Naming of Surfing Secret Spots

Hobbes

OK I had a read of the ISA site. As I understand it they have no juristriction over anybody except members of the ISA.

They also mention that being a non-member has no effect in relation to rules of that person.

Also the last paragraph implies that ISA (not everyone) will tend not to send people to "secret spots". There is absolutly nothing stopping others except it may impact your joining ISA at a later date.

does come across as elitism. If the beach is public you have no right to ask for it to be removed. If it is dangerous you should say so, although I think might be better putting a review like "Don't try St Finnagins. the beach is full of pretencious ****".

That will guarantee no one will show up.

6th

I say we have a Boards Beers at one of these Secret Sites!

SimpleSam06

6th wrote:

I say we have a Boards Beers at one of these Secret Sites!

Yes, we can paint all the beer cans white so we can have...

<_<

>_>

... SIKRIT BEERS!!1!

6th

Omg .... Sikrit Beerz Ftw!!

Boston

These are some sites the locals want tourism to, I'll talk to trojan about it.

Moore bay Kilkee, County Clare.
youghal bay County Cork.
doughmore strand West Clare.
spinish point West clare.

Mr. Presentable

Leaving aside all of the to-ing and fro-ing cr4p, both sides have a valid point. Surfing, to me, seems a paramount waste of time, on a par with golf, but it is a community as well as a sport and as such should have its' customs or whatever respected.

To my mind, the solution for this argument is to close this thread and make the Surfing forum private. That way they get to decide who to advise or not of secret places, and unsafe places.

Enygma

Please be aware that there are access issues at Doughmore strand in Co. Clare. Read my post on the surfing forum for more info.

6th

I dont agree with making it private at all. This problem has only come up once from what I see (though dragged up again). Someone said a particular spot was good ... no biggy.

It seems that you can spread it by word of mouth but not online? You can mention them if they are in some book, but when was this book last updated? Is it an annual thing?

togster

Boston wrote:

It clearly is.




Its more like the how dare you threaten a mod or any user mentality. You sweep aside the threats very casually, but are up in arms (as usual i might add) against the mod.

longboardirelan: We are not bound by your rules. We do not have to follow them. Stop expecting us to fall in line like good little children.

local surfer: I'd be more worried about the advertisment this is doing for your sport.

Look Boston i have supported mods actions in the past. And (as usual i might add) you are exaggerating my contribution. I am not up in arms. I simply supported the op's wish to maintain certain values within his community. You of all people can understand that?? So please don't try and render my argument null with your sweeping generalisations and exagerrations. I don't know why you continually have to try and provoke a reaction. Now that is childish.

the_syco

nipplenuts wrote:

To my mind, the solution for this argument is to close this thread and make the Surfing forum private. That way they get to decide who to advise or not of secret places, and unsafe places.

This is bowing down to the n00bs who want our rules rewritten to suit them.

cornbb

the_syco wrote:

This is bowing down to the n00bs who want our rules rewritten to suit them.

Your rules are there to suit you, not to suit surfing or surfers in general. In this whole debate, no one has explained how this rule/convention is beneficial to anyone except localists/elitists. I'm still waiting.

Nevyn

The ISA can not dictated policy of a site they do not own, are not affiliated to
and nor should they be trying to dictated the behaviour of people who are not members of their association.

None of the place mentioned so far in this thread are secret, hell I knew about them and I have never been a surfer or part of any surfing community.

If the ISA have thier rules then fine but I would hate to think that down the road that someone gets into surfing via the forum here and then gets snubbed or blackballed from the ISA or refused entry to their events because the post here.

Enygma

I asked for these rules to be implement since the forum was set up. And I'm neither a n00b to boards or surfing.

seamus

local surfer wrote:

I think there has been enough discussion, valid points are being ignored, overall there does not seem to be anybody with the ability, mentality, or patience to resolve this situation. Again, a sad reflection of what I had previously considered to be a fair minded forum (boards.ie).

Here's the problem with debate. When you think you're right, you're automatically going to assume that anything except the outcome you want, is the wrong one. Your points haven't been ignored, far from it, they've each been discussed.

The situation has been resolved, the moderator has decided on policy. It's been decided fairly (through debate) and with all points taken in consideration, as far as I can see. So just because you haven't gotten the outcome you want, doesn't mean that outcome is wrong or unfair.

