Change of ownership for ukCaving

thesiger

New member
Tim and Jane Allen are delighted to announce they are the new owners of ukCaving.com:

We love caves, caving and all that goes with the sport and have been caving, both home and abroad, for many years.

UK Caving is an integral part of the caving community and we hope our plans will improve both users and viewers? experience of the forum.  We are open to new ideas, so please do get in touch with your suggestions.

We do not plan to act in haste and therefore ukCaving will remain unchanged for the time being.
 

TheBitterEnd

Well-known member
Yes, congratulations, thanks to those who have kept it going until now and here's to a long and interesting future  :beer:
 

bubba

Administrator
Good to see ownership being passed back to some active cavers, good luck to you both Tim & Jane  (y)  :beer:
 

bagpuss

Member
thesiger said:
Tim and Jane Allen are delighted to announce they are the new owners of ukCaving.com:

We love caves, caving and all that goes with the sport and have been caving, both home and abroad, for many years.

UK Caving is an integral part of the caving community and we hope our plans will improve both users and viewers? experience of the forum.  We are open to new ideas, so please do get in touch with your suggestions.

We do not plan to act in haste and therefore ukCaving will remain unchanged for the time being.

Glad its continuing as a useful source of info. Would like to see more trip reports on here - I know for people who cave regularly and know all the caves it may be a bit boring, but for those of us not near to caves/slightly less frequent cavers it's really useful reading trip reports esp prior to tricky trips. Unsure what you could do to promote this - other outdoor forums offer a prize for the best report each month, but that would require a company donating a prize..
 

Lazarus

New member
thesiger said:
UK Caving is an integral part of the caving community and we hope our plans will improve both users and viewers? experience of the forum.
That will take some serious work...

Interesting development all the same.
 

The Old Ruminator

Well-known member
UK Caving Forum is unusual in that it has no serious on line competitor. It does have competitors in related fields like mine exploration and Facebook subgroups but nothing like it in regard to general caving. ( that I know of ). Other hobbies have multiple forums that are quite competitive but only serve to dilute the whole. I believe that to be the same with Facebook. It has spawned so many of my hobby related groups that I am no longer able to keep up with them. Anyone can set up a Facebook subgroup and rule their own little fiefdom. Personally I see that area as a threat to general forums so to compete forums must remain fresh and up beat. You could say I am a fairly active user of UK Caving. Sometimes I wonder if my efforts are appreciated. Perhaps that is general with forums on which the majority of users remain silent. A simple "like" button at the bottom of a thread would help assuage the emptiness.
To my mind there is never enough photos here. We have had all of this before of course. I dont like links to hosting sites or low res attachments. If I am reading a thread I like to see the photo with the text. By using Photobucket images can be posted without using forum resources though the mobile phone viewers will moan. Like others I do feel some sort of encouragement would help. How easy it would be to run a forum photo competition.
Perhaps like other forums members could be asked for donations each year. That would help the owners with running costs though to be honest I am not aware of the financial support side of things. I donate ?10 per year to my collectors forum via Paypal and am quite happy to do so. Structurally the forum is mostly fine. What is really needed is further encouragement for folks to share their caving experiences. Also like my Fairy Cave Quarry thread ( I wont mention Reservoir Hole - Darn I just did ) to make an historical record which gets picked up by Google and may ultimately encourage further members. Yup - Lots more digging reports too even if nothing exciting gets found.
Well thats a few personal views on things. I wish the new owners well in their efforts with the forum as ultimately it will benefit all cavers.
 

David Rose

Active member
Congratulations. I look forward to a new era of peace and harmony in these forums, with acrimony and sniping banished forever - especially from threads discussing access to St Cuthbert's Swallet under the CRoW Act  ;) 
 

Goydenman

Well-known member
I too like to see trip reports, techniques eg surveying etc and most of all news of progress/aims with digs. Hate the arguments which seems to be dominate things for a while.
 

Joe90

Member
Congratulations  :clap: :clap:    Here's to a deep and dark satisfying future  :beer: :beer:

As posted above, the petty arguments can get boring but i don't see that ending whilst we keep it open and allow people free thought. Id like to see more Trip reports and photos as already mentioned.

Thanks  :kiss2:
 

Pegasus

Administrator
Staff member
Thanks everyone for your congratulations, how encouraging.

Thanks also for the feedback - please do keep it coming, we are listening!

Jane Allen
 

Fiona

New member
Congratulations.

I'd just like to echo theoldruminator's comment about a like button. I'd like to see this added to the forum as well.

Good luck with the site.
Fiona.
 

Pegasus

Administrator
Staff member
Hi Fiona, good to see a Newbie posting.  Ruminator had lots of good ideas including a 'like' button - it's on the list!
 

Lazarus

New member
I like ORs thoughts, a way of liking a post may help encourage people to write more - IIRC SMF has a "Karma" system, but this can be positive as well as negative and thus be open to abuse, so not ideal.
Sometimes it's not possible (at least for me) to read a post and then spend more time replying, especially whilst viewing on a mobile. A simple like (or similar) system would allow the original poster to see that people read and like what they post, whereas now the only clue is number of views and any subsequent posts. It might encourage more 'reports' of trips/digs/insert other here.

Arguments will always exist whilst you have so many different age groups/generations/educations/general mind-sets. It is the way of the world and forums, you can't prevent it, to do so would be draconian and ultimately bring ruin to the forum.
 
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