This popped up on my google feed this morning. Typical of the kind of pointless babble, half truths and misinformation out there nowadays.
Swaylocks is still the best place to come and have a discussion to sift through the information flotsam and jetsam.
Ha! That’s bad
That’s painful.
“hell no, can’t ride that board, my board volume has to be 26.4L, and that one is 27.2L”
“ok., well, what’s your preferred rocker?”
“uh…my what?”
I don’t think it was that bad, despite the clickbait title. In the midst of the ever-present marketing BS that surrounds most commercial boards, the article provides reassurance to the noob that he or she won’t make a truly bad decision if the five factors are considered and a board is selected that “suits” or “fits” them.
As for Sways being the best place, well it depends…you gonna buy or build your next board? I long held that I could teach a total noob how to make a decent board in two or at most three efforts, and they’d never go back. Now, material prices vs Costco popouts seems to suggest that, based on what I see in the water, Costco is far ahead with boards that are inexpensive, light, easy to paddle, durable and won’t unlikely to split someone’s skull on impact. What’s there for a noob not to like?
I shaped three longboards for a very fit older neighbor and he in turn broke two and lost one. He wanted me to make another… I sent him in the general direction of Costco or Walmart with the above advantages ringing in his ears. Part of my redirection was that his payment practices were sketch at best: in partial payment for some extensive patch work he gave me his daughter’s used board. She was … displeased.
Costco Wavestorms are a lot of things but durable is not one of them. That’s why/how they are so cheap.
I personally didn’t find much of any use in that article. I have been building my own boards for 13 years, maybe 25 boards, and I still have loads to learn to build a decent board. I guess that link is probably good for the WaveStorm crowd, like you say, convince them there are no bad choices without actually teaching them anything - but Swaylocks is more for people interested in the nuts and bolts of designing and building their own boards, and tweaking those designs. There are still a few of us out here.
I almost started a new thread for this, but then I remembered I had started this old thread a couple years ago, and my comments here are germane to this topic.
So I recently have been watching YouTube a lot, following a few scandals and conspiracy theories that I find entertaining (OJ Simpson, Katt Williams, P Diddy, Nickelodeon, etc.), but I also started watching strip canoe building videos, and surfboard fin replacement videos.
A couple observations came out of that, which I just wanted to share here for comments or observations in case anyone else has some insights to add.
One, is in keeping with the original post in this thread, there is an astounding (to me) amount of misinformation, or misguided information out there on YouTube. So many “how to” videos with erroneous, inefficient, or problematic methods of repair, even some by “professionals”. OK, no surprise there. And I am neither a professional nor an expert, so I’m not going to get into outing anyone or any video specifically. My takeaway is that it really falls right back on each of us individually to find what works for us, use our own experiences and powers of observation and critical thinking, and realize everyone is sharing the best of their knowledge at the moment. I know I have posted things here that people took exception with, and argued vehemently against, and usually it was a matter of me a largely self taught backyarder vs accepted industry protocols from people working in an entirely different environment with entirely different skillsets, etc.
So my opinion, at present, is that I do tend to “like” these YouTube videos, as long as they are mosly well presented, even if I disagree with some of their methods. I appreciate them opening the conversation, and exposing themselves to public scrutiny.
I also notice that in lieu of actual conversations like we have here a little, and used to have here a lot, now we have podcasters commenting on podcasters, and often commenting on podcasters who commented on their podcast, without ever actually talking with each other. So its not really a “conversation” per se, but its still something like, and a chance to get different perspectives. The comments section is largely a chance for ignorant people to vent their ignorance publicly, but also occasionally to get some valuable insights from people who have something worthwhile to contribute to the subject.
I could give some specific examples if others want to go that route, but at this point I’m not sure about the traffic here on the forum, who’s here, who wants to talk, or if the entire DIY self-shaping and self-repair crowd have just (almost) entirely abandoned the forum platform of learning and teaching, in favor of the shorter, less conversational video and tik-tok formats available now.
I think social media has significantly affected the use of public forum platforms.
Further, I think the previous flaming and trolling here generated a lot of participation — fairly useless in terms of board design and building.
Several big egos were intolerant of shed technology and garage hacks in addition to computer design and build.
Sways has picked up a little more steam lately.
I think the new Sways forum platform is an opportunity to create a tolerant/useful DIY community.
It was a Sways garage guru’s CAD skills that made precision Coanda Channel prototypes a reality for me…
Yes without a doubt social media platforms have impacted the forum model of discourse. I don’t think the bulk of forum discussion was really flame wars tho, although the trolls tried hard to make it that way. The build threads and photo sharing, along with discussions of tools, materials, methods, and design concepts, were always the heart of the forum. The flame wars were a distraction. The internet world today is as polarized as then, if not moreso. But the forum template remains a viable platform for education and exploration.
