Hi All....(and very possibly Goodbye)

As I dont envisage my pidgeonhole in the New Order likely to be one of the more active ones and is consequentialy likely to be of little interest, even to me, should anyone find themselves in need of any advice or information on canalish matters (or PJ's whereabouts), please feel free to e-mail me at mwf1 (at) eircom dot net.

The past 8 years have often been amusing, sometimes annoying, but usually interesting. I shall miss my [waterways] mails popping up in my inbox. To any of my friends, collegues or acquaintances who get lost in the reshuffle, take care and enjoy whatever it is that brought you in here to begin with...!!

Mick Farrell

well said Mick.

mick byrne
mkpbyrne [AG] eircom.net

If "Forum improvements" means losing a contributor of the caliber of Mick Farrell, I have to ask, what is the definition of "Dis-improvement".Mick has been the voice of canal related issues and events on here for years. Only for him, I would hardly have known a fraction of what's going on there. He has put in an enormous amount of work bringing the sights, atmosphere and spirit of the canals to a wider audience through this list. His absence will leave a huge gap in this site's coverage of the various waterways.

Just as Noel G.awakened in me an interest in "Estuary" cruising, Mick has turned me on to a different kind of cruising in the other direction - up the Grand and down the Barrow. Are we going to lose such a solid contributor just like that? Please, Greg, et al, leave the e-mail list alone. It works well for some of us.

Mick, if we do lose you, I for one will dearly miss your sometimes funny, always informative, very courteous inputs. This bar will be a sadder and quieter place with another empty barstool

Regards

Peter

Quote:

Mick Farrell
Hi All....(and very possibly Goodbye)
As I dont envisage my pidgeonhole in the New Order likely to be one of the more active ones and is consequentialy likely to be of little interest, even to me, should anyone find themselves in need of any advice or information on canalish matters (or PJ's whereabouts), please feel free to e-mail me at mwf1 (at) eircom dot net.

The past 8 years have often been amusing, sometimes annoying, but usually interesting. I shall miss my [waterways] mails popping up in my inbox. To any of my friends, collegues or acquaintances who get lost in the reshuffle, take care and enjoy whatever it is that brought you in here to begin with...!!

Mick Farrell

Mick,

I'll certainly miss your valuable contributions to the list over the `years.

This is being done in the name of progress.

Progress me A*SE!

Regards

Kieran

This is all a bit of a disaster. I'll be going too. Maybe if there's
enough of us we can start our own email list. Dick Warner.

On 02/03/2012 14:29, IWAI forum Mick Farrell wrote:
> Posted at: [www.iwai.ie]
> Mick Farrell wrote:
>
> Hi All....(and very possibly Goodbye)
>
> As I dont envisage my pidgeonhole in the New Order likely to be one of the more active ones and is consequentialy likely to be of little interest, even to me, should anyone find themselves in need of any advice or information on canalish matters (or PJ's whereabouts), please feel free to e-mail me at mwf1 (at) eircom dot net.
>
> The past 8 years have often been amusing, sometimes annoying, but usually interesting. I shall miss my mails popping up in my inbox. To any of my friends, collegues or acquaintances who get lost in the reshuffle, take care and enjoy whatever it is that brought you in here to begin with...!!
>
> Mick Farrell
>
>
>

Thank you for the kind words Peter....I'm blushing....but the issue is'nt about me. There are two issues here as I see it. Based on Michael Slevins figures for 2011, 449 logged into the forum and 272 recieved the posts by e-amil. There may of course be cross-over in the figures, but I've no way of calculating this.
As of this weekend 37.7% of these will just be "deleted". Some I'm sure will register or log in but I suspect a lot wont bother. More importantly some just dont have the option. And as for the 97 who contributed 2768 (22%) posts by e-mail last year...well, thats just tough I suppose. As regards the daily average rising from 6 to 34 posts, this is entirely down to the advent of the forum. I still recieve the posts by e-mail, and having read them, I decide whether or not to bother logging in, so MY key driver for logging in will now also be gone.

The other issue is dividing the forum into sub groups. As is the case with the majority of boaters, the majority of users on here are likely to be Shannon based. My "mission" on here is to educate these poor unenlightened souls as to the joys of the canals and, in some cases I often think, to the fact that they exist at all. The issues faced by canal users and canal based branches, largely dont exist on the Shannon, so a lot wont even be aware that these issues exist. 37.7% of my potential audience are being got rid of this weekend and I've no idea as to how many of the remaining 62.2% are likely to even look into the area to which I'll be confined, post wise. I DONT need to convert those who've already seen the light, its the "Shannon heathens" I'm after....!!

