Forum and Category Reorganization

[Akimbo]

ScubaBoard has grown to almost 500 forums over 20 years. Forums are divided into eleven Categories such as ScubaBoard Central, Scuba Diving Central, and The SPG. We felt it was time to reevaluate forum and category names and how they are grouped. After considerable debate, it became clear that our forum categories fall into four major groups:

The ScubaBoard Group

Discover ScubaBoard
Official ScubaBoard News, Articles, Site Support, and a place to introduce yourself. Everything you need to take full advantage of ScubaBoard.
Old name: ScubaBoard Central​

---

The Diving Group

Explore Diving
Discuss everything from snorkeling, training, & basic scuba through tech diving, and diving history.
Old name: Scuba Diving Central

Diving Activities & Specialties
Underwater photography, hunting (food & treasure), and marine science

Diving News & Media
News of the industries that serve us and media that interests us.
Old name: The SPG

Scuba Industry Pros
Scuba Industry Professionals: Instructor to Instructor, Business to Business, and forums dedicated to support diving.
Old name: ScubaBoard Pro

Regional Forums & Dive Clubs
If there's water or a dive club, we have a forum. Learn about diving around the world.

Dive Travel
Get the inside info from shore diving to luxury livaboards.
Old name: Travel Related Discussions​

---

The Diving Equipment Group

Diving Gear
Snorkeling through tech diving — historic to the latest.
Old name: Scuba Diving Central

ScubaBoard Marketplace
Hot deals, classifieds, R&D, and employment.

Diving Gear Manufacturers
Recalls and Q&A for people that make our equipment.
Old name: Manufacturers Forums​

---

The Community Group

Community Forums
Non-diving discussion, fitness, humor, and Women's forums.​

---

This image is from an offline prototype used to develop and test the concept:

Some of these groups have only one Forum Category while others contain up to six. With only a few exceptions, Forums will stay in their original Category but some Forum Names have changed. The old forum name is included in that forum description to assist during the transition.

The only forum that moved into a different Category is Diving History: Tales from the Abyss and the subforums. It is now located in the Explore Diving Category (Old name: Scuba Diving Central) instead of Diving News & Media (Old name: The SPG).

The reorganization should be complete in a few days.

 

[TMHeimer]

---

---

A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

This message was merged into this one from the Suggestions Forum. We wanted to keep them together to make it easier for other readers to follow.

---

Just a personal preference-- Keeping New Divers, Basic, Advanced one after the other made more sense to me. Change for the sake of change?
Is Scuba Industry Pros (I to I) now in a different place?

 

[Akimbo]

Keeping New Divers, Basic, Advanced one after the other made more sense to me. Change for the sake of change?

We were attempting to position the forums in the approximate order that someone interested in entering, or progressing, in the sport would find useful:

1. New Divers & Those Considering Diving
2. Snorkeling & Freediving
3. Basic Scuba
4. Diving Physics & Physiology
5. Advanced Scuba
6. Technical Diving
7. Rebreather Diving
8. Divers with Disabilities
9. Vintage Diving & Equipment
10. Diving History: Tales from the Abyss
11. Women's Perspectives
12. LGBTQIA Friends & Perspectives
13. Accidents & Incidents
14. Scuba Certification Agency Q&A

Scuba Certification Agency Q&A was at the top and took up a lot of screen space due to so many sub-forums, so we moved it to the other end. The thinking was that people interested in diving often move past the "thinking about it stage" (New Divers & Those Considering Diving) into snorkeling before pulling the trigger on Scuba. Many of our Diving Physics & Physiology discussions seem to fall between Basic and Advanced. We also wanted to position the Diving Medicine Forum closer to top so people asking "can I dive with XXX medical condition" questions will notice it.

Keep in mind that the majority of ScubaBoard's readers are not members. For example, this was about a minute ago: members: 191, guests: 1,200.

Old diving salts are more likely to already know about ScubaBoard. We are guessing that new and wannabe divers make up a significant percentage of our guests. That thinking led us to a forum progression that they would find most useful. That will hopefully motivate more guests to become members and supporters.

Given this overview, what organization would you (and other members) think would be more useful? Like most things in life, finding the best compromise is the challenge.

Is Scuba Industry Pros (I to I) now in a different place?

No, "Instructor to Instructor" is in the same place. The only ones that moved to a different Category are the Diving History forums.

 

[Scared Silly]

At least swap the advanced with the Diving Physics. As that is a more realistic progression, especially given the subform topics in the physics. Also it just seems odd to not have advanced directly follow the basic.

• New Divers & Those Considering Diving

• Snorkeling & Freediving

• Basic Scuba

• Advanced Scuba

• Diving Physics & Physiology

• Technical Diving

• Rebreather Diving

 

[Akimbo]

At least swap the advanced with the Diving Physics.

What are your thoughts behind this suggestion? Do Basic and Advanced forums interest you the most, the progression makes more sense to you, or something else? Keep in mind that we never had a forum for Physics and Physiology forum before so we expect that many of that type of question will be posted there instead of in Basic or Advanced. I'm not trying to argue against your opinion, only trying to understand it better.

