The Steamboating Forum

As part of on going talks about the SBA's online and social media presence I would like to ask users of this forum to come forward with their thoughts and suggestions.

Currently there is this forum, which is open for anyone to use world wide, but also have a significant SBA members using it. And a small forum within the SBAs own site, available to SBA members only. On top of this there are various other sites/groups including on facebook and the CanalWorld forums coving canal based boating of all forms including several steam narrowboats.

http://www.steamboatassociation.org.uk/
http://www.canalworld.net/forums/


My questions:
- Which forums do you use a why?
- Of these, which do you prefer using?
- Going forwards what would you like to see from the SBA in terms of online and social media presence?


Thank you.

Daniel

I am a SBA member and this the steamboating forum is my current daily dose of steamboat news. With the SBA own website forum i receive a email whenever someone has made a post. I use Facebook daily checked quite a few times a day. I have even posted steamboat photos on FB. I know that you can post photos on this site too but I only a 50% success rate. Within FB I am a member of a couple of steamboats/canal groups/pages.

Mike

As an SBA member I use this site daily, sometime several times. I also use the SBA's own site almost as much, but not as often the forum on it. I don't do Facebook or Twitter or any of those sort of sites and wont at any price.

I'm not a SBA member. Paraphrasing Mike Cole, this forum is the (only) place where I can get my daily dose of steamboat news & stuff. This forum is by far the best and the most active.

As far as I am concerned, a small forum restricted to SBA members only is a strange feature if SBA considers to develop its presence on the social networks.

I am a SBA member, and find thesteamboatingforum.net much more easy to access, with much more connection to the general steamboating community with respect to technical issues and their solutions. Signing into the SBA requires password just to see the SBA forum, which typically has much less information of relevance to me.

The SBA has an interesting following, with many issues that are usually not available other places. I like both sites.

I'm not a member of any of the organizations. I monitor this forum regularly to learn about the technology. It's been a great resource in that regard.

Although I am a member of the SBA I don't look at the SBA forums more than once a fortnight whereas I look at this one several times a day : the reason for this is that on this site one can see at a glance if there are any new posts and what the subject is , on the SBA forums one has to visit each one in turn .
To summarise : this site is MUCH easier to use and watch .

Regards Edward .

Thanks for all the comments so far, I am pleasantly surprised by the number of replies in the first 24h, and some great comments.

- Mike, I expect you you can get emails from this site when new posts are made, certainly I have it set up to email me if someone replies to a thread I have created or posted in.
- Presumably to save bandwidth this forum only allows you to display photos hosted else where in yours posts, and the interface in clunky, but does work.
- I can see the thinking between a members-only board on the SBA site, but it is slightly odd and even more so that you cannot even view it without joining.


Daniel

I'm a third of the way around the earth from the SBA in the Northwestern U.S. and am only occasionally aware of its existence. If it were not for this forum I would have little contact with the world of steam beyond my local society.

Keep up the good work.

I only use this forum daily and often for steamboat information/discussion.

Why I use it? It's the best resource for steamboat or steam information in general on the web. With contributors like Fred, Mike, Wesley, Jack and Bart and many others that escape me, there is a lot of experience and knowledge here free for the asking. And I've learned a lot. Not sure how my steamboating experience would have gone without this resource, but it wouldn't have enjoyed the same level of success as rapidly, nor near as safe. Confidence is not a qualification, this knowledge must be learned.

If there is any sort of discussion forum where someone has to pay to use it or the software is not easy to use, it isn't going to get used much. This is basically an international forum where users come from many countries, and even still it isn't all that active. As a marketing analyst would put it "Its a small market".

I used to post on the Steam Car Club of Great Britain' forum and they kicked everyone out that is not a member. It wasn't too active before and it's even less now. Free and open discussion is necessary in any technically based and potentially dangerous hobby such as this. It saves money, work and lives which preserves the hobby itself.

-Ron