SailNet Community banner
  • SailNet is a forum community dedicated to Sailing enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about sailing, modifications, classifieds, troubleshooting, repairs, reviews, maintenance, and more!

Feedback and questions please...

7K views 69 replies 31 participants last post by  miatapaul 
#1 ·
I am trying to clean the site up some, so will post questions here.

First, does anyone really use the Piracy Thread anymore?

Second, are there other threads which you would like added or removed? Please, no one bring up Off Topic. I don't even want to go there right now.

Other ideas or thoughts?

Brian
 
#17 ·
Add a dedicated section on Navigation. Subsections for electronic, paper, Max C, C Map, Celestial etc.

Maybe a section of tutorials by the experienced navigators to help the upcoming corinthian sailors.
I think a Navigation section would be awesome.

I love the Seamanship forum - but agree that it makes sense for that info to be in General. Seamanship is such a broad topic - where Navigation is pretty specialized.
Seems to me Seamanship/Navigation makes a good combo so you could just add Navigation to the title.

I know you said no mention of "off topic" but I will interject it here anyway. How about making it an optional forum that you have to sign up for to participate in and is semi private. To me it seems it has become so divisive and nasty that I would rather not even see it. Unfortunately either the app or Tapatalk if you choose "latest topics" you get mostly off topic. This might also keep it out of the reach of Google search bots as we seem to get new members that only hang out in the off topic and do not contribute any sailing worthy posts. I understand the desire for off topic, but some don't want to see it and it seems to be chasing away some good posters and attracting some not so. I also understand that it is becoming a major draw so I imagine it is not in the admins interests to do away with it entirely. :(
 
#3 ·
Clean up the huge number of obsolete I.D.'s - it takes forever to track down a screen name.

If an I.D. hasn't logged on for a couple of years it's a pretty safe bet they are gone for good.
 
#10 ·
Clean up the huge number of obsolete I.D.'s - it takes forever to track down a screen name.

If an I.D. hasn't logged on for a couple of years it's a pretty safe bet they are gone for good.
Or gone cruising in remote locals, and wont they be pissed when they come back to share their tales and can't.:eek:
 
#4 ·
Hey Brian

Good idea

I never visit the piracy thread

I recon we should clean up some stickies that were posted many years ago and haven't been posted on for two years - I wonder how many people still visit them? I don't know how to tell.
 
#5 ·
Add a dedicated section on Navigation. Subsections for electronic, paper, Max C, C Map, Celestial etc.

Maybe a section of tutorials by the experienced navigators to help the upcoming corinthian sailors.
 
#9 ·
If I understand the question, I think you're asking about the number of forums and sub-forums. I think of threads as the original post and all its replies on a specific subject line.

I like the idea of a Nav Forum. Fine with combining Seamanship into General.

However, this entire Forum has too many sub-forums by multiples. There are so many, I think it dilutes their usefulness. Don't most just go to General and Gear, as they are the most clearly understood?

The Welcome Forum section has four subsections

General Interest section, I think has 14.

I agree, major cleanup and consolidation would make sense.
 
#34 ·
If I understand the question, I think you're asking about the number of forums and sub-forums. I think of threads as the original post and all its replies on a specific subject line.

I like the idea of a Nav Forum. Fine with combining Seamanship into General.

However, this entire Forum has too many sub-forums by multiples. There are so many, I think it dilutes their usefulness. Don't most just go to General and Gear, as they are the most clearly understood?

The Welcome Forum section has four subsections

General Interest section, I think has 14.

I agree, major cleanup and consolidation would make sense.
Will put this into the poll, Minne.

Brian
 
#11 ·
Please get rid of the stupid subsections (I can't find stuff) lump it all together in one section and improve the search engine. As it is I just use the NEW POST No politics.
 
#14 ·
I'd like to see a great reduction in subforums. I'm not sure that the per-region or per-manufacturer forums are that useful, the ones relevant to me (Pearson and Pacific Northwest) have very little traffic.

There are so many forums who's posts are filtered from the home page that they barely seem useful. Examples would be the Electrical sub-forum. It would be nice to have this subdivision, but I personally have stopped posting there because I find that it gets a lot less replies than if I post the same question in Gear and Maint.
 
#15 ·
I'm with the others; consolidation makes sense. I do like keeping the introductions in a separate sub-forum.

I don't read the piracy reports.

I do as others here have suggested; I hit the sailnet homepage, click Resources, Forums, and then when that loads, I go to the New Posts - No Politics/Off Topic. That lets me see most of the stuff I'm interested in. It occasionally causes me to miss something (I didn't see this thread, for example, until just now even though it is almost a day old), but it's not a big deal. Compartmentalizing the posts based on a topic/subforum is a good idea, though, for those who are inclined to browse the posts looking for some information. But, as a practical matter, I would expect that most people either use the "new posts" thing or just search (either using our search engine, which could use a lot of improvement, or Google with "Site:Sailnet.com" in the search string).
 