I really feel that, in terms of exposure of the lesser navigations on the forum, this "new improvement" is likely to result in the "S" being removed from the Waterways bit in the Assoc's name.

M(W&W)F

well now as dick says, maybe its time to start another, is it time for another sig on the subject, or is there enough room on the web for another? I would be willing to give it a lash, anyone interested, maybe contact me off list? However i don't feel that splintering our small waterways community over the web is the answer either, but if it has to be then so be it. Niall G

Nobody whatsoever has to say "goodbye". No one wants anybody to say goodbye. This is 2012 and we like the rest of the world need to move with the times in an era of Facebook, Skype and Twitter. We started with email in 1999 like the rest of the world way back then, but the world has long since moved on. IWAI did well to prolong the email as long as it did. Thank you Michael. Communities such as Boards.ie could not operate using email. As humans we dislike change, but are often pleasantly surprised once we get used to it.

Drinking water from a glass instead of a cup doesn't change the water.

OceanFroggie

>> This is 2012 and we like the rest of the world need to move with
>> the times in an era of Facebook, Skype and Twitter.
Why?

>> Communities such as Boards.ie could not operate using email.
IWAI forum is nothing like Boards. Single topic (nominally) and tiny in comparison.

>> humans we dislike change, but are often pleasantly surprised once we get
Humans hate *crap* change.

>> Nobody whatsoever has to say "goodbye". No one wants anybody to say
Goodbye

Hi Conor, But what about the "water" analogy?

OceanFroggie



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/03/2012 18:43 by OceanFroggie.

Noel said ... "This is 2012 and we like the rest of the world need to move with the times in an era of Facebook, Skype and Twitter"
Sadly Noel,
Some people like old technology ... Bolinders, Valve Radios, GCC barges etc.
This seems to be particularly so among waterways users, i.e. IWAI's constituency.

Michael

Quote:

OceanFroggie
Drinking water from a glass instead of a cup doesn't change the water.

Very true Noel, but having only one tap instead of two and having to drink from six glasses instead of one is,at best, a big inconvenience and most certainly not an improvement.

Quote:

Sadly Noel,
Some people like old technology ... Bolinders, Valve Radios, GCC barges etc.
This seems to be particularly so among waterways users, i.e. IWAI's constituency.

Michael, Well said sir, I do wish I'd thought to put it so cogently.....!!

M(W&W)F

Quote:

Michael Slevin
Sadly Noel,
Some people like old technology ... Bolinders, Valve Radios, GCC barges etc.
This seems to be particularly so among waterways users, i.e. IWAI's constituency.

Nothing wrong with that. I'd dare to suggest only "some among waterways users" though. My dear 78 mother has got to grips with Facebook and Skype. I started computing with paper tape and punch cards btw! Screaming mag tape drives with deafening vacuum pumps and cats eyes hard disk alignment. Learned to program in raw 6502 machine code before progressing up to COBOL and later UCSD Pascal. When men were men and computers where real machines, not a mere pane of glass with a sim card in me pocket.

OceanFroggie

Quote:

I'd dare to suggest only "some among waterways users" though

In the context of what we're discussing Noel, some 37.7% of waterways users...!!

M(W&W)F

Well, seeing as you asked. You may consider the conversations here as being dull as ditch-water (see the canal pun there), but I consider them as robust exchanges - more like a full bodied Syrah, and I would never drink that out of a cup OK?

Or have I lost you there?

BTW - sent from Windows 8. See, I'm not afraid of change.

/Conor



>Posted at: [www.iwai.ie]
>OceanFroggie wrote:
>
>HinConor, But what about the "water" analogy?
>
>
>

Quote:

Conor Nolan
BTW - sent from Windows 8. See, I'm not afraid of change.

Hi Conor. The thing about a glass is that you can see what's inside it a lot easier than a mug! My sympathy in relation to W8! Just Kidd'n. Impressed

OceanFroggie

Mick and Dick wrote:-

"Hi All....(and very possibly Goodbye)

As I dont envisage my pidgeonhole in the New Order likely to be one of the more active ones and is consequentialy likely to be of little interest, even to me, should anyone find themselves in need of any advice or information on canalish matters (or PJ's whereabouts), please feel free to e-mail me at mwf1 (at) eircom dot net...........

