Fish Boss
Supporting Member
I have terrible handwriting lol
Dbtc thoughts, comments and issues
- Thread starter Krak256
- Start date
derek_SR
Supporting Member
I am really excited about DBTC, and I have a bunch of stuff that should hit the market in the next few months (either my own starts or chain completions). A human advocate might help, but the real issues are with the tool itself. There needs to be like a filterable "dashboard" that lets you get a better picture of what's currently available and where. There are not enough filter terms to do this yourself, and a ton of the threads that "have frags available" are clearly super dated and no longer active.
So if you can't really leverage the tool to find frags and drive the program, you basically just have to watch for the threads pop in your forum feed for something you want - but then it's like, is it really worth driving across the Bay to pick up one frag? Maybe if I knew there were 3 other frags available in the same area I would make the trip - but there isn't an easy way to do that without a ton of very manual work and one-off messaging.
The focus seems to be on people not giving enough frags away, but making it easier for people to pick UP frags will drive chain completions and (naturally) more frag movement in general. At least that's kind of how I am thinking about it.
iani
Supporting Member
I do think this is a big issue for sure. People were lucky enough to have @psidriven to deliver a bunch of frags to the swap from me.
RandyC
Supporting Member
dbtc hasn’t been successful in my mind. I pretty much stopped because there really only is a handful of people that seem to really participate.
I suggested we “game-ify” it a little. Don’t know if it would help, but if someone has the time….
Post in thread 'Bright Green Hammer'
https://www.bareefers.org/forum/threads/bright-green-hammer.16955/post-503569
I suggested we “game-ify” it a little. Don’t know if it would help, but if someone has the time….
Post in thread 'Bright Green Hammer'
https://www.bareefers.org/forum/threads/bright-green-hammer.16955/post-503569
derek_SR
Supporting Member
This would help too - some forum flair!dbtc hasn’t been successful in my mind. I pretty much stopped because there really only is a handful of people that seem to really participate.
I suggested we “game-ify” it a little. Don’t know if it would help, but if someone has the time….
Post in thread 'Bright Green Hammer'
https://www.bareefers.org/forum/threads/bright-green-hammer.16955/post-503569
So you're volunteering? Great!
MichaelB
Supporting Member
I'm Interested if it was combined with food and Beverage services lol, if derek doesn't though derek has my vote as well.
Last edited:
What we need is a bay area Coral Courier™ On a recurring basis, this vehicle, equipped with temperature controlled storage for corals, to make runs with stops in south, easy, north bay, peninsula, and SF. Logistics seems to be the biggest bottleneck for not just dbtc, but buying and selling reef equipment. Discounted rates for BAR members, open to the public and LFS. That concludes my Shark Tank pitch lol.
On a recurring basis, this vehicle, equipped with temperature controlled storage for corals, to make runs with stops in south, easy, north bay, peninsula, and SF. Logistics seems to be the biggest bottleneck for not just dbtc, but buying and selling reef equipment. Discounted rates for BAR members, open to the public and LFS. That concludes my Shark Tank pitch lol.
One that isn't @psidriven , @Srt4eric , and @Chrism1330 all the time!What we need is a bay area Coral Courier™
Another reason for folks to update their location in their profile or post if they're making an unusual coral/animal road trip. Helps to move club equipment too. Usually swaps end up being the biggest sources of these transfers though.
derek_SR
Supporting Member
What we need is a bay area Coral Courier™
You're the treasurer - open up them coffers and make it rain! We could save some money by not paying for Sirius Satellite radio in the new vehicle, don't forget to opt-out.
I am flattered but the entire point of my post was that the updates need to happen to the DBTC tool which is outside my skillset! I am interested in joining the BOD, though, so if this is my ticket then we can talk about it. I will at least need some basic access to delete old frags available and make it a little more functional. Can we do that or not until we get the new webmaster?
Reefer Madness
Supporting Member
BARCode is Pablo’s @svreef creation, so at the moment he’s the only one who can change significant things in it. There might be a way to delete old non-active chains in the tools Pablo made for us but I’d have to explore more. Currently we are like the proto-human apes in 2001 space odyssey hooting, hollering, and swinging femurs around the BARCode monolith with our ideas. Perhaps @yosemiteclimber will learn the magic words.
