I’m not a gear head, more interested in sharing the skills I have learned . In the end skills, training and practice make the paddler, not new gear.
I kind of miss the old trip reports people used to post, not sure how much we are going to be getting away from home, but seeing some different paddling venues might be nice if the future stays like the present.’
I’m pretty much OK keeping things the way they are now. But it might be useful for beginners to post their questions in a special forum maybe with FAQ links to the best threads that get repeated every few weeks.
With the new board format, I am not using categories as I did in yhe old.
In the old, I would see a list of categories and then select which I would go to. Certain categories, like bicker and banter, I rarely if ever viewed. think I may have even hidden some categories.
With the new board, I am going to the parent page and viewing a full list of all new messages (screen shot of how I see it is below). The categories now are basically tags for me - something I use in addition to the title to try to decide of the message thread is one I might be interested in.
As such, I would love to see the Advice and Paddler’s Place category somehow expanded out. Perhaps add on the current tags as options, so there is now an “Advice - Kayaks”, “Advice - Canoes”, “Advice - SUP”, “Advice - Places”, etc. This way it could be easier with a scan to have a feel for what the message might be about.
@Kevburg@PJC@TomL@SeaDart - I can assure you that we will not be bringing back any sort of rants or a rebirth of the bicker and banter section. It caused many headaches and offended 90% of the visitors.
One option for this is to create a variety of wiki-style pages that would allow anyone (or anyone with a trust-level that we allow) to be able to add/edit/delete content from that page. So, for instance, if the topic is “finding the right size kayak” everyone would have a chance to add details about it and update as needed. Then any new posts with that question could just link to it as a reply.
Anyone interested in trying that? I’d probably start with 3-5 topics.
Yeah, by tags are used all that often. People d have to select a category, so using a larger number of categories would be one way to kind of force people to provide the info tags would provide.
I guess an alternate route would be t make tag selection easier/more obvious, or maybe even required.
I only checked the one for location/area specific stuff, because that seems to be pretty straightforward.
Gear category is interesting but I am concerned it would warp into a discussion about specific types of paddling. Since gear needed is related to that.
Paddling skills sounds good at first blush. But on a really open board like this, it is kind of like the story about nine blind men and the elephant. Until a given paddler has encountered scenarios where certain skills are more important, say where rolling really could matter, there tends to be a difference of opinion about what constitutes a fundamental skill set.
Right now this tends to get expressed in conversations about what is a suitable boat, regularly rehashing why rec kayaks are not a wise choice for ocean paddling. But that is pretty concrete stuff - a boat does or dos not have two bulkheads for ex.
But having had the skills conversation in person without looking for it, I have found that when it gets to be about the paddler and their judgement things get much more difficult.
Always appreciative of Paddling. Com and forum contributors for sharing their passion for being on the water, experiences in special places, skills, paddling health and fitness, essential equipment, safety, stewardship, product reviews, maintenance, and repair.
…and special thanks for so many wonderful photos shared by so many.
Thanks everyone for the new replies. From what I am seeing there is not a big demand for new categories (there are also not very many responses - which also leads me to believe there isn’t a lot of interest in new categories). I think we will leave things as is for now.
I’ve just started a project with my local paddling facebook group to try to systematically write descriptions for all the launch sites near us. The app is an awesome resource, but is limited by how much effort people are willing to put in the effort to crowd source the info.
I’d love to see regional categories where some of that could be worked on cooperatively.
