Current / Drift diving sub forum

[edwants2dive]

Hey mods / community I have been thinking about this the past couple of weeks. I wonder if there would be interest and participation enough for a sub forum on this topic. I feel like there might be due to the fact that a lot of us here in south Florida deal with currents and drifting on a regular basis and it might be a good place to ask, answer questions and share experiences on this topic. Just a thought.

 

[Akimbo]

I moved this to the Suggestion forum so people can vote on the idea.

Do you have a rough idea how many threads deal with drift diving techniques? There is also the issue if they are best left in a geographic specific forum were some are posted.

The upgrade last September gave us two tools that might help. One is a greatly improved search function and the other is a search forum that is automatically populated with links to threads all over ScubaBoard that meet the search criteria.

Most of our search forums are based on thread title prefix flags. The search criteria is the same that you can use in a normal thread search. Can you experiment with searches to see how effective searching on key words is?

 

[BoltSnap]

A Yes vote here.

 

[Akimbo]

Yes vote here.

I should have been more clear, members need to vote here in the OP/Post #1.

People can also change their vote as the learn more about a suggestion.

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Here is another way to create easily found selective links to search threads:

A New Experiment: Member Suggested Indexes

ScubaBoard has always been filled with questions, answers, suggestions, ideas, and entertaining repartee. OK, there is also little bickering but there can be useful information imbedded there as well. The challenge is finding the information you want within our nearly 500 forums, almost 575,000...

scubaboard.com

 

[scubadada]

Yes, I am in favor or a drift diving subforum

 

[BoltSnap]

View attachment 705703
I should have been more clear, members need to vote here in the OP/Post #1.

People can also change their vote as the learn more about a suggestion.

---

Here is another way to create easily found selective links to search threads:

A New Experiment: Member Suggested Indexes

ScubaBoard has always been filled with questions, answers, suggestions, ideas, and entertaining repartee. OK, there is also little bickering but there can be useful information imbedded there as well. The challenge is finding the information you want within our nearly 500 forums, almost 575,000...

scubaboard.com

Just did but can I vote more than once just to show my strong support?

 

[lowwall]

I'm in favor of drift diving, but do not see why it would need its own forum. Technique issues are best dealt with in the Basic or Advanced forums and destination questions in the appropriate geographic forums.

When you are considering a new forum, you should be asking if you really want to introduce the entire class of forums that would logically follow. If drift diving is worth a forum, then certainly shore diving is too, and river diving, and altitude diving, and ice diving, and probably diving from non-motorized boats and diving in cold water and so on.

Another thing to ask is whether the proposed new forum serves an unmet need. Are questions about drift diving really not being answered adequately on existing forums?

 

[BoltSnap]

When you are considering a new forum, you should be asking if you really want to introduce the entire class of forums that would logically follow. If drift diving is worth a forum, then certainly shore diving is too, and river diving, and altitude diving, and ice diving, and probably diving from non-motorized boats and diving in cold water and so on.

And why not? You actually bring up a point that should be taken into serious consideration, just like we have subforums for wreck, rebreather, etc. Each specialty has a forum of its own.

 

[edwants2dive]

When you are considering a new forum, you should be asking if you really want to introduce the entire class of forums that would logically follow. If drift diving is worth a forum, then certainly shore diving is too, and river diving, and altitude diving, and ice diving, and probably diving from non-motorized boats and diving in cold water and so on.

I do understand your point. My reasoning was when I did a search on current or drift the results are all over the boards. I just felt it might be good to have a repository for this topic that was easy to find. That doesn't mean that there wouldn't be discussions about specific locations ect elsewhere.

And why not? You actually bring up a point that should be taken into serious consideration, just like we have subforums for wreck, rebreather, etc. Each specialty has a forum of its own.

Not a bad idea if you ask me. We also have forums for specific gear groups and this would follow that pattern in my opinion.

 

[Akimbo]

I do understand your point. My reasoning was when I did a search on current or drift the results are all over the boards.

IMO, finding specific content on a board this large our our biggest challenge. It strikes me that the problem with drift diving content is similar to the discussion that created the Trip Report title prefix and search forum.

Solved: - Should There Be A Forum Dedicated to Trip Reports?

I ask the question because there are so many great trip reports that get buried in various forums. The recent contributions by @Trailboss123 and @drrich2 come to mind. I don't know about others, but with the volume of material on SB, I find that it is harder to keep track of a particular trip...

scubaboard.com

There is a lot of content on drift diving and live boating that was posted in geographic specific forums along with Basic, Advanced, Wreck, and even Tech diving. I am currently leaning more toward collecting links to these threads instead of moving existing ones or expecting members to choose the new forum when their post also relates to others.

Search found about 200 threads with the word "drift" somewhere in at least one post. That doesn't work because the word drift is used in a lot of discussions including regulators, travel posts that only mention drift dives being an option, and comments on cost. Searching the phrase "drift diving" misses a lot of threads that mention drift divers, dive, and variations of live boat.

A "Drift Dive" title prefix flag would compete with the Trip Report, Info, and Review, prefix. Limiting search criteria to titles containing the word "drift" would be miss a lot of good threads.

I am starting to think that more intelligence is required to separate the really useful threads/posts from the chit-chat. A member-supported "Index thread" "might" work. The idea is for members to post a link to useful content they find on drift diving and live boating.

A New Experiment: Member Suggested Indexes

ScubaBoard has always been filled with questions, answers, suggestions, ideas, and entertaining repartee. OK, there is also little bickering but there can be useful information imbedded there as well. The challenge is finding the information you want within our nearly 500 forums, almost 575,000...

scubaboard.com

This approach depends on members posting links to threads they think are worth pointing out to other members. The thread can be made sticky if the response justifies it.