Pitlamp said:
Jopo said:
Pitlamp said:
There is the possibility of course that "they" just don't think this is the right arena to discuss it?
If the BCA is to modernise and have electronic voting there has to be a web based forum for debates to take place and information passed on.
(bit of text left out here)
I am by no means promoting this forum as the right one but to move forward with any degree of member representation there has to be one.
Jopo
I'm also a massive fan of this UKCaving forum - but . . . .
This is something I've suggested in the past on here. Discussions of this type really should be on BCA's own independent forum. It has one of course ( https://british-caving.org.uk/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=4 ) but few cavers use it presently. Perhaps the answer is a drive to get the BCA forum used more?
I'd very much like to point out that I
don't want to direct attention away from here (i.e. the UKCaving forum) because it's run by dedicated volunteers and is absolutely excellent. It's just that I've always thought BCA business would be most efficiently done on BCA's forum.
In principle your suggestion makes some sense Pitlamp, however there is a major flaw.
Discussions only take place, where there are people to join them. People visit UKC as there are a lot of cavers here and a lot of chat about things that interest us, while here, we sometimes see reports of BCA matters and discuss them. If nothing is happening on the BCA front, we continue to chat about everything else caving.
If you were to banish BCA matters to another website, I can't imagine many people would bother going there to find out if anything had happened that week.
It would be rather like saying you can't discuss surveying at The Hunters, you have to go to The Queen Vic for that, even though all the cavers are at The Hunters chatting digging, caving etc.
There are those who argue that the national caving forum should be run by the BCA. This in itself is not an entirely stupid suggestion, but rather than create a rival forum, it would make much more sense to build on what is already widely used. This would obviously be a private matter for the current owners of UKC and BCA to discuss and agree on, if that is what they wished to do.
I would however point out that it would make very little difference to the discussion, other than being directly linked to the BCA website. The same people would contribute, the same arguments would happen and doubtless, the same rules would apply.
Perhaps some people don't contribute as they don't want their political rivals to profit from their contributions? I don't know what money (if any?) UKC makes for its owners, but it is at least an incentive to keep the site functional. Under BCA control, we would either need to pay someone to run it, or rely on yet more volunteers. While I'm sure such a system could work, but I'm not convinced there would be a queu of volunteers to take on this extra work, so it would doubtless fall apart over time. I'm also not sure what benefit it would bring to cavers and I'm not sure what incentive there would be for the current owners to hand over their baby to an organisation which can't seem to get its act together...