Venice conditions - please, no off topic posts

[ReefGuy]

I'm not going to say you are whining, I'm just curoius. What is the problem with including Venice in a GREATER Tampa Bay area thread? Is that somehow offensive? Are Venice residents bothered by this? I know a lot of people in the Tampa area that make the relatively short drive to Venice to dive on a regular basis. I've made the trip myself and am thinking about doing it again in the next couple of weeks. It certainly wouldn't bother me at all if info about Clearwater diving was included in a thread titled "Greater Venice area"...

There were many of us who did not want the division in the first place. I do not dive in Tampa, not even in a greater tampa, and do not visit that forum. If I'm going to drive that far to dive, I'm going to the other coast. It's the same distance.

So now, I'm being told to visit a forum I do not visit to view a sticky for the dive I dive most frequently. It used to be a sticky in OUR forum, but was removed and when we asked for it back were told that the dive was not a scubaboard function and therefore could not be a sticky. Yet now it is in the tampa forum.

I don't know how others see it, but to me this is just a slap in the face.

I have nothing against the members of the tampa forum, just do not appreciate the seperate forum, nor having to check it for my most frequent dive.

This is one of the main reasons that I have gone from logging in and posting several times a day to logging in every couple of weeks.

 

[thedaddy]

I'm with Walter and Reefguy on this one - I would prefer a dedicated thread to the Venice dives and maybe even a more appropriate place. I don't have a lot of clout as I haven't been real active on Scubaboard lately and I need to resume my sponsorship, but if you want to hear everyone weigh in...

I used to sign on and post more also, and one of the main reasons was that there used to be a sticky dedicated to Venice. For whatever reasons, it is one of my favorite dives. I drive 2 and a half hours from Orlando to do it, so it is of benefit to have some knowledge of the day-to-day conditions. It is a bit of a pain to wade through all the other posts in the Tampa sticky to find Venice conditions, and I've noticed a lot of the Venice regulars don't post there as much as they did in the Venice sticky (if at all). Venice is a bit of a specialized dive and the conditions are so hit and miss that IMO it warrants its own thread. If there aren't enough people that feel the same, I'll keep doing what I have been and make a couple of calls rather than logging in and trying to find a pertinent thread.

Even if it's in the Tampa area, I believe it still warrants a dedicated sticky; although quite honestly, it really doesn't geographically belong in the Tampa area. Just tell me where to find it and I'll mark it, or cure my ignorance and show me how to search a single thread for the occurrences of 'Venice' in posts.

I still use Scubaboard enough to justify sponsorship though - apologize for not keeping up on that.

 

[ScubaBill1955]

I agree that Venice should have it's own "sticky".

 

[meltedtime]

My wife and I are going to be in Venice for the week of Christmas visiting the inlaws. What sort of diving can we expect in the area? Looking for fossils/teeth sounds cool for a day. What else can we do? I'm thinking of heading to Clearwater and doing the Manatee thing. What about boat charters? What's to see in the area (diving)? Should we think about heading to the Keys for a couple of days or is the diving comparable in the area?

Thanks guys. I know this isn't condition related but you are all local, you've got the know for the area.

 

[Missdirected]

So now, I'm being told to visit a forum I do not visit to view a sticky for the dive I dive most frequently. It used to be a sticky in OUR forum, but was removed and when we asked for it back were told that the dive was not a scubaboard function and therefore could not be a sticky. Yet now it is in the tampa forum.

I don't know how others see it, but to me this is just a slap in the face.

I have nothing against the members of the tampa forum, just do not appreciate the seperate forum, nor having to check it for my most frequent dive.

This is one of the main reasons that I have gone from logging in and posting several times a day to logging in every couple of weeks.

Reef, I don't think you were told you had to go to the GTBA. I believe I offered it as a suggestion. Simply because we keep that thread strictly for up-dates, I thought you may find it useful. FWIW, you will find it is not loaded with off-topic banter. Further, you don't have to wade through a bunch of posts to find a recent one on Venice. It is stickied because a great number in and around the GTBA area dive this site heavily and regularly thus warranting being stickied. Now would we put keys info in there? Of course not, because it is not dived regularly/weekly by a great number of members in/around the GTBA.

