Scream and Fly Free Troubleshooting Service

[nitro_rat]

Seems like there's a new member with zero posts asking for help with basic troubleshooting every day now. I know there's a lot of combined knowledge here, many guys here do this for a living or build their own motors as a hobby. I'm always happy to help members out getting their stuff running right/set up right but should we as a community become the go to for would be diy'ers who don't want to take their rig to the shop? These guys get their problems solved for free and ride off into the sunset! Not so much as an intro or a pic of their rig or anything...

Just curious how everyone feels about this. Not trying to put anyone down, just opening a discussion. I mean there's plenty if sites that are dedicated to DIY boat repair and maintenance!

[bayman96]

i kinda agree, I enjoy helping people but more then likely those people will never return to the site. Profile pic and location at least imo. If its race boat related sure but regular boaters could just use youtube lolol

[Forkin' Crazy]

Yep, at least participate. Other wise there is always YouTube.

[rock]

I have questioned myself before on helping cuz the last thing I want to do is cost someone else money. Don't want to help someone and screw someone else in the process. The age of information.

Rock

[Euroski]

WHO? user name?

[InjectorService]

Hmmm... valid point to a degree. Let me play Devil's advocate here for a minute.

1. Is more traffic to the site more important, or less traffic but more return traffic / "older" users?
2. What is the percentage of users that say, man this is a nice site and decide to stick around, or if they are not a performance minded boater, maybe they convert.

I'll give my point of view. I think bring on the users, the more the merrier. I've been on more than a few forums where there are a group of 10-25 "regulars" that have basically "shooed away" anyone that even made an attempt to ask questions or join in a conversation, regardless of their knowledge of the subject. Guess where those forums are now? They are almost all dead and you could count the new posts on 1 hand every month. They weren't enjoyable places to be a part of, unless you were "in". And unfortunately there is a lot of knowledge and great conversation that was left behind when they slowed down. Everything is social media now, and the GOOD content is all gone. There are still some conversations on there but I find they are all short and lack the content of a good forum.

I think it should actually be taken one step further. Why don't we pick out one forum thread per week that has good in-depth content and promote it on the Scream N Fly Facebook page. Invite everyone down there to join in the conversation and get involved. Maybe one member a month/week can create a nice how-to thread on their area of expertise and we highlight it or sticky it somewhere, create a resource that people keep coming back to. What about a merchandise store, those seem to be all the rage lately, everyone wants their brand on everything. Maybe just simple stuff, the normal shirts and hats, throw in some key floaties, prop covers/bags, I like those transom plates Greg had made for the giveaway a while back.

For myself, I spend at least a few hours a week talking to someone and helping them with some sort of an issue for free. I certainly don't know everything and will never claim to, I learn something new every single day. I love this sport and I love sharing what I can and giving back to it if I can. I'm completely self taught, I haven't had the luxury of working under someone with years of experience. Everything I know about boats, and most of what I know in other areas has been a combination of figuring stuff out on my own, research, and occasionally conversing with people in their own areas of expertise.

The best piece of advice I have ever received in my life, was when I was 16 years old and working on a project car and I phoned my dad to ask how to pull the motor now that everything was disconnected. He simply said "I don't know, figure it out." He damn well knew how to do it but probably said it because he could see well in advance that it was a complete waste of time, but it's one of the most important things anyone has ever said to me, and various forums have been one of my "go tos" for "figuring it out".

Anyhow, I would encourage all of you knowledgeable people to keep on posting in the forums, and encouraging others to join in on conversation. Without the conversation the sport will slip away. And if anyone on here has any questions that I can help you with, or even just want to chat you can call or text me any time day or night, my cell is below:

BLAKE
204-326-0390

[Li'l Toy]

I have to agree with Injector Service. I have owned a boat since I was 6, first raced at 13. I learned more in my first few years at Scream and Fly when my son turned me on to it than in the 50 some years before. It is a great place, and while I miss some of our characters who no longer hang out here, I also think there is less chest pounding and pure bull than maybe 3-4 years ago.