This is all a bit of a disaster. I'll be going too. Maybe if there's
enough of us we can start our own email list. Dick Warner."

HAVE I NOT BEEN PAYING ATTENTION? WHAT PROMPTED THIS THREAD?

CAN SOMEONE HELP THE UNENLIGHTENED, PLEASE.

Jim
BBC BSF

On Fri, 02 Mar 2012 16:41:29 +0000, Dick Warner wrote, in
<4F50F839.8050607[AG]indigo.ie>:

>This is all a bit of a disaster. I'll be going too. Maybe if there's
>enough of us we can start our own email list. Dick Warner.

Count me in. I still have an archive of all the posts in email format
back to 26 Feb 1999.

Regards, Nick

Quote:

Jim Murray

HAVE I NOT BEEN PAYING ATTENTION? WHAT PROMPTED THIS THREAD?

CAN SOMEONE HELP THE UNENLIGHTENED, PLEASE.

Jim
BBC BSF

How's Jim.....just in case you have'nt discovered it yet, the prompt is here... [www.iwai.ie] .

M(W&W)F

As this topic seems to have spread over a few thread, below is a repeat of my posting on Michaels initail announcement thread.

Only getting to this topic this morning and as opinions are asked for, here is my twupence worth.....
There are two main issues for me here
(a) Removal of the e-mail leaving only the Web based forum
(b) Fragmentation of the forum into specific interest groups

Re (a) removal of the e-mail list.
As someone who is a bit of a luddite when it come to IT matters(it took me 2 weeks to get the new house PC looking like anything I could use....) I am always reluctant to change from something which I'm familiar with and already does what I want it to do. However, despite this inherent reluctance to change, a few years ago I did switch over to the web based forum as the sheer quantity of e-mails coming into my inbox was becoming a bit of a problem. Around the same time I dipped a nervous toe into the "Facebook" world(having two young Sons in house helped this) and over an extended period came to see the usefulness of this "modern stuff". The final kick into the 21st Century came when the Job dictated that I have one of those "poser I-phone thingeys". Initial "vow” was that I will find out how to make calls and text message as that would be enough for me. However I-phone addiction set in and I now would not be without all those apps and on-line connectivity.
Looking back at my "evolution" in this area, it think it can best be summarised in the following. "Yes I was a reluctant convert to all of these things , however having been pushed/kicked into their use I now see the added value they bring and there certainly is no-way I would want to step-back to my pre web-awareness era. I think whether we like it or not, the web based forum is the way of the future. In the same way as we all dropped TELEX and FAX machines when e-mail arrived, it is inevitable that the e-mail forum would similarly at some stage also be overtaken and superseded by the web forum. I would hope that all of those very active and valuable contributers who feel that the web based forum is not for them will persevere and like myself very soon come to see the benefits of Web based forum. Don’t leave Lads/Lassies, we are relatively speaking a small enough community, so rather than dividing up our "combined knowledge" we should be finding ways to pool it further. Moving to the web should be seen as a glitch which some will struggle with for short while, but I believe we can all find a way to access it and hopefully by the time the boating season gets under way we will all be wondering "what was all the fuss about....."

Re (b) Fragmentation of the forum into specific interest groups
Now this is a totally different matter for me, going to the Web based forum will not kill it, it will recover. However streaming the forum into specific interest groups will certainly kill it off. Of that I have no doubt. The split format works fine for some of the big UK forums as they have as many contributing to a single interest thread as we have contributing the whole forum. There is simply not enough volume for a split like this and as people will tend to stick with their own interest group the sharing of knowledge will decrease.
Another "value add" of the existing forum is the "cross pollination" of the various interests groups on the water. Whether you have an interest in White boats, Power boats, Barges, Canals, Coastal etc we are exposed to each others postings and I have no doubt this has added to the increased understanding and appreciation of areas that we would not otherwise dip into. Splitting of the forum will only serve to increase compartmentalisation and isolation of each interest group which directly the opposite direction to that which we should be going.
I think to split the forum, particularly at this point will cause it to go the way of CPB who suffered a serious drop-off in contributors when they went a similar direction. I seldom go on there now, despite several attempts to "learn it" I still can never find anything on it that I want.

In a nutshell......
Closing down of the e-mail is inevitable and now is as good a time as any to bite the bullet. I would be hopeful that any initial difficulties will be temporary and that all of the "regulars" will in time return.
Splitting of the forum into interest groups is for me a definite no-no and will in a short time kill-off what has been one of the most useful and valuable tools of the organisation