#16 ·
One other thing I'd like to see if a revival of the Articles section. A lot of the sailors on SN are pretty good writers and have some interesting things to say. It would be great to have a place that they could present their stuff in a formal article. Then maybe they and SN could make a few bucks if the article was picked up.
 
#19 ·
The only way I can normally find a post is to do a web search that includes my query and "sailnet.com". Please fix the search function on the forum.
 
#23 ·
I don't know how you would do this, but I would like to see a "bookshelf" containing fiction and nonfiction books about sailing in addition to the articles. A netflix type review, quality review (***s) and an ebook source after title and author would add to usefulness. Wading through the good reading thread is tedious and not very informative when looking for something new to read.
Often, as mentioned above, when asking a question in one of the sub forums, very few people see it and consequently even fewer answers are provided. I guess the way to solve this problem is to daily bump it so it gets into the new posts.
Donna turned me on to using google search with sailnet in the search criteria and that works, but it would be nice to be able to search within a topic and find other/older posts on the topic.
For a while I was reading the piracy reports, but that is just satisfying my purient interests. So I stopped. I rarely look at off topic because it is impolite.
Last, but not least, include a spell check in the quick reply panel that runs automatically, like on an iPad. Some posts are almost unintelligible because of spelling.
 
#24 ·
.....Last, but not least, include a spell check in the quick reply panel that runs automatically, like on an iPad. Some posts are almost unintelligible because of spelling.
.. and some posts are unintelligible BECAUSE of an iPad's 'autocorrect' - which is not quite the same as spell check... (right, Mark??;))
 
  • Like
Reactions: LoboPops
#29 ·
Can we get rid of the fugly dude with a dog named fatty?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Marsupials are much cuter!











sorry,could not resist!........

any way, sure there are a few things. sometimes fewer is better, other more...........
local sections, frankly, no issues even if not posted in much, same with the brands......

new member area, not sure what or how to say this should be or go......can see both ways, at least seperate, it is an easy way to say who you are etc. I'd probably leave it.....

its late here on the left coast, so will hit the sack. crickey, it is even tomorrow as I type this! work is in 5 some odd hrs......sheep dip! how is mid day tomorrow or today looking TD?

Marty
 
#47 ·
I have more of a question about the site in general..I click on the boat search thingy and get a more or less blank page every time. It is a very nice blue color, but nothing on it...is that part of the site not working yet or something?
 
#48 · (Edited)
It eventually loads for me (takes several minutes to load) but you have to have adblockers turned off. Your not missing much there was not even one sailboat featured, or even sailboat companies. It is a link to Boating Magazine inside a "sailnet" frame. Actually there is a sailboat in the background of the last photo.

You know I love this forum, but I just don't understand the management of the parent site's store. This is the largest community of sailors there is. I don't think they really put much emphasis on web business, half the time there is a "featured product" it is out of stock and no longer available or not found. I would love to have sailnet as a good source to buy boating things, but I don't even see people here talking about buying from them. When you go to the "home page" it lists latest articles and the top one (and logically that should be the most recent) is from 03-02-2010, if your not updating them then take it off the page. Here is an example this is listed as a daily special - KWIK TEK AIRHEAD G-FORCE W/ TOP SIDE STABILIZER it is a tow-able toy. How many sailboats can go fast enough to get a tow-able toy to plane? of the 10 items listed there are 4 tow-able tubes, and a trolling motor and some sort of "nextbook" that is item not found when you click on it. In fact of the 10 items only 5 are found when you click on them. This worries me as this is the site that sponsors the forum. If they don't stay in business then the site disappears. So we all have a stake in the parent company staying in business. Just seems to be such a lost opportunity.

I work in technology and find this totally unacceptable. By the way I am open to offers by the way, though I am not a web designer, and have not done a website since doing one in HTML in notepad, but could not do any worse. I would not shop here just because I would be afraid of how my credit card info was treated. I do work in POS and understand PCI compliance and how few companies actually meet it.
 
#49 ·
I think the photo gallery could use an overhaul. Being fairly new here, the gallery is pretty overwhelming with information that's fairly useless (ie properties about the photos), it's also fairly slow given that each page needs to load dozens of thumbnails about where i might want to go.

it would also be nice if the galleries explained why i would want to look at one, right now when click on 'members galleries' it randomly chooses ones, it would be nice if it said like 'here's bob, look at the nifty things he did to his boat (with hi-res pictures)'

it would also be nice to stop all the animatey things, ie smiley's, the thing in the titlebar, the drop down menus that explode rather then just appear (i find things that move on the screen distracting when i read)
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top