I love boats, and am currently boatless. I spend time on The Hull Truth because there is a lot of interesting stuff there that is irrelevant to us--I can even add some information in the rare occasion when they deal with a performance issue I am familiar with. But there are some people on there who apparently spend their life watching for any post that asks a question previously answered or is so naive to what we do (yes, there a too many pure novices in this hobby but how do they learn other than making mistakes and getting yelled at in the real world, or asking questions on a forum inhabited by folks who have already been there and made that mistake) that it sounds stupid, so they can jump on the poor newbie. I agree that often a search is as good as asking for the 4th time, but heck I see part of why we are here is to help people out. When someone who earns his living doing this like Injector Service spend a few hours a week helping, that is what this forum should be about.

[SS Minnow]

The only ones that bother me are the ones you never hear from again, as in did they find the problem, and what was it. I read of a bunch of different fixes for problems that one would just never figure were the cause. But, how can you really tell if someone is going to come back to report what the problem was.

Before the inter-webs, I had plenty of people to go to for advice whether it was on the car, motorcycle or the boat. They mostly were happy to help me as they liked to see a young guy working on his own stuff. That trend was fading fast when I was just starting to drive a car. So, just to kind of pay it forward, I am always happy to help out when I can.

[warriorcookie]

I've often worried about this very thing. I've received so much good advice here, but rarely do I get to contribute anything back to the community as I feel my level of knowledge is lacking compared to so many here.

Some day, hopefully....

[LakeFever]

S&F is awesome. I’m a newb in terms of performance knowledge and I doubt I’ll ever get near the know of how of most of you guys but in the few years I’ve been posting here I’ve learned a Ton! I do try and help as well, I enjoy the info sharing purpose of a good forum.

The danger of using a forum as a tech archive is activity drops and it’s no fun to participate when there’s no active discussion happening. Too much off topic talk can also be a bore. Seems to me like the balance is good here. We have some fun blabbering about unrelated but the performance tech talk is strong and for me is a boat load of fun.

If a newb doesn’t want to stick around it’s their loss, and maybe our gain? The lack of toxic jerks here makes this place soooo much better than others.

[Merc 2.5]

For me ,its makes me feel feel pretty good when I can help someone with out having to pay the hourly shop fee. Myself, if i had to take a boat to a dealer every time sumthin messes up, well i just wouldn't b boating , seems like its 1k$ no matter whats wrong with it. Not saying I know much now ,but when I 1st joined, I read,read,read,read,etc for long time. Really learned a ton from here, so I try pay it back when I can. U can tell the guys that like this place and wanna hang around , u can also tell ones that won't even use the search function cause to much work. Rather u tell them exactly whats wrong then they won't b back until sumthin else screws up. Which I guess is ok to? Still lots of people out there that just will not pick up a wrench

[Smalltownbassin]

Merc 2.5 i hope youre still talking like that while you help me with my first build hahaha!

[Forkin' Crazy]

It would help everyone if people would use the search function more. It works pretty damn good. I know it helps me with my antique Porsche on an early 911S message board. A lot of knowledgeable folks over there that sometimes won't answer questions from newbs. Hell I really am not a newb over there and it is still pretty hard to get answers sometimes. So I search and ask if I can't find anything.

[LakeFever]

I've searched this forum a LOT, and it can be difficult to find specifics and it can be very time consuming reading through 30 pages of hits to search related info vs a post. Not everyone calls things the same either which makes it hard. I love reading Trex tech talks but try and search literally anything that guy said and good luck to ya er shud i sei dems da braxze fer yal hu cnt undrstnd a prahpr gntlmn frm da south

[InjectorService]

I've searched this forum a LOT, and it can be difficult to find specifics and it can be very time consuming reading through 30 pages of hits to search related info vs a post. Not everyone calls things the same either which makes it hard. I love reading Trex tech talks but try and search literally anything that guy said and good luck to ya er shud i sei dems da braxze fer yal hu cnt undrstnd a prahpr gntlmn frm da south

Yeah some of you all (ya'll ) are damn hard to understand. Haha. The search is a good function for sure, but I agree it doesn't always answer your particular variant of the question.

Heres another way to search any website.

1. Go to Google
2. In the search bar type "site:www.whatever-website-you-want-to-search.com"
3. Put a space and then type your question or whatever your looking for

This limits Google to only displaying results that are from the website you want to look at.