If you care not to use the thread, feel free not to. It was only a suggestion from me trying to be helpful.

As for the stickies in the main Conch Forum; I believe the Venice one was declined/removed because of the amount of stickies in that forum had become cumbersome. Additionally, regular Venice divers, in comparison to the the other divers in the main Conch Forum and the dive sites being dived, was extremely small, thus not warranting a sticky in that forum.

All that said, and I brought this up a couple of months ago only to have tomato's tossed at me the stickies in the main forum need cleaned up and kept clean.
This one is a sticky that has needed cleaning for ages (read the last couple posts): http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/florida-conch-divers/60333-insider-information-local-diving.html

I don't think this one was getting used much, if it all, and certainly not now that we have The Buddy Matrix: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/florida-conch-divers/197086-standing-offers-dive-new-divers.html

Another that seems to have no use: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/florida-conch-divers/39161-florida-conch-divers-roll-call.html

Perhaps if the Conch forum was kept up with the mods would consider additional stickies. Just a thought. As it stands now the housekeeping on that forum is poor at best.

 

[Missdirected]

I agree that Venice should have it's own "sticky".

Perhaps. The problem that was encountered before is that Venice is kind of all on its own (not in S.FL and not in the GTBA). Sticking it in the main forum didn't work because Venice divers, in comparison to the other divers in that main forum, represent a small group. So of course, others didn't allow it. Since Venice is kind of on its own and is dived by the members in the GTBA it is included in the "area conditions sticky". Is it a solution for all? No but it does work for a lot. It is at least an option for others. They need not use the info, if they care not to.

 

[Wormzer]

There's a Venice sticky in the Tampa forum??? Honestly, I did not know it existed until about a month ago.

It never occured to me to look in the Greater Tampa forum for Venice conditions, since Venice is not located in the Tampa area.

 

[I Dive]

All I can think to say to anyone who is outright offended by Venice being included in the GTBA is: Good luck in life if you find something that trivial to be offensive...

To the people who are just annoyed at how they have to get to the Venice thread, I have a suggestion to offer. I made a Scubaboard folder in my IE favorites. In it, I have saved the direct link to all threads I like to view. That way none of them are more than a click away. It wouldn't matter to me if the Venice thread got combined with an Australian thread, it would still be one click away for me...

 

[I Dive]

Reef, I don't think you were told you had to go to the GTBA. I believe I offered it as a suggestion. Simply because we keep that thread strictly for up-dates, I thought you may find it useful. FWIW, you will find it is not loaded with off-topic banter. Further, you don't have to wade through a bunch of posts to find a recent one on Venice. It is stickied because a great number in and around the GTBA area dive this site heavily and regularly thus warranting being stickied. Now would we put keys info in there? Of course not, because it is not dived regularly/weekly by a great number of members in/around the GTBA.

If you care not to use the thread, feel free not to. It was only a suggestion from me trying to be helpful.

As for the stickies in the main Conch Forum; I believe the Venice one was declined/removed because of the amount of stickies in that forum had become cumbersome. Additionally, regular Venice divers, in comparison to the the other divers in the main Conch Forum and the dive sites being dived, was extremely small, thus not warranting a sticky in that forum.

All that said, and I brought this up a couple of months ago only to have tomato's tossed at me the stickies in the main forum need cleaned up and kept clean.
This one is a sticky and has needed cleaned for ages (read the last couple posts): http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/florida-conch-divers/

I don't think this one was getting used much, if it all, and certainly not now that we have The Buddy Matrix: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/florida-conch-divers/197086-standing-offers-dive-new-divers.html

Another that seems to have no use: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/florida-conch-divers/39161-florida-conch-divers-roll-call.html

Perhaps if the Conch forum was kept up with the mods would consider additional stickies. Just a thought. As it stands now the housekeeping on that forum is poor at best.

Thanks for the b/g MissD!

 

[Walter]

Today the water was almost glassy with visibility of 10 feet and 60° F water temperature. I'm glad we had our 7 mm suits. Brrrrrr.

Sorry, but I have no idea what the conditions were in the Tampa Bay area, I didn't make it that far north.