Orca Flotta

Virtual World Sailing Forum???

Oy! 😮 I was curious, just wanted to look how they were dealing with the sad news of Maiti’s demise in her own forum …

VWSforum

Oké, me’s confuzzled now. Not checking that forum very often, or really more like never, I don’t know who’s paying or not paying the hosting fees for it. Maiti couldn’t have taken care of it since at least a year, so I assume somebody from her clicque took over the administration or they’ve decided to cancel the service and forum altogether. This looks more like a forced foreclosure tho. :/

FIYC_001
Fischer’s Island Yacht Club FIYC, Sailors Rest

You know when Béa gave up on the WTWB forum she asked around if anybody was willing to take over, found nobody and closed the forum in a regular manner. Our rebel sailors seem more like the house broke down on them.

NYC_001
Nantucket Yacht Club NYC, Nantucket

No chance for me to find out what the people on that side of the Sailing Community have to say. But much worse is that the once so huge and mighty SL Sailing Community now has zero web presence anymore. And the most sad part is that this shady Thar She Blows blog is now the only SL blog reporting about sailing activities left on the grid. We do that thanks to Lucy’s reports about her own races at TrYC. I know there are some other The Shields races hosted at NYC but have no idea about any other activities at the other clubs. SYC, FIYC, TYC … are they even still active?

SYC_001
Starboards Yacht Club SYC, Hollywood

Did the TYC implode in itself over the Trump issue? Is FIYC more than a mascot for a sailing themed rental estate? All the good ppl have left SYC loooong ago, so I guess we can’t expect anything from Hollywood neither.

TrYC
Triumphal Yacht Club TrYC, Triumphal

As mentioned I’m, like, totally clueless what’s happening in the sailing scene. If any of you, dear readers, knows more or has some URLs or correctifications for me, the comment section is always open for you. And yes, contrary to the VWS forum I accept anonymous posts as well. 😉

TYC_001
Tradewinds Yacht Club TYC, Dex

 

 

9 comments

  1. Heya Orca!
    Some news from the “front”:
    I feel like I was posting 75% of the new feeds on the VWS forum lately, trying to keep some momentum going…. but I was on the brink to post a new topic named: “does this forum still matter?” given the little number of replies and read one could see…. and the very few new registered members over the past year.

    To answer your questioning about the various YCs, yes, they are all still active, and a few more have emerged. At least, they are organizing races. But we have seen attendance dwindling since the summer. More events doesn’t necessarily mean more sailors… Cruises seems to do OK though…
    You are right to point out the vacuum regarding web presence now that VWS is down.
    The Hotlaps tried to set up a website but the traffic never built up. The North Sea / Backwater Bay YC have a WordPress blog, but don’t post regularly (latest post: Sep.24th) and only racing results.
    There are a few Flickr feeds still active regarding SL sailing (ZZ’s, mine), however the Flckr groups are meaningless as people tend to post anything and everything in all the groups to which they belong.
    Finally, the only way to stay on top of what s going on in SL sailing is to check the groups’ notices, mainly SLSA, NYC, FIYC… and a few others.

    Summary:
    Hotlaps weekly location and results (automated feed): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SW1VDOJ6lQf00IO3zDs78QJZCIzEHrYfYP7qAIiz65U/edit#gid=1449705887
    Boards/ forum : http://hotlaps-slsailing.boards.net
    Website: https://hotlapsslsailing.wixsite.com/hotlaps

    BackWater Bay:
    https://backwaterbayracing.wordpress.com

    My Flickr:

    lounging

    ZZ’s

    Niki my new sweet companion, but Saphy is still my soulmate

    Then, there are older sites, like the one from SLSA (no post since 2015)
    SYC is trying to get revived.
    FIYC has a FB page
    NYC has Gemma’s page for a consolidated calendar.

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  2. This first happened on last wednesday, but there were signs before that nobody was taking care of the forum, as the captcha for new members weren’t working for months and nobody fixed that, resulting in no new members for the last half year.

    FIYC is alive with races (big boats and Shields) from monday to friday, they started a blog, but puublished only some half dozen race results there; NYC have many races, I don’t know if they publish results in other midia besides VWS; and TYC have one race and one weekly cruise, under Lalia direction; and there are others also.

    Anyway I don’t think that publishing in many blogs, one for each Yacht Club, is a good thing as people would have to follow many blogs, not all maintained up to date. I will try to contact some head sailors inworld, as Gemma, Joy and others, to discuss the posibility of start a new general forum. Lets see.

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  3. Hey Vivipezz and Lucy,
    yes, your observations are exactly what I expected. Even as a retired sailor I noticed a lack of community in the community. As Vivi noticed websites hosted by individual YCs mostly die quickly because nobody delivers content and nobody reads them. The positive exception from the rule was TYCs web presence with blog and forum, which went strong for quite a while but then died off. Same as the life in their sim. :/ But that’s also years and years ago.

    And as Lu mentioned we need a catchall forum for the whole community again. With less sailors and less commuinty it would be stupid to have lots of splinter forums. Sorry, but I blame the current situation on Maiti, at least for a huge part. We had a very well established community forum with hundreds of active members and lots of very lifely discussions, but that obviously wasn’t enough for Maiti and some others and … ugh, we all know what followed and the rest is history. 😦

    Vivi, can I delete the URL to the VWS forum now?
    Lucy, are you doing something in regards of a new forum?

    I can remember we also once had a real website/blog for the community with stories, news and reports. That was a fun read … but also died. 😦

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  4. I support you Lucy!
    I was talking about it with Serena on Thursday after the Star races… she would support it too.
    VWS was the only support for publishing NYC results as far as I know.
    Let s talk about it in-world…
    I was looking into media like WIX or WordPress to start a “unified’ forum with a fully stacked calendar of events for a change ! I am no very proficient though, lacking the experience of admin on a forum… there may be other easier, more flexible solutions out there….

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