MichaelB
Supporting Member
Lmao there is a app to deliver other things, why not a coral courier one. Reef -porter. Your welcome remember my suggestion when you strike it rich.What we need is a bay area Coral Courier™
And us reef addicts would pay extra for same day delivery. Bonus points if you deliver tanks and equipment
Last edited:
Coral reefer
Past President
Believe it or not, barcode has improved things a ton. I’m sure we could make improvements, but like you said, “we” is not you and me”. I’m not sure anyone will be as good as Pablo was, but I can hope!
derek_SR
Supporting Member
Yeah to be clear, I think Barcode is super awesome and we are lucky to have it. From an idealists point of view, it is perfect. Realistically speaking, it would be nice to have some improvements to drive adoption. BUT I have some ideas already that would require some work but no significant upgrades, depending on the scope of the admin privileges - I believe I've seen @JVU and others move frags around, are you all also able to "kill" frags on behalf of others? Or create them?
Coral reefer
Past President
I think so. I used to have that power until I got too old
I don't think the issue is the tool. Barcode definitely needs work, it's a great volunteer tool, but definitely needs work. However, you could do much of what it does with just DBTC threads or a spreadsheet.
The issue is the desire for people to create and manage chains. The tracking only functionality is an implementation detail of something else meaningful. Without that something else meaningful defined, people won't use whatever tool.
I say this with full respect for the amount of effort building this stuff takes. I've mentioned before, but I used to run reeflines[.]com which was all about lineages of corals and pics. It had an ok amount of uptake, got featured on the now defunct glassboxdesign, blah blah. Also had an aggregation of the details people had about corals such as what it looked like on different lights or if they said high versus low flow ...., and image transitions to show things over time.
In the end it didn't stay very active because there wasn't a central draw (well and because I stopped it because I got out of the hobby and didn't want to pay for it anymore). I don't mention that as a statement that it was better, or as an authority on the subject. I just mean it as more features is less critical than figuring out that one big draw that gets people engaged.
Thoughts on that, the benefits have to be to the giver:
The issue is the desire for people to create and manage chains. The tracking only functionality is an implementation detail of something else meaningful. Without that something else meaningful defined, people won't use whatever tool.
I say this with full respect for the amount of effort building this stuff takes. I've mentioned before, but I used to run reeflines[.]com which was all about lineages of corals and pics. It had an ok amount of uptake, got featured on the now defunct glassboxdesign, blah blah. Also had an aggregation of the details people had about corals such as what it looked like on different lights or if they said high versus low flow ...., and image transitions to show things over time.
In the end it didn't stay very active because there wasn't a central draw (well and because I stopped it because I got out of the hobby and didn't want to pay for it anymore). I don't mention that as a statement that it was better, or as an authority on the subject. I just mean it as more features is less critical than figuring out that one big draw that gets people engaged.
Thoughts on that, the benefits have to be to the giver:
- Bonus grabs at the swap
- Free coral coupons. Top contributor per 6 months gets $100 to buy a coral of their choice under the expectation if it doesn't die they DBTC it
- Tie it to sponsors. My long term idea was integrate with online / LFS and let people track their purchases from the LFS, and by doing so they would be see info on that type of coral and suggestions. Get sponsors to use the site somehow (I doubt this is feasible with a club branded site that sponsors can't control though)
- Give people benefits to using it (which would require more features) such as by uploading pics you get to see your own growth over time
- ...
RandyC
Supporting Member
None of those points have any interest to me at all to start a new DBTC. I used to start a DBTC in hopes to spread the coral and bank a coral. Most people here have used it to get free coral. Almost all chains don’t last past a single level. I don’t even participate in DBTCs anymore because I’ve seen that they eventually die because only a few members pass on frags after getting them.
If you’re going to encourage anything, it’s not the originator that needs to be incentivized, there are plenty of those types of members here to do that, it’s the continuation/propagation of the coral that is the largest problem and finding a way to get rid of the “freeloaders.”