We debated putting it between Snorkeling and Basic since your first Scuba Class "should" be highly focused on Physics & Physiology. Physiology was really a force-fit when it was part of Marine Science and Physiology. The argument can also be made that it should be between New Divers and Snorkeling.

Any way we sort it, scrolling past Physics & Physiology is a bit less tedious than all the forums in Scuba Certification Agency Q&A what was at the top.

 

[Scared Silly]

The progression in the technical aspects of diving is why I suggested the order. And for the fact that advanced should naturally follow basic.

I think the physics and physiology aspects taught in the OW are pretty light. As such, I think that more often the questions people would be posing would be more in depth (pun intended). Though I did chuckle that your screen shot shows a discussion on "Bunion Surgery."

Also placing it there makes an implicit split between recreational (beginning and advanced) and technical (technical and rebreather) diving.

 

[Akimbo]

Also placing it there makes an implicit split between recreational (beginning and advanced) and technical (technical and rebreather) diving.

I'm personally uncomfortable using Diving P&P to make that delineation — OK, maybe I'm just an old-school curmudgeon that thinks Physics & Physiology is a vital part of basic dive education. I don't have stats to prove it but my impression is we get far more P&P questions in Basic and Advanced than technical.

Note that we also changed the title of Ask Dr. Decompression to Decompression Theory, which might change where some of the tech diving physiology questions get posted in the future.

Let's not forget that the vast majority of technical diving is recreational, until you are paid when it becomes military or commercial. Rebreather diving isn't necessarily technical since it can be pretty shallow and used for photography and observation benefits. Planned decompression isn't a widely accepted delineation between Advanced and Technical, though we can debate "how much" decompression. Trimix would probably be but a widely accepted delineation but the Tech forum isn't limited to helium mixes.

All this begs the question, what implicit split are we trying to accomplish beyond what forum titles already do?

 

[-JD-]

@Akimbo et al ...

2-bar, here (feeling international today)

Might "Diving Physics & Physiology" be better titled "Diving Physics, Physiology, & Medicine"?

It feels to me that a ton of threads in Introductions and Basic are medical questions from new members that get dumped in the more generic forums since the medical area was not immediately obvious. Having Medical right there in the main section title will also be much more obvious for participants that are not primarily English-speakers. Hell, Physiology to me implies a more theoretical focus compared to Medicine and I've been mangling American for 52ish years.

 

[Akimbo]

Might "Diving Physics & Physiology" be better titled "Diving Physics, Physiology, & Medicine"?

It feels to me that a ton of threads in Introductions and Basic are medical questions from new members that get dumped in the more generic forums since the medical area was not immediately obvious.

That was one of the main motivations behind reorganizing the Marine Science & Physiology forum. It was way down the forum list in the Diving Activities & Specialties category. See: Reorganizing Marine Science & Physiology

Diving Medicine is a sub-forum under Diving Physics & Physiology, as it was under Marine Science & Physiology. Are you suggesting that Diving Medicine deserves to be a higher level forum instead of being under Diving P&P or should be merged with Diving P&P?

We never had a forum for Diving Physics before and our thinking is that it is hard to separate Diving Physics from Diving Physiology discussions. Our expectation and hope is that most related new threads will be posted in Diving P&P, Diving Medicine, and Decompression Theory now that they feel more related to all the forums in the Explore Diving category. That's the operating theory anyway.

Hell, Physiology to me implies a more theoretical focus compared to Medicine and I've been mangling American for 52ish years.

Interesting viewpoint. Diving Physics and Physiology have been chapter titles in diving texts as long as I can remember. It probably began with US Navy Diving Manuals, long before the Aqua Lung (Cousteau's open circuit Scuba, not the company) was invented. It would be interesting to get perspectives from divers who are not native to the US.

Background for all readers:

We reorganized the Marine Science & Physiology forum by splitting it into Marine Science & Conservation and Diving Physics & Physiology forums. That required manually moving relevant threads manually.

Diving Physics & Physiology, and two related sub-forums, was moved into the Scuba Diving Central category, now Explore Diving. Marine Science & Conservation remained in the Diving Activities & Specialties category. Diving Medicine remains a subforum, now under Diving Physics & Physiology along with Decompression Theory that was named Ask Dr. Decompression. Does your head hurt yet?

The Diving Medicine forum on ScubaBoard has been used to ask questions about medical conditions and is monitored by our medical moderators.​

 

[-JD-]

Are you suggesting that Diving Medicine deserves to be a higher level forum instead of being under Diving P&P or should be merged with Diving P&P?

I was suggesting D P, P, & M originally.

Not that I am trying to make more work for you, but upon thinking about it, IMO - Medical probably should be its own top-level forum. Medical is mostly about specific, applied, personal situations rather than generic, abstract, theoretical issues for P & P

A lot of, otherwise casual (i.e. not the SB obsessed), divers seem to land here from searches due to medical issues resulting from and/or limiting their diving. Having a neon-signed location to put those questions would likely accelerate responses and reduce mod-time re-homing ill-placed threads.

I also see value with sub areas for (I'm brainstorming here) Equalizing/ENT issues; general DCI/DCS; returning to diving after illnesses, injuries, and general medical procedures; etc.

That should make it easier for folks to browse for prior relevant topics without wading through everything in medical or dealing with search construction and pages of results given that each post is reported, not just threads.