What I would consider to be a perfectly fair outcome would be a sticky thread on places to surf. If someone mentions a place to surf, they give their opinion on how dangerous it is, and how big it is (i.e. can it accomodate a lot of surfers). If someone with local knowledge of the spot sees it, then they add their two cents in terms of tips/issues and how to get along with the local surfers and not piss them off.

You're a community, it should be easy enough to get everyone to listen to local knowledge.

Talliesin

togster wrote:

I think the threat was unfortunate but as usual a few posters have latched onto that and used it as a tool to render the overall point useless.

Well, as far as this site goes it's considerably more important than whether people find out about the suitability of an area most of us won't visit to a sport most of us don't partake in. We have our values to protect too, and threats have always been considered to be particularly unacceptable.

The actual élitism I have no problem with. Élites can be a healthy reflection of the respect certain people have earned in a certain field, though it requires a large degree of noblesse oblige. It will also inevitably change in nature as the field changes - as the separation of surfing from kānaka culture shows.

A sport should defend it's own culture. For example the refusal of frisbeers to allow the sport to be in the Olympics because they would have to change the rules on self-refereeing is a commendable one. But a sport must also accept that it's culture will naturally change.

Secret spots will continue to stop being secret. Simple information theory is enough to see that this will happen. Surfing is going to have to deal with that sooner or later.

The requirements for being accepted as a member of the surfing community and what therefore defines the respected members of it (that is, the élite) will also change.

Again, this site demonstrates that - people who don't play computer games are probably now in the majority, though this site was definitely a gamer's site when it started. Once ability in such games and ones conduct while playing them would have some influence on how respected people were here, now it's irrelevant outside of the gaming forums.

Still in the meantime I personally see little wrong in a rule against naming certain spots. I do not hold with entryism (one of the many reasons why this site not being a democracy is good, for it makes entryism pointless) and certainly not with the arrogance of the first post on the thread in question (from which it went downhill) which expected one site to hold to another sub-culture's ideals. Really, before the threats started that was a bad way to argue the case.

Boston

Do you think this has had a positive or negative affect on your cause, keeping in mind that google now links directly to your mate danny there, demonstrating what arseholes surfers can be.

togster

Boston wrote:

, demonstrating what arseholes surfers can be.

:rolleyes: great contribution to the debate.

Boston

togster wrote:

:rolleyes: great contribution to the debate.

Lol, you think theres a debate here. Delusional is a word.

cornbb

Boston wrote:

Do you think this has had a positive or negative affect on your cause, keeping in mind that google now links directly to your mate danny there, demonstrating what arseholes surfers can be.

Get a life Boston.

Cuddlesworth

Boston wrote:

Do you think this has had a positive or negative affect on your cause, keeping in mind that google now links directly to your mate danny there, demonstrating what arseholes surfers can be.

This link would be a better search string more likely to be used.

Considering its about 10th here it says a lot about the stupidity of what you have done.

Zambia

I'm agast this is at 9 pages :eek:

As engyma mentioned the surf is best there at Christmas, by then this will all be forgotten.

However the area in Photos looks really well and I am glad its come to the attention of everyone.

If anyone wants me I will be on the beach in Kerry selling hot dogs to the masses

Boston

cornbb wrote:

Get a life Boston.

I have a life you glorified golfer.

krazy_8s, stupidity, how so? I've received numerous pm's from people who have picked up on my signature. Or maybe you're refering to the fact that the thread isn't listed in that search. Would you like me to get it listed in the search?

Cuddlesworth

Boston wrote:

I have a life you glorified golfer.

krazy_8s, stupidity, how so? I've received numerous pm's from people who have picked up on my signature. Or maybe you're refering to the fact that the thread isn't listed in that search. Would you like me to get it listed in the search?

Stupidity on the part of the local surfers in Kerry trying to defend their surfing spot. If they had said nothing about a secret surfing spot in Kerry that was mentioned in 1 post this spot would be nowhere in the search engines. I think they overestimated how much keywords like Kerry, surfing, secret and spot would come in the argument.

Boston

oh yes fair enough. Agreed on that.

DeVore

Well well...

Ok, lets get into this then. LongboardIreland, if you were looking for someone with the authority to make a decision, that would be me, or any of the 5 admins.
We're kinda like Judge Judy around here...

I've been reading everything because for once this is a fascinating piece of feedback without cat pictures. Ok, without many cat pictures.

