again it is a mix. Things like .com and .org are developed commercially by our webmaster and the HQ staff, but for the .org re-write using CMS (going on right now) we intend to extend that authoring out to volunteers as well.

For sites like the forums and TC then it is virtually exclusively volunteer. Your membership fees helped pay for the forum software (about $150 IIRC, or less than 0.5 cents per member!) but then everything else is voluntary - everything that you see here on these forums has been set up and is maintained voluntarily. TC is the same, there is a small amount of commercial webmaster involvement but everything else is voluntary.

So we do what we can using volunteers Alan, but there's some things that we cant. But wherever possible everybody gets the benefit, for example several regions use our web server - why not, it's sitting there! It's my job as IT Team Leader to balance and manage all of this (with the help of the volunteer IT Team of course), and yes - I am a volunteer :)

HTH

Keith L
BSAC IT Team Leader

[Alan Taylor]

Hi Alan

The IT side of the BSAC is a weird mix actually, some of it commercial, some of it volunteer. It needs to be. Our HQ systems are commercial grade with commercial support contracts, as are our web servers with commercial support and hosting. That is essential - HQ would stop without their systems, we receive somewhere between £0.25M and £0.5M of our gross income directly via the web servers. I'm not going to risk that to a ISP's freebie web space.

For the web sites themselves again it is a mix. Things like .com and .org are developed commercially by our webmaster and the HQ staff, but for the .org re-write using CMS (going on right now) we intend to extend that authoring out to volunteers as well.

For sites like the forums and TC then it is virtually exclusively volunteer. Your membership fees helped pay for the forum software (about $150 IIRC, or less than 0.5 cents per member!) but then everything else is voluntary - everything that you see here on these forums has been set up and is maintained voluntarily. TC is the same, there is a small amount of commercial webmaster involvement but everything else is voluntary.

So we do what we can using volunteers Alan, but there's some things that we cant. But wherever possible everybody gets the benefit, for example several regions use our web server - why not, it's sitting there! It's my job as IT Team Leader to balance and manage all of this (with the help of the volunteer IT Team of course), and yes - I am a volunteer :)

HTH

Keith L
BSAC IT Team Leader

And thank you for all the hard work you and the team do put in and keeping my subs down.

The point i was trying to make, is following on from the suggestion that the forums can be used to pass on news etc. News is passed on in the news section of members services on BSAC.org, It was accused of being out of date. The last time i looked it had been 'updated' on 23rd Dec2005, or is that not quick enough for soom. Good effort. Surelly that is the place for regional news if the regions can be bothered to update it, putting it on the forums(what is plural for forum anyway?) will not change a thing if nobody bothers.

Someone asked can we use the forums to survey members, seem to remember that was done a short while ago via E-mail/DIVE magazine. Do we need to go through it all again so soon here?

It is my experience that if information is deseminated in too many places, instead of were it should be, the very information or news that one is looking for can get 'lost'. Chinese whispers.

BSAC Forum a place to talk/chat about diving? "and they argued all night as to who had the right to do what and with which and to who" When all the waffelling is done publish the results of those deliberations in the NEWS section.

PS how does one make this B...... spell check work(in ENGLISH) without loosing all that one has rit.

TTFN;)

[Matt-75]

The point i was trying to make, is following on from the suggestion that the forums can be used to pass on news etc. News is passed on in the news section of members services on BSAC.org, It was accused of being out of date. The last time i looked it had been 'updated' on 23rd Dec2005, or is that not quick enough for soom. Good effort. Surelly that is the place for regional news if the regions can be bothered to update it, putting it on the forums(what is plural for forum anyway?) will not change a thing if nobody bothers.


TBH, you are more likely to get information out using the forums, because people come here and read and post daily. Also most people i know (with the exception of a few older instructors) are computer literate but wouldnt bother to go to a website to look for news. Forums are interesting and open up the possibility to debate issues and read up on new stuff (or just randomnly kill a couple of hours reading threads). Where as on a website you might be able to email some guy, but chances are he has spamassassin or some other software ready to delete all those incoming emails, ie, no response.


Someone asked can we use the forums to survey members, seem to remember that was done a short while ago via E-mail/DIVE magazine. Do we need to go through it all again so soon here?


It would be better on here, where all people (or just members) can access it. Maybe not debate it, but view it.


It is my experience that if information is deseminated in too many places, instead of were it should be, the very information or news that one is looking for can get 'lost'. Chinese whispers.


I agree to some extent, but the news forum could be setup to only allow moderators/administrators to post to it, and disallow all others.


PS how does one make this B...... spell check work(in ENGLISH) without loosing all that one has rit.


One buys a dictionary :D, or does it in word/openoffice before copy and pasting it (useful for long winded rants and such).