what folks are looking for in responses and blogs.
It's a fascinating question that goes to the way minds work. For me, a blog is a story. Engaging discussion, other than appreciation, isn't really the goal. That's because the blogger is recounting something larger, or ongoing, or is describing at length a complex project or cruise. Any long series of Q&A in the comments becomes random, and the answers are not easily searched.
The forums, however, are very good at specifics, such as where to find a certain gasket, how much to pay a boatyard for a keel drop, comparison of self-steering options, and so on. The thread titles are highly searchable, and members try to protect the topic from thread drift.
Therefore, if planning for self steering, say, it is a natural forum topic to open the debate "which vane steering is best?" There may also be useful blogs decribing personal experience with Monitor, Sailomat, Hydrovane and others. The blogs are about one brand. The forum discussion is about all the brands.
Anyhow, the forum works very well indeed as it is, with us all doing best we can to ask and to answer.
Also,
Experienced members know to search first, and then add their question or solution to an existing thread that is close to the topic. That keeps the information together and helps reduce repetition. Adding to the end of an old thread moves it into "What's New," just as a new posting would.
The updated XenForo software Sean has worked hard and brilliantly to install has an improved Search capability, I think. But a Google search is always more complete, since in addition to this site it also scours the whole Internet.
Repetition seems unavoidable. Every new inquiry about mysterious water in the bilge necessitates recommendation of a half- dozen investigations, all of them well documented here but often scattered in different threads. The experimental
"Master Thread" list seeks to identify the most useful discussions on common topics, but still can't grasp all 20+ years of knowledge in the database. (If you happen upon a great thread on a popular topic let me know so we can include it in the list).
The best responses, in my experience, contain links to such invaluable threads which a member has stumbled upon. Only the hive memory can find them-which makes all of us librarians of Ericson and Olson history.
Who is an expert here? "Anybody who just did the job."
