I mostly lurk here now (plenty of good material to read) but I wanted to both shout out this forum, and note that rec.windsurfing is essentially dead...ONE windsurfing post in the month of May. You guys and Boards Magazine are the places to be serious (well, as serious as one can be) about windsurfing.)
blogged about it here
www.peconicpuffin.com/the_peconic_puffin/2010/06/the-rise-and-fall-of-recwindsurfing.html
and wrote about it in the U.S. Windsurfing Magazine.
I used to enjoy rec.windsurfing. But there were 2 problems, all the spam that arrived as soon as I posted on it.
And Brucie's wars with almost every body else there.
But here at least we have Stewie, the hamburger maker.
(Let's see if he still around...)
Agree with the above, but sometimes rec.windsurfing does get interesting.
The Starboard forum seems to have taken over for a lot of general questions and personally, I like the forums on NeilPryde Maui and that of Maui Sails, particularly when Barry Spanier answers technical questions and responds to user complaints.
I use to lurk there quite often, when seabreeze was just a toddler. I remeber a lot of flaming especially the 'Fin Wars' between Wardog-Surfingsports and Bill Kline-GSPORT (did nothing for the sport). It was pretty informative in its day with nearlly all the great names of a decade ago posting. I don't really understand the decline (maybe being unmoderated had something to do with it) never the less I have a happy home here.
RIP rec.windsurfing - long live Seabreeze
One of the reasons for that has to be that its a news group and you have to set up a news reader to read them. Web forums on the other hand are accessible by browser. I can't get news groups at work. At home I don't bother any more. I don't even use an email/news client, just the browser.
There was an almighty battle going on over at rec.skiing.alpine. It went on for years.
You're crazier than an evil panda Mr. Puffin:
www.peconicpuffin.com/the_peconic_puffin/2010/06/windsurfing-on-the-wifes-birthday.html
Not sure I follow Puffins point? Is it spirited and heated argument (about fins or any other aspect of our sport) that he's objecting to, or just who happens to be making it?
When people are passionate about their sport disagreements are bound to occur, but if properly followed through we may all learn something.
I don't speak for Mr Puffin, but news groups as a whole seem to be taken over by people that hide behind anonymous user id's and add nothing constructive to any threads. I don't think Puffin was either annoyed with the discussion or the people behind it. I suspect he was, like me, annoyed at the idiots that took over.
In the 'old days' they use to have real email addresses and people stood behind what they wrote. With the advent of SPAM people hide their email addresses and it seemed to encourage some people to become painful. Whether it was people with heaps of usernames arguing with themselves, or people outright abusing others.
I found Brucie's apparent mode of operation was to ask a question (either in person or behind an alias) for which he already had an answer prepared. On the other hand Bill Kline's discussions with others about fins and Wardog's responses to that were generally okay. It often sparked some debate about why a fin worked or if a particular fin would work for someone.
I used to haunt an aus cars newsgroup and it went from being a good conversation amongst 'mates' about cars (years back), to where a few people felt they owned the group and would actively discourage others from contributing.
Anyhow, that's my point of view, and I think any form of forum on the internet needs some sort of moderation. Without it, things just get out of hand.
I think his point is that the forum is now a ghost town. Occasionally checked rec.windsurfing but never followed it. All the great forums eventually come to an end, you get people that have lots of spare time and either like causing sh!t or have no idea what they are talking about- eventually it's the same small group of people posting and others get sick of sifting through the garbage.
Aside from seabreeze the best windsurfing forums imo were gaastra while "the team" was there and starboard before the ego wars and heavy moderation started, both of those collapsed around the time I joined seabreeze (cant remember if that was why I joined or not).
There is some truth in the passion statement. I know i'm guilty of regular disagreement with another user here, I dont really like arguing with him though.
Thank you. Points taken.
It does become objectionable when cliques take over, and follow a private agenda amongst themselves. (Next passionate discussion please!
)
The problem with newgroups is they have been increasing taken over by spammers and sh!t stirrers. The spamming is the worse of the two.
The other problem for me is I used to use the Netscape newsgroup reader and its been years since I've had Netscape installed on a computer and I couldn't be bothered learning how another reader works, due to all the spammers and sh!t stirrers.
I see only too well what you mean Puffin. I contribute under the name Gurgletrousers, and was a part of that I windsurf shoulder thread. I hadn't realised that Brucie was also playing two other characters besides his pointless self!
I'm relatively new to computers and contributing to forums though I've always read them in the past. For the record I followed everybody elses example and made up a silly name (Gurgletrousers elsewhere, and Mr Gob here) because I thought that was the thing, and not because I was trying to hide.
As with all fanatical long term sea users I tend at times to think there's little else to learn about what to like and dislike, but the beauty of good threads is that they can force a rethink, and make us try things differently.
No, indeed not!
He has over 50 different names and is the worlds greatest living theoretical expert on everything known, or yet to be discovered.
We could learn a lot from him!
