Northwest Dive Club

I saw yesterday we were at 97, and figured it would happen soon. Many of our registered members never post, but it's still a milestone, of sorts.

No doubt about it .

100 members can you see our next BBQ if we could all make it at the same time?

Sparky

I was waiting to see who would be our 100th member, and I was going to make an announcement but before I knew it we blew right past 100 (now at 102).

Check out the Member List!

w00t !!!

Heya, whadday'all think if we remove the NWDC links from our signatures on other sites, such as SB? I'm not saying we should, I'm just airing out the idea that our club could be at a happy number now, and we could just let it grow organically from here on out, with friends telling each other by word-of-mouth.

On the other hand, we could still have some great soon-to-be-had dive buddies out there, who are just about to discover us through some means not available to them in person.

Another consideration: If we do this it will also affect(hurt) our Google pagerank, so that if someone searches for 'northwest dive club' or something to that effect, we'll come up lower in the results. I know that at some point, we don't need to promote the club and it will just grow on its own, I just don't know what measure we should use to know when we're there yet.

Thoughts, criticisms, ideas?!!

I think we should just let it go as is

we seem to be doing just fine with the curent system.

if you dive it they will come

Sparky

"let it go as is" as in....

A) removing links elsewhere

or...

B) leaving the links as they are

????

Tough call. What happens if we end up with 798 members, and 321 of them want to meet at Seacrest Wednesday night? I know, realistically, there just aren't that many people who're gonna do that, but.....what if there were? As a total know nothing noob who stumbled into this site very recently, I feel the obligation to "pay it back" with some new people, and at the same time, I would absolutely hate to see this club get overrun and turn into....one of those other scuba-type message internet board thingies.

Well, given what you've said. We can always add more later, but we can't dial it back once it's gotten to a certain size. So, maybe we remove the links for the time being and see what happens. If we don't add any divers for a few weeks or a month then maybe we'll decide to put it back. Agreed?

I'm good with that. I don't post too much @ Scuba board, but I do get in there a few times a week. I'll remove my link.

Cool, both of mine are gone, at SB and at northwestdiver.com. Sparky?

Calvin Tang wrote:Cool, both of mine are gone, at SB and at northwestdiver.com. Sparky?

it dont matter to me I no longer go to thouse so cald other dive web sites tey bore the hell out of me after here


this is the most active group of divers I have ever ran across yet
Sparky

I think that's smart for now - the more members we have the more policing we have to do. On the flip side, it'd be cool to have a bunch of good people here. Calvin - how many people are actively participating versus how many just logged in a once, twice, or a couple times and aren't really "involved?" Perhaps we set an automatic time-out where if you don't post within 90 days or something (and don't give you notice that we'll be out of town), the account is disabled? They're always welcome to re-register.

well, this coming from a newbie ... but i'm pretty sure i found this site by linking through one of calvin's posts on scubaboard. and in the beginning i had a hard time finding my way back to this site because i could never remember the exact name, and i would actually just go to calvin's personal site and find the link on his blog. (i guess his name was way easier to remember!) anyway, like sparky, i hardly go to scubaboard anymore except to look for and read about gear and other newbie-type issues i am researching. i'm afraid that if you remove all of your links, you may miss out on attracting some great new people who have never heard of you. would it work any "better" to still leave the name of the club in your signature without including the html address or an actual hot-link? (that way people could still look it up via google.) just a thought ...

Calvin,
My vote is for taking the links off for a while.
I would like to see this grow a little slower now, with personal invites.
I think the 90 day inactive thing would be cool too.
It would make a tighter group.

Just my 2 psi worth.

Yeah, I think it would make a tighter group too. That way we also keep a grip on how many people we actually have... as of now, we know we have had just over 100 people register. I'd guess there are about 20-25 people who are active.

My 2 psi worth is to keep the group completely open, but if people aren't active in 90 days, then the account is canceled. They're always able to re-join again later. That way we have a real idea of how many people are here, and can continue to be welcoming to new divers.

Good points everyone.

Sounder, there isn't a need to 'police' here yet, which I'm thankful for.

LG, the reason we haven't taken down the links before is because I keep thinking to myself "well, so and so (great diver/person) just joined last week, if we didn't have the links up maybe we wouldn't have met them". The flipside of that is that we grow too fast and people don't get a chance to meet in person, which I think is key to keeping things happy here. So, it's not that we don't want to grow the club, it's just that we want measured, quality growth, at a pace that allows people to meet and get to know each other.

Bassman, deleting the members' accounts who haven't logged in for awhile really doesn't help anything, since their inactivity doesn't put any stress on the site, both technically and socially.

Based on the sentiment here, this is why I propose taking the links down for a bit, a month or two, and reevaluating at that point. Also, remember that there are numerous other references and links to the site in comments around SB, etc. I am only referring to the links in our club members' signatures (which is a lot, depending on how much we post).

Sounds good Calvin!
I'll second the motion to taking the links down for a month or two and then reevaluating it from there.

I had a tag in my online signature a ways back but as I never go to those other sites any more I took it out and not sure if my logins or paswords are good any more

dont mater to me this is the place to be any how
we do more as a group then any other board or club I know of

youall do what you want im staying here
the others SB and NWD just to name a couple bore the hell out of me
after hanging out with you guys.

just my to2 PSI
Sparky

sparky wrote: the others SB and NWD just to name a couple bore the hell out of me
after hanging out with you guys.

Sparky, you had me at *thumbs down; descend*.

the club is fine how it is, You guys are members of other sites, traders.

takeyou neames off and lets enjoy having a club where we might actually get to know everyone in the club. thenit will be a club and not a site. plus even it 100 members we don't even know half of them and the oother half never even post, and as fast as the new ones come they fade too. so really we have 100 members, 30 people of which post and of those 30 only 15 dive, and they were all at hoodcanal, even Diver C came. Hi rich.

so of the 30 people (you guys) who i enjoy talking with the only thing that needs to change is getting everyone diving and not just talking.

so get wet or dry or what ever else it is you do.

I get funky. :rr:

Maverick don't forget that some of the members just troll this site and mabey they want to show up for the occasional dive. Or mabey they just want to read and get information about topics but are afraid to ask. But yeah your right alot sign in and just disapear. But I can tell all of you, that Ive met A lot of great people on this site that share the same passion that I have!!

Yeah this is a bunch of great peeps. all in all thw site will build itselfm with out excess advertisment.