Mark Sleep said:
Off topic for a second, but Ben, what exactly is going to be on your website when you have it completed? Have been interested for a while since hearing about it!
I am expecting it to be one of the best on the web with the amount of time you've put in....;-)
LOL, hopefully it will be!!
The main part (that is finished) is the tackle section. This is pretty much just a massive directory of lures, rods, reels etc etc etc. Everything we need and use. Combined with that is a bunch of 'real-life' reviews on how - lures for example - work and react in the water - in real fishing situations. As well as me adding my own ratings and writing reports, there is a slightly simpler version of the rating system that ALL users can use. Remember the 'rating categories; I was asking about a while back? Well, you (as members) can rate all lures, rods, reels etc on a number of qualities. The totals are added up to display a rating for each product so we can all see which ones the better products are. And not just that, but the individual ratings on each category for any product will give potential buyrs a very good idea about the lure/rod/reel they're interested in purchasing. The whole idea of the tackle section really is to give an angler an idea of what to expect from a product - before they buy it.
The second part is the 'blog' type area. Poeple can take it with as much seriousness as they wish, but all of the stuff is there for people to add their own fishing diaries. They can opt to show them to the public (no locations listed), or keep them totally to themselves. There is plenty of scientific stuff for those who are interested to enter (moon, tides, swell directions, water temps etc etc) so that with a few stats building up, there is a section where you can view your own catches plotted against various graphs (of the things just mentioned). So you'll be able to judge for yourself when you are catching most, and perhaps it'll help you figure out why?! If that makes sense. If I can get permission from the angler to plot their results against the results of others, potentially we could build up a huge number of 'not quite' scientific results. Alongside the more advanced stuff though, there is the 'simple' version for people just to write about and display a few pictures of their catches. Basically, all of the options are there to enable people to take it as seriously (or not) as they want to!
Then there are plenty of other bits like 'events' (when we have some more), news (or anything that I find interesting and think I should tell people about) and there's a whole messaging and comments section for members to use too. And there's no ruling it out as being an information/how to site as well - as soon as I feel like I've been at it long enough to give advice. It really is a massive site!!
Hope that all makes sense? I'm waffling a bit.