So, I've read every single sentence in all 9 pages of posts on this topic and slept on the issue. Thats just so you know that every word has been weighed and taken into account. Here's what I think and why I think it.


Firstly, I'm not a surfer but I have been a long time snowboarder so I have a certain amount of insight into the mindset. We have our offpiste rips that we dont want people to know about, we have a fast growing sport with many posers and wannabee's. We have localism and arrogance though thankfully not as much because our resource isnt as constrained.

For the moment, and I mean that, I'm ignoring the barely veiled threats contained in that thread. Thats not because I want to over look them, its because if I allow myself to consider them, I'll probably do something really unpleasant like set up stfinians.com and point a googlemap at the location with the site optimism for the words Secret Surf Break. I really REALLY dont react well to threats or mods getting threatened. So, lets ignore that. For the moment.

This is not a health and safety issue, its not even a little from column B. Its all about protecting your local surf spot. Pretending its anything else is obviously bullsh*t.

So lets get down to the meat and two veg of this. You have a site you dont want on the net, we have a site which puts things on the net. In this instance we've put things on the net that you dont want on the net, which has produced this problem. How do we resolve what is basically a direct conflict of desires.

This is where it got interesting for me. We can't resolve this. There is no resolving it. This is a slow, almost glacieresque crash of two worlds. I've seen this a hundred times before which left me scratching my head as to why I didnt recognise it this time. Its because usually the people we are "crashing into" are dicks. The RIAA, SPUC, our friends in the music promotion industry etc etc but people *like* surfers. They arent dicks, right?

We say things they dont want said. SPUC don't want abortion information available (they sued the students union in TCD for handing out fliers, if anyone recalls). I was officially warned and sanctioned from writing the contact details on a Usenet group. I'd no intention of doing so but, and here's the point I've been reluctantly driving towards, they were trying desperately to control that information.

Can you imagine today the same SPUC case? No, its ridiculous. They would simply throw their hands in the air in the face of the internet and give up. Even SPUC would give up because noone can control information any more.

So, what are we going to do about this particular issue. Firstly, I think you have fncked yourselves collectively by poking the bear. Now you're all over Google and good luck getting them to retract anything. Secondly, you've made us hostile because of the barely veiled threats. Guess what, we're a community here too. We dont like pushy outsiders either. But again, I point that out for your consideration. I'm going to direct my points to Longboardireland as he seems the most reasonable.

Clearly not ALL the surfing community follows your local discretionary approach or we would have known about it a long time ago. Clearly it benefits surfers who live locally who then get more then their fair share of the precious resource, waves.

My decision is to support the Mod in this case, because there is no sense in doing otherwise. Like SPUC, like RIAA, you are going to have to come up with a better way of dealing with the issue then simply attempting to hoard the information because much much bigger people then you have tried and failed.
I'm not about to instruct our Mods to join you plugging the about-to-burst-dam of information with their fingers. Find a better way.

Ultimately I find your approach to be analogous of skiers who originally told the snowboarders to "get off their mountain". This isnt your world, this isnt your sea and ultimately, its a crying shame that we are over populated but hoarding resources is just plain and simple selfishness dressed up as tradition.
Sorry but unless the surfing forum community decides differently (and I've no objection to them doing so), I think you just want us to be part of a conspiracy of silence to protect your bit of the world from, well, us actually...
I'm genuinely sorry that you're world is crashing into the internet. You're fncked. You have had it good for years and now the great information-leveler is going to grind the playing field flat. Yes thats going to create friction, yes it will cause violence and anger as the privileged who have hoarded the cake are overthrown by the "peasants". Natural order doesnt return peacefully in most cases... So I'm sorry, we're just a drop of rain in a coming storm.

Now finally, to those who did make threats. A piece of advice:
Never ever return here. Never ever post anything like that again here.
If I ever see something like that again I'm going to take this giant magnifying-glass of a site we run here and turn it on your little piece of the map until it burns. You may be the top of the pecking order in the water but you arent in the water now, you're in our world.

DeV.

togster

Boston wrote:

Lol, you think theres a debate here. Delusional is a word.

Jilted by a surfer were you Boston??

Boston

well said devore.

DeVore

You arent helping!

DeV.

Boston

True enough.

faceman

admit it dev, the only reason you posted the long post was cos you couldnt find a decent cat picture